Guaranteed accommodation

Most students joining us through Clearing in 2026 are guaranteed a place in our student accommodation.

To make sure a room is guaranteed for you, you just need to:

• receive an offer through Clearing by 17 August 2026
• meet all the deadlines stated in your offer email

You will either be allocated a room in university residences or with one of our private partners.

Offers received by 17 August 2026

If you received an offer through Clearing by 17 August 2026, to guarantee your place in the accommodation you'll need to:

• add your course choice to UCAS Hub by midnight GMT on the day you receive your verbal offer
• apply for accommodation by the deadline confirmed to you in your offer email

We will email you by 1 September 2026 about your room allocation.

When you receive you room offer, please make sure to accept it within five days. If we don't hear back from you by then, we will withdraw the offer and reallocate the space to someone else.

Offers received after 17 August 2026

If you receive your Clearing offer after 17 August 2026, we can’t guarantee a room, but we will do our best to find you one in our accommodation.

You can still apply for accommodation right away, and our team will start processing these applications from 1 September 2026. We work through these on a first-come, first-served basis, so it is worth getting your application in as soon as possible.

If we have a room for you, we will email you with all the details. You will then have five days to accept it online.

If we can’t find you a room right away, we will keep you updated on our availability every week. If it looks like we are fully booked, we will let you know as early as we can, so you have time to look for housing in the private sector. We also keep a close eye on our availability during enrolment week to see if any rooms have become free.

How to apply

Your offer email will explain how to apply for your room. Once you’ve accepted your place to study on UCAS, we will send over two important emails (usually within 48 hours):

• your login details for our student portal
• everything you need to start your accommodation application

Contact us

If you have any questions or just want to chat through your options, please email us at residences@cardiff.ac.uk

Find out more about accommodation at the university.