Temporary living
Concepts & terminology
Temporary accommodation has become increasingly popular and well-known among travellers in recent years. Numerous terms and definitions have become established around this topic, which are explained in detail below. This is because some of the terms are not always used correctly or consistently, which can sometimes make it difficult to understand due to the complexity of the topic of temporary living. Please note: The following refer to the German market.
The basis for the explanations is the


Temporary living
Temporary housing moves between the residential market and the hotel market. First of all, there is a basic division into commercial estates and residential estates, which result from the planning regulations of municipalities and communities in Germany. Within these two areas there is an enormous bandwidth with very different characteristics of the concrete overnight accommodation offers.

in serviced apartments and
Commercial operators provide serviced apartments on the market for temporary living. The factors length of stay and service level determine the further differentiation into the types of apartments with service and aparthotel. Since serviced apartments make up the main part of the offer on our platform, they are considered in detail.

in serviced accommodation
Increasingly, residential providers are also establishing themselves in the temporary housing segment. Here, a distinction is made between furnished accommodation in (partly) furnished apartments and serviced accommodation in so-called living concepts, e.g. corporate housing, micro living and student living, whereby the furnished accommodation is currently not offered by Apartmentservice.
Co-living has found its way into temporary living across concepts.
Download the Charter Temporary Living
Here you can download the detailed Charter Temporary Living including definitions, classification under building law and explanations on VAT.
download Charta Temporary Living (Germany)
If you as an operator would like to support this initiative, then include a link to the Charter on your homepage to increase its reach. We would be pleased to hear from you if you would also like to be mentioned as a campaigner in the above list.
For those who would like to familiarise themselves more deeply with the complex topic of temporary living, the "Compendium of Temporary Living" is recommended (available in German language only).

Your personal contact
Melanie Eifler
Account Manager
telephone: +49 (0)30 96 06 09 49-0
e-mail: infoapartmentservicede