Semiconductor fabs
Furnished apartments and houses near European fabs, sourced for 15 to 100+ specialists and held through the phase changes that move your headcount.
The short version
A fab is not a building programme with an accommodation requirement attached. It is four labour programmes in sequence — earthworks and structure, envelope, cleanroom and process utilities, then tool install and qualification — and each brings a different number of people, from different countries, for a different length of stay. Housing that suits a 40-week fit-out block is wrong for a tool-install team that lands for a fortnight and leaves.
The number that matters is the second one, not the first. ESMC's Dresden site runs with around 600 companies and 1,000 workers on site each day through structural works, and is published as growing to 5,000 workers once the interior fit-out of the fab begins (Wirtschaft in Sachsen; MDR). Groundbreaking was 20 August 2024 (MDR) and production equipment is scheduled to be installed only from mid-2027 (Die Sachsen). If you are booking against the headcount you see at groundbreaking, you are booking against the smallest number the project will ever produce.
Bonjour Residences is an independent agency. We do not own units. We source them from a vetted partner network — including local owners who never list online — and we stand behind the booking, the invoice and the support for the length of the stay.
The demand curve
Crolles is the only European fab project in our research that publishes its phase durations, and the shape is instructive: piling one month, structural works five to seven months, building envelope, façade and waterproofing seven months, then facilities and cleanroom nine months — the longest single phase of the build (Dossier de concertation, debatpublic.fr). The phase that needs the most specialist labour also lasts the longest, and it sits at the back of the programme.
X-FAB's Erfurt project shows the same weighting from the other direction. Fab4Micro is a 3,500 m² cleanroom, and PORR's design-and-build runs July 2026 to July 2028 — a full 24 months for a project whose value is concentrated in cleanroom and microsystems fit-out rather than in shell (PORR).
Then tool install, which behaves differently again. Exyte, which delivers this phase, describes coordinating around 200 tools in about three months during a typical ramp, at two or three days per tool to move it into the cleanroom and connect its utilities, with months of preparation behind each one, and core teams of about 15 engineers expanding to 20 to 50 specialists per project (Exyte). That rhythm is why tool-install housing arrives in waves: a group lands for a tool set, hands over to qualification, and the next discipline follows. Exyte calls tool install "no longer just a final construction phase" but a critical component of project delivery (Exyte).
Intel's Leixlip programme quantifies the mix: Fab 34 employed 5,000 construction workers from 2019 onward (BreakingNews.ie), its late-phase works were "focused on tool installation and qualification of systems, most of which is happening inside the buildings" (Intel Ireland newsletter), and the €5 billion 2026 expansion is put at about 2,000 construction and equipment-installation workers (Futurum Group).
Length of stay moves with the phase too. In Dresden, international specialists are typically posted for a limited term of up to three years and then return home, which is why chip firms give housing developers no long-term commitments (MDR). Your fit-out block, your tool-install waves and your client's posted engineers are three different bed profiles competing for the same small stock at the same time.
Named projects
| Project | Location | Developer | Scale | Published construction workforce |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ESMC | Dresden North, Germany | TSMC 70%, Bosch, Infineon, NXP 10% each | ~€10bn; 45,000 m² of cleanrooms (Die Sachsen); ~600 companies on site (Wirtschaft in Sachsen) | ~1,000/day now, 5,000 at interior fit-out (Wirtschaft in Sachsen); tools from mid-2027 (Die Sachsen) |
| X-FAB Fab4Micro | Erfurt, Germany | X-FAB, built by PORR | €300–400m (Zeit); 3,500 m² cleanroom; build July 2026–July 2028 (PORR) | Not published |
| GlobalFoundries "SPRINT" | Dresden, Germany | GlobalFoundries | €1.1bn; more than one million wafers a year by end-2028 (GlobalFoundries) | Not published |
| ST Crolles (with GlobalFoundries) | Crolles, France | STMicroelectronics | ~€7.5bn; up to 620,000 300 mm wafers a year by 2028; 9-month cleanroom phase (Dossier de concertation) | Not published |
| ST Silicon Carbide Campus | Catania, Italy | STMicroelectronics | ~€5bn; production from 2026, full capacity by 2033 (ST newsroom) | Not published |
| Intel Leixlip expansion | Leixlip, Ireland | Intel | €5bn Intel 3 expansion, build-out began in 2026 (Intel newsroom) | ~2,000 construction and equipment-installation workers (Futurum Group) |
| onsemi SiC | Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, Czechia | onsemi | Up to $2bn brownfield programme (onsemi); €1.64bn new factory, €450m state aid approved (CzechInvest) | Not published |
| Silicon Box | Novara, Italy | Silicon Box | €3.2bn chiplet foundry (Silicon Box); agreement signed, site works expected "in the coming months" as of April 2026 (Linea Italia Piemonte) | Not published |
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
Two projects still on out-of-date supplier lists are not demand. Intel Magdeburg is cancelled — the CEO confirmed on 24 July 2025 that Intel would not proceed in Germany or Poland (Brussels Signal), and Saxony-Anhalt has since repurchased the land (tagesschau). Wolfspeed Ensdorf is cancelled, announced 24 October 2025 (SR). We do not quote against phantom programmes.
Why the local market cannot absorb it
Dresden is where most of this demand lands, and Dresden's own numbers say the stock is not there. The industry speaks of a need for 10,000 apartments (MDR). Around 1,000 are approved but not being built, and the mayor expects only 2,000–3,000 to be available within three years (Wirtschaft in Sachsen). The market has been classified as strained since 2013, and the city would need at least 10,630 new apartments by 2030 on a calculation that does not yet include the announced fab investments (TAG24).
New build will not close the gap at a price crews can carry. Developers say projects need €18–19/m² to be viable at current construction costs, with underground parking at up to €46,000 a space (Wirtschaft in Sachsen). Developer Jörg Wimmer puts it bluntly: "At the moment we need €20 cold rent and nobody wants to rent at that. In the city there are still apartments between eight and twelve euros" (MDR). Meanwhile Silicon Saxony expects more than 13,000 skilled workers to move to the greater Dresden area, with housing-market effects noticeable from mid-2026 (TAG24).
And then the part that catches mobilisation leads out. Dresden's misuse-of-housing by-law defines letting a dwelling short-term for more than twelve weeks per year as misuse of housing, alongside vacancy of more than twelve months, applying city-wide for an initial five years, with replacement housing or a compensation payment required on breach (Die Sachsen). In practice, that means a Dresden flat cannot be turned over to short crew stays for most of the year. An owner who has already let twelve weeks to someone else's fit-out team cannot legally take your six-week block. Assembling 40 beds for a nine-month cleanroom phase is therefore not a booking exercise on a platform; it is sourcing across many owners on longer-term terms that keep both the owner and your project inside the rules.
Other fab towns are tighter than their size suggests. Infineon's Sabine Herlitschka states Villach needs approximately 550 apartments in coming years, including a campus of about 150 units beside the plant (Industriemagazin), in a city of 65,127 people where 17% of local employees already work in semiconductors (Der Standard). Erfurt's average asking rent reached €9.25/m² in Q2 2026, up 5.8% year on year (ImmobilienScout24). Around Crolles, rent control has applied across the Grenoble metropolitan area since 20 January 2025 (Le Dauphiné Libéré), while ST assesses the Crolles accommodation impact as moderate because about 65% of recruits already live in Isère (Dossier de concertation) — the permanent workforce and your travelling fit-out crew are not the same problem.
How we house this sector
A nine-month facilities and cleanroom phase (Dossier de concertation) rarely starts on the date in the programme. We source blocks of self-catering apartments and houses with kitchens, laundry and parking, and hold the flexibility in the block rather than the contract, so a four-week shift in the fit-out start does not cost you the beds.
Tool install runs as teams of 20–50 specialists across successive tool groups, at two or three days per tool (Exyte). We staircase arrivals and departures against your tool schedule instead of holding one flat block, coordinate staggered check-ins with each owner, and keep units within a short commute of a site sealed behind a fence for the whole build (Wirtschaft in Sachsen).
Fabs run 24/7 all year (PORR), and the ESMC site already works in shifts (Wirtschaft in Sachsen). Night-shift and day-shift people should not share a bedroom wall or a kitchen rota, so we separate them across units — and self-catering matters more here than on a nine-to-five job, because canteen hours will not match a hook-up window.
A fab build is a multinational site: among the 1,000 workers on shift at ESMC are 30 facility engineers from Taiwan (MDR), and postings run to limited terms of up to three years (MDR). We handle weekend home returns, mid-stay swaps between named occupants, and the addressed documentation posted workers need, on one booking record.
Process
Send the requirement. Site postcode, headcount, phase and dates. A fab name, a fit-out start month and a number is enough to start.
Get tailored options. Sourced from partners in that market — Dresden, Erfurt, Villach, Grenoble, Catania — rather than pulled off a platform.
Confirm once. We handle booking coordination, contracts and staggered check-ins with every property owner.
We hold the line. One WhatsApp channel for your fit-out and tool-install crews, one invoice for your finance team, for the length of the stay.
For finance and procurement
One consolidated VAT-compliant invoice covering every property and country on the programme, in your local currency where we can — which matters when one tool-install scope spans a German fab and an Italian packaging site.
Corporate contracts run on 30-day terms. No personal cards exposed and no individual receipts for engineers to submit, so accommodation lands as a coded project cost rather than as 60 expense claims a month.
One onboarding, one set of compliance documents, one contact — not a new vendor for every phase and city. Useful on sites where contractor access is governed by NDA, vendor badging and annual site-access refresher training (tsmc Contractors' Bluebook).
Coverage
All published projects sit on locations, rates on pricing, and the full service on contractor accommodation. Coverage runs to 27 markets plus project work in the United States, so an unpublished fab is worth asking about.
Questions
At fit-out, not at groundbreaking. ESMC Dresden is published as going from around 1,000 workers a day during structural works to 5,000 once interior fit-out begins (Wirtschaft in Sachsen), with equipment installed from mid-2027 against an August 2024 groundbreaking (Die Sachsen). Plan beds for years two and three.
Crolles publishes nine months for facilities and cleanroom, after one month of piling, five to seven months of structural works and seven of envelope (Dossier de concertation). X-FAB's 3,500 m² Erfurt cleanroom build runs 24 months (PORR).
Not repeatedly in the same unit. Dresden's misuse-of-housing by-law treats short-term letting of a dwelling for more than twelve weeks a year as misuse, with replacement housing or a compensation payment on breach (Die Sachsen). A fit-out block therefore has to be assembled across multiple owners on longer terms, not booked night by night.
Yes, as waves. Exyte describes core teams of about 15 expanding to 20–50 specialists, coordinating roughly 200 tools in about three months at two or three days per tool (Exyte). We stage arrivals against the tool schedule rather than holding one static block.
We hold the flexibility in the block rather than in the contract, and rework the dates with the owners. Slippage is normal here: preparation alone can take months per tool (Exyte).
Yes. Units are self-catering with kitchen, laundry and parking, and we coordinate staggered check-ins, mid-stay occupant swaps and rotation patterns on one booking record, with one WhatsApp channel for the crew.
Coverage runs to 27 European markets plus project work in the United States, including the fab regions on this page — Crolles, Villach, Catania, Novara, Rožnov and Leixlip — even where we do not yet publish a project page.
No. Intel's cancellation of its German and Polish projects was confirmed on 24 July 2025 (Brussels Signal) and Wolfspeed's Ensdorf plant was definitively cancelled on 24 October 2025 (SR). Any supplier still listing them as pipeline is working from stale information.
Fab name or site postcode, phase, headcount and dates. We will come back with sourced options for the phase you are in and the one after it.
