Most houses are part of the embassies housing pool (the USG owns some houses/apartments and rents others). In many countries it is hard to find houses on the open market that meet the strict security requirements.

Anonymous wrote:Embassy paid my rent. In most locations, what you are entitled to is not fixed by price, but by family size and housing size/rooms. If I have two kids, I'm entitled to a certain number of bedrooms and certain amount of floor space.

+1
This is what our experiences were too, including in Lisbon (GREAT posting, btw OP!!). We chose to live outside the city in Cascais, by the sea, and rented a beautiful, large apartment paid for by State.

Embassy paid my rent. In most locations, what you are entitled to is not fixed by price, but by family size and housing size/rooms. If I have two kids, I'm entitled to a certain number of bedrooms and certain amount of floor space.

Even in the few cities where you have to find your own housing, you do not get a "voucher" or set amount to use such that you get to keep any savings like with military off base housing. You only get reimbursed actual cost up to a certain limit so there is no benefit to splitting cost with a roommate unless they do it off the books (which I doubt most would do given loss of security clearance, etc. if caught).

Depends on the location. Some cities you have to find your own.

ah ok - thanks. that's what i wanted to know.

Normally it's provided directly, whether on compound or in a private house/building. I'm not aware of a "voucher" system that exists but I could be wrong.

The housing pool is leased by the government and assigned to employees. It's be really unusual to find a DOS employee on his/her own who needed an apartment in Lisbon

I'm moving to lisbon (non state department, private sector) and looking for apartments. I'm finding a few 2 BR flats that I like and happen to be a stone's throw away from the US Embassy lisbon. The 2 br's a slightly above what I'd like to pay but given their proximity to the embassy, i just thought up the idea that perhaps it'll be easy to find a state dept employee stationed at the embassy to be my roommate after posting on craigslist.

However, I think I heard that state dept people get housing already squared away through state? Or is that only for danger posts and in other areas they just get a housing voucher that they can use for their own accomodations? I figured I would be an attractive candidate to split a flat with given i'm a US citizen so those with ts or ts/sci clearances don't have the same issues as living with a foreign national.

Any thoughts or if you know how state does housing for their employee overseas?