ANobAG: working in Switzerland for a foreign employer, and paying your own contributions

You live in Switzerland, you are employed by a company that has no office or subsidiary here, and your first payslip looks like nothing you have seen before: no social security deductions at all. The explanation lies in an administrative abbreviation, ANobAG, and in a shift of responsibility: where the employer is not required to pay contributions, the obligation does not disappear, it falls to you. This guide puts figures on what you actually owe, shows why the country where your employer is established changes the answer entirely, and sets out what you can ask it to take on.

1. What is an ANobAG, and how do you know you are one?

An ANobAG is an employee whose employer has neither a registered office nor a permanent establishment in Switzerland and is therefore not registered here as an employer — whether it is still required to pay contributions depends on the country where it is established, a question dealt with in the next chapter. The abbreviation comes from the German Arbeitnehmende ohne beitragspflichtigen Arbeitgeber, literally "employees without an employer liable for contributions". It also covers people employed by a foreign embassy or consulate.

You are still an employee, this is not self-employment

The point is worth making straight away, because the confusion is common and expensive. You are not self-employed: you have an employment contract, a relationship of subordination, an employer. What shifts is, first, the burden of reporting and paying the contributions to the compensation office; depending on the country where the employer is established, the economic burden of the contributions may follow too. Self-employment obeys entirely different rules and is not a matter of choice — our guide on becoming a freelancer in Switzerland explains why.

Three consistent signs should alert you from the moment you are hired: your employer has no old-age insurance registration number, your salary is paid to you gross, with no social security deduction whatsoever, and nobody has asked you for an insurance certificate or the name of a pension fund. If all three are present, you are very probably in this situation, and the clock is already running: contributions are due from the first day of work, not from the day you discover the mechanism.

2. Why does your employer's country decide everything?

Because two very different regimes hide behind the same abbreviation, and the dividing line runs between the EU or EFTA on one side and the rest of the world on the other — subject to the bilateral social security agreements concluded with certain states, which can change which legislation applies.

Employer established in the EU or EFTA

It is subject to Swiss social security law under Regulation (EC) No 883/2004. Old-age, disability, loss-of-earnings, unemployment insurance and family allowance contributions are levied under the rules applicable to employers. In other words, it remains the debtor: what changes is that it can hand the reporting over to you. The condition relates to your nationality and to your insurance status: you must be a Swiss, EU or EFTA national and compulsorily insured by reason of your activity. This configuration is sometimes called a notional ANobAG.

Employer established in a third country

It is not subject to the obligation to pay contributions. No contribution is due from it, and it is you who registers, alone. This is the genuine ANobAG — the one that exposes you most, because it also removes compulsory occupational pension cover, as chapter 5 will show.

3. How much do you really pay, and why double?

Because you bear both shares, and two separate texts say so. For unemployment insurance, the official old-age and disability insurance leaflet leaves no room for doubt: "If the employer is not required to pay contributions, it is for the employee to pay the whole unemployment insurance contribution. It is billed to the employee by the compensation office at the same time as the old-age, disability and loss-of-earnings insurance contributions." For old-age insurance, it is article 6 of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors' Insurance Act that places the entire contribution — 8.7% of the relevant salary — on the insured person whose employer is not required to pay contributions, disability insurance and loss-of-earnings compensation following the same logic.

The federal base

Old-age, disability, loss-of-earnings and unemployment insurance together come to 12.8% of annual salary up to CHF 148,200. Above that ceiling, only old-age, disability and loss-of-earnings insurance remain due, at 10.6%: since 1 January 2023, no unemployment insurance contribution is levied on the excess, and that limit is assessed per employment contract. In an ordinary job, the employee and the employer each pay half. Facing the compensation office, you settle the whole amount; who bears the cost economically is a separate question, dealt with in chapter 7.

That is a gap of CHF 11,676 a year for the same headline gross salary. That is the figure to have in mind when negotiating pay: a "gross" salary quoted by a foreign employer does not have the same content as a Swiss gross salary, and the difference is not marginal.

4. How do you register, and how often do you pay?

The application is filed with the compensation office of your canton of residence, generally through an online form. It is for you to take the initiative: nobody will register you automatically, and the absence of registration does not suspend the debt.

Quarterly instalments, then a final statement

The office bills quarterly instalments calculated on an estimate of your annual salary, notified at the start of the year. The final statement follows, based on the salary actually received, and ends in an additional invoice or a refund.

• A change in income of at least 25% is grounds for asking for the instalments to be adjusted, upwards as well as downwards. Failing to do so sets you up for a brutal catch-up.
• Late payment carries default interest of 5% a year. The rate is high enough that the compensation office should not be used as a cash-flow buffer.
• Three events must be reported without delay: the end of the employment contract, with supporting documents, a change of address, a change of bank details.

The quarterly rhythm is the real practical constraint. Your salary comes in every month, often in another currency; the office, for its part, asks four times a year for an amount in francs. That is a cash-flow mismatch to organise, not a formality.

5. Are you covered by the second pillar?

Not automatically, and this is the heaviest consequence of the status. The official leaflet on the obligation to join a pension institution expressly lists among the people not subject to compulsory cover those whose "employer is not required to pay old-age insurance contributions". That is precisely the situation of an employer established in a third country.

What you can do instead

The same leaflet opens voluntary cover to employees whose employer is not required to pay old-age insurance contributions. The application is filed with the Substitute Occupational Benefit Institution or with another competent pension institution. And it adds one rarely noticed point, which can have a direct economic value:

"As the employer of a person with voluntary cover, you are required to contribute at that person's request, from the date on which they notified you of joining the voluntary scheme."

In other words: depending on your situation, joining the voluntary scheme and then notifying your employer may open an obligation for it to contribute. You do have to notify it — the obligation runs from that date, not retroactively. Two caveats apply, however: the leaflet puts no figure on that contribution, and it addresses employers subject to Swiss occupational pension law. Whether it can be relied on against a company with no establishment in Switzerland depends on the employment contract and on the law applicable to it — to be confirmed before counting on it, and preferably written into the contract.

Where the employer is established in the EU or EFTA and therefore subject to Swiss old-age insurance, under the conditions set out in chapter 2, the logic is reversed: occupational pension cover becomes compulsory again as soon as the annual salary exceeds CHF 22,680, that is CHF 1,890 a month. How the 2^nd pillar works, its thresholds and its benefits are set out in our guide on occupational pension provision, and how the three tiers fit together in the three-pillar system.

6. Who insures you in case of an accident?

Compulsory accident insurance applies — the question is not whether you are insured, but who signs the policy. And on that point, the employer's country again decides.

Where the employer is established in an EU or EFTA state, under the conditions set out in chapter 2, it is legally responsible for taking out the cover, but it may delegate doing so to its employee. Where it is established in a third country, the step falls directly to you. Suva points out that the employer remains legally liable for premiums that are not paid, even where it is the employee who took out the policy — a point that protects you, but does not replace a policy actually taken out.

The procedure has two steps: register first with the compensation office, then approach Suva or an authorised accident insurer with the documents it issues. The order matters, because the insurer asks for proof of registration.

7. What can you ask your employer for?

More than it seems, especially if it is established in the EU or EFTA.

The reporting agreement

Article 21 of Regulation (EC) No 987/2009 allows the employer and the employee to agree that the employee reports and pays the contributions to the compensation office in the employer's place. This is the mechanism that makes the arrangement workable for a foreign company that does not want to set up a structure in Switzerland. Be clear about what exactly it shifts: the administrative burden, not the liability. The employer remains legally liable for the contributions.

The employer's share, on the other hand, is negotiable

This is a point to settle when you are hired, not afterwards. Social security law designates who owes the contributions; it does not say who, economically, has to bear them as between you and your employer. That is a matter for the employment contract. Nothing prevents you from agreeing that the employer pays, on top of the salary, an amount corresponding to its share — exactly what it would pay if it employed the same person in its own country.

Put that way, the argument is about employer cost, not about pay level. The CHF 11,676 calculated in chapter 3 gives the order of magnitude to put on the table.

The law does in fact provide for the mechanism. Article 6 of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors' Insurance Act sets the 8.7% rate payable by the insured person, but adds that if the employer consents, the rate may be 4.35% for each party. In other words, splitting the old-age insurance contribution in half is provided for by the law itself; in practice, an employer that accepts this reports as an ordinary employer across all branches. It is a clause to ask for, not a favour to hope for.

8. What does converting a salary in euros cost?

It becomes a budget line, because the mismatch is structural: your salary arrives each month in your employer's currency, your contributions are due four times a year in Swiss francs, and your Swiss rent falls due every month.

The order of magnitude is easy to set out. On a salary equivalent to CHF 120,000 a year, assuming a spread of one and a half points between the interbank rate and the rate applied, conversion would cost around CHF 1,800 a year. That is more than the compensation office's administration costs and more than many budget items people watch closely. The figure is a working assumption, not an observed rate: the margin actually applied depends on each institution.

On top of that comes a timing constraint that an ordinary employee never faces. Converting month by month, or setting francs aside for the quarterly deadline, does not cost the same depending on how the rate moves. Receiving your salary into a Swiss IBAN at least lets you choose the moment rather than have it imposed on you.

ibani is a Geneva-based financial intermediary, not a bank, specialising in transfers between the euro area and Switzerland, with a Swiss IBAN in your name: the salary arrives, conversion happens when you choose, and the quarterly instalments are settled in francs without a last-minute conversion. The daily rate can be followed on our CHF-EUR converter, and our personal service page sets out how it works. If you have just arrived, our checklist for moving to Switzerland covers the first few weeks, and our guide to understanding your Swiss payslip shows what these same contributions look like when a Swiss employer deducts them at source.

9. Frequently asked questions