17 min read DRIS or TOU: which procedure for which problem?
Both requests are filed on the same DRIS/TOU form and within the same deadline, but they do not solve the same problem. The DRIS corrects the parameters of the withholding; the TOU changes the taxation regime.
The confusion is constant, and it is costly in both directions. Some cross-border workers give up on any step because they do not reach the quasi-resident 90 % threshold, when a simple scale correction would return several thousand francs to them. Others file a TOU in order to deduct 7 258 CHF of pillar 3a and discover that their rental property in Haute-Savoie pushes up their tax rate.
| Criterion | DRIS — withholding tax correction | TOU — subsequent ordinary assessment |
|---|---|---|
| What it is for | Challenging the gross salary taken into account, the scale applied or the rate used. | Being taxed as an ordinary taxpayer and claiming additional deductions. |
| Who is entitled | Anyone taxed at source in Geneva, with no income condition. | Only cross-border workers meeting the quasi-resident conditions (at least 90 % of the household's worldwide gross income taxable in Switzerland). |
| What it allows | Correct scale, dependent children, the spouse's real income under scale C, shared custody, cohabitation, an adult child in education. | Actual expenses, pillar 3a, second-pillar buy-ins, childcare and training costs, maintenance payments for minor children. |
| What it does not allow | No additional deduction whatsoever: the DRIS works at constant scale, it merely makes it right. | Nothing short of a full assessment: the household's worldwide income enters the rate calculation. |
| Reversibility | To be filed again each year if the error persists. | Irrevocable for the year requested; to be renewed every year by a non-resident. |
| Deadline | 31 March of the year following the deductions — identical for both | |
Who can file a DRIS in Geneva, and until when?
Anyone taxed at source in the canton of Geneva can file a correction request, employee or pensioner alike, whatever their income level and without having to justify any particular status. The only constraint is the calendar.
The request must be made solely by means of the DRIS/TOU form, either online from the State of Geneva's e-démarches tax portal or on paper, by 31 March of the year following the year in which the deductions were made on the salary or pension at the latest. In practice: tax withheld on 2026 salaries can be corrected until 31 March 2027, and not a day later.
A forfeiture deadline, not an indicative date
This is the point most cross-border workers discover too late. Unlike the French limitation period, which allows three years for second thoughts, the Geneva 31 March is a forfeiture deadline: on 1 April the right itself lapses. Tax withheld in excess stays with the canton, including where the error is obvious and entirely attributable to the employer.
One practical consequence follows. If, at the end of March, your employer's withholding certificate has not reached you, or a proof of your spouse's income is missing, file the request within the deadline anyway, listing the missing documents. The administration will accept completing a file opened in time; it will not open one out of time.
Why is your employer's tax scale so often wrong?
Because your employer does not apply your real situation: it applies the situation you declared on the withholding declaration form. Years sometimes pass between the two.
The canton of Geneva sorts taxpayers subject to withholding into four families of scales, each broken down by the number of dependent children. Understanding that grid is enough to spot, in thirty seconds, whether your payslip is right.
| Scale | Who it applies to | Point to watch for a cross-border worker |
|---|---|---|
| A0 | Single, separated, divorced or widowed person, living alone and with no dependent child. Also applies to cohabiting partners with no child in their charge. | This is the default scale, and the heaviest. Any reporting error sends you back to it. |
| B0 to B5 | Married couple or registered partnership in which only one spouse carries on a gainful activity. The figure indicates the number of children. | The spouse may perfectly well live in France: what counts is the absence of income, not the place of residence. |
| C0 to C5 | Married couple or registered partnership in which both spouses carry on a gainful activity. | The withholding scale builds in a theoretical spouse income. This is the leading cause of correction in Geneva. |
| H0 to H5 | Person living alone with dependent children, and cohabiting or French Pacs partners with children from a previous relationship. | The most favourable scale. It is almost never applied spontaneously by the employer. |
A one-month lag, then a one-year lag
Any change entailing a change of scale — marriage, divorce, separation, the birth of a child, the start or end of the spouse's activity — must be taken into account from the beginning of the month following the change. Provided, of course, that the employer is informed. A birth in March reported in November means eight months of an overly heavy scale, and a DRIS to file.
A Geneva particularity is added to this: the canton applies the annual model. Each month, the employer applies to the taxable income the rate corresponding to the income that would be received over a full year, annualising the salary. That mechanism smooths variations, but it mechanically amplifies any error in the basics: a wrong scale is not wrong for one month, it is wrong for twelve.
What does a worker whose spouse lives in France without a job get back?
A great deal, and this is the most rewarding case of all. A married couple in which only one member works falls under scale B, whether the spouse without income lives in Geneva, in Saint-Julien or in Gex. Yet the Swiss employer very often applies scale A0 for single people, having never been told otherwise.
The gap between A0 and B0 frequently exceeds seven percentage points. On a Geneva salary of 100 000 CHF, that represents more than 7 000 CHF of tax withheld for no reason — because of a marriage never reported, or a spouse who stopped working in France without anyone giving it a thought.
Sarah works in Plan-les-Ouates for a gross 108 000 CHF. She marries in June; her husband, who lives in Ferney-Voltaire, does not work. She tells HR… the following February. From July to December she was therefore taxed under scale A0 (about 14.5 %) instead of scale B0 (about 7 %). Over the six months concerned, that is 54 000 CHF of salary, the 7.5-point gap represents around 4 050 CHF recoverable through a simple DRIS. No deduction, no expense receipt: only a marriage certificate and a statement that her husband has no income.
The same reasoning applies to children. Each dependent child moves you from scale B0 to B1, then B2, and so on. In Geneva a child is recognised as a dependant until the end of their 25th year, provided the child does not exceed an annual gross income of 16 391 CHF and net wealth of 93 537 CHF (2026 figures). A 23-year-old student in Lyon, a 20-year-old apprentice in Annecy: both open up the higher scale, and almost none of them are declared.
How much does a worker whose spouse works in France recover?
That depends on a figure few cross-border workers know: 70 500 CHF. It is the cap on the theoretical income your employer attributes to your spouse when applying scale C.
The mechanism works like this. Scale C takes account of both spouses' entire income, but the employer knows only yours. It therefore attributes to your spouse a theoretical income equal to your own, capped at 70 500 francs a year since 1 January 2026. That flat figure determines the rate applied to your salary each month.
Which is to say it is almost always wrong. A spouse working part-time in a small firm in Haute-Savoie, a partner on short-time working, a self-employed professional starting out: as soon as the real income departs from the flat figure, the withholding rate departs from the rate actually due. The administration then recalculates, the following year, under the scale C correction table, which takes the spouse's real income into account.
Julien earns 96 000 CHF in Carouge. His wife works 60 % in Annemasse for 21 000 € a year, roughly 20 000 CHF. Two children. During the year, his employer applies scale C2 to a rate-determining income of 96 000 + 70 500 = 166 500 CHF. The correction recalculates the rate on 96 000 + 20 000 = 116 000 CHF. The rate gap, in the order of 3.5 points, applied to his 96 000 CHF salary, represents around 3 500 CHF of refund. Every year, for as long as the situation lasts.
Do not wait for the following year: the adjusted scale C
There is a solution upstream, and it is widely ignored. Where your spouse's income differs appreciably from the flat figure, you can ask for an adjusted scale C withholding to be applied, at the start of or during the year, by means of the withholding declaration form. From the following month, your employer applies a rate closer to your real situation. You no longer recover 3 500 CHF the following spring: you never advance it, which is worth twelve months of cash flow.
Which family situations most often go unnoticed?
They are the configurations that the withholding declaration form, filled in once on hiring, cannot capture: blended families, shared custody, cohabitation, children who have come of age. Geneva handles all of them through the correction route.
- Single-parent household taxed under scale A0. The costliest case in the canton. A person living alone with their children falls under scale H, by far the most favourable. An employer unaware of the separation keeps applying scale A0: on a salary of 84 000 CHF with two children, the annual gap approaches 8 000 CHF.
- Cohabitation or Pacs with children. Cohabiting partners are never taxed as a married couple. The dependent child is attributed to only one of the two parents, and the employer has no way of knowing which. It therefore applies A0, and it is the DRIS that restores scale H for the parent concerned.
- Shared custody after a divorce. The attribution of the dependent child depends on how maintenance contributions and custody are split. No payslip can settle that on its own: the situation is declared, every year, in the correction request.
- Adult child still studying or in an apprenticeship. The dependency runs until the end of the 25th year, subject to income (16 391 CHF gross) and wealth (93 537 CHF net) conditions in 2026. Beyond 25, a correction remains possible for the calendar year during which the child was still an apprentice or student and met those conditions.
- Adult child receiving a maintenance contribution. Where a parent pays maintenance to their adult child, the attribution of the dependency follows its own rules, which escape the scale applied by the employer.
- Birth during the year. The change of scale takes effect from the beginning of the month following the birth. A late report can be made good only through a DRIS.
- De facto separation without a court order. It changes the scale just as a pronounced divorce does, but it leaves no administrative trace the employer could consult.
- French Pacs. It is not treated as marriage or as a Swiss registered partnership. Two Pacs partners fall under scale A or H, never B or C — a frequent confusion that leads people to claim a scale they are not entitled to.
One point deserves emphasis for families with one parent living in France: the place of residence of the spouse and children has no bearing whatsoever on the Geneva scale. What counts is marital status, whether or not the spouse carries on a gainful activity, and the effective dependency of the children. A cross-border worker from Divonne whose whole family lives in France has exactly the same rights as a resident of Chêne-Bougeries. They still have to be claimed. If family benefits are also part of your equation, our guide to family allowances for cross-border workers sets out how the Geneva fund and the French CAF interact.
Which work situations call for a correction?
Alongside family situations, a second series of errors stems from the way the rate-determining income is built. The Geneva annual model annualises the salary, which produces counter-intuitive results as soon as a career is not linear.
| Situation | What happens during the year | What the correction fixes |
|---|---|---|
| Two employers, or part-time work | Each employer knows only its own share and annualises on the basis of an assumed activity rate. | The taxpayer's real rate-determining income, all employers combined. |
| Starting or ending a job during the year | The salary is annualised as if the activity had lasted twelve months, which inflates the rate. | The income actually received over the calendar year. |
| Bonuses, commissions, gratuities | An occasional payment is in principle not annualised; a contractual bonus is. Treatment varies from one employer to the next. | The correct classification of the payment and its effect on the rate. |
| 13th salary paid pro rata | It is annualisable only if paid in proportion to the length of activity, for instance on leaving during the year. | The rate-determining income, often overstated on departure. See our 13th salary guide. |
| Sickness, accident or unemployment daily allowances | Paid directly by the insurer, they follow their own withholding regime, rarely coordinated with the salary. | The consistency of all the year's income. |
| Teleworking beyond 40 % | Since 1 January 2026, up to 40 % of annual working time spent teleworking, the whole remuneration remains taxable in Switzerland. | The share of salary taxable in Switzerland. Beyond the threshold, teleworked days become taxable in France from the first day. |
The teleworking threshold deserves particular attention: it does not work as an allowance. Exceeding 40 % does not make only the excess days taxable in France, but all teleworked days, from the first one. A maximum of ten days of temporary assignments outside Switzerland may be treated as teleworking and counted within that 40 %. Our guide to cross-border teleworking sets out the monitoring obligations that follow for employer and employee alike.
When should you aim for the quasi-resident TOU rather than a simple DRIS?
As soon as your pool of savings lies in real expenses rather than in a wrong scale. The DRIS cannot bring in a single additional deduction: it makes the scale right, and nothing more.
Geneva is explicit about the boundary between the two procedures. The following fall exclusively under the subsequent ordinary assessment: actual expenses, pillar 3a contributions (a maximum of 7 258 CHF for an employee in 2026), second-pillar buy-ins, childcare and training costs, and maintenance paid for minor children. None of these items can be obtained through a simple correction.
The access condition is the 90 % rule: at least 90 % of worldwide gross income must be taxable in Switzerland. For a married couple, both spouses' worldwide income is added together, and it is the total that must clear the threshold — a spouse working in France therefore disqualifies the household very quickly. Salaries, rents, bank interest and maintenance received all count. We set out that calculation, its blind spots and its counter-examples in our complete guide to the quasi-resident status.
Two procedural points, often discovered too late: the TOU request is irrevocable once filed, and a non-resident taxpayer must renew it every year. There is no permanent entitlement for a cross-border worker: the quasi-resident status is reclaimed each tax year, before 31 March.
How much can your correction pay you back?
The rule is easy to remember: a scale error almost always pays more than a list of deductions. The scale applies to the whole salary and over twelve months; a deduction only reduces the base, by its own amount.
The table below gives orders of magnitude, calculated from the 2026 Geneva scales for gross salaries between 70 000 and 130 000 CHF, and for an error running over a full year. They are decision markers, not promises: only the scale applied to your exact situation gives the real figure, which the cantonal tax administration's official calculator lets you simulate in a few minutes.
| Situation to correct | Procedure | Typical refund range | What makes the amount vary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single-parent household taxed A0 instead of scale H | DRIS | 6 000 to 14 000 CHF | Number of children and salary level. The most rewarding case in the canton. |
| Married with a spouse without income, taxed A0 instead of B | DRIS | 4 000 to 9 000 CHF | Number of months concerned: a six-month late report is worth half. |
| Cohabitation with children: dependency attributed to the wrong parent | DRIS | 2 000 to 6 000 CHF | Income gap between the two parents and number of children. |
| Scale C: spouse's real income below the 70 500 CHF flat figure | DRIS | 1 500 to 6 000 CHF | Gap between the flat figure and the real income. A spouse out of work for part of the year maximises the gap. |
| Dependent child not taken into account (per child) | DRIS | 1 500 to 3 500 CHF | Starting scale: the effect is stronger under B than under C. |
| Adult child (18 to 25) in education not declared | DRIS | 1 200 to 3 000 CHF | The child's income and wealth conditions must be met. |
| Incomplete year, two jobs, wrong activity rate | DRIS | 500 to 4 000 CHF | Scale of the undue annualisation. May also produce a supplementary bill. |
| Quasi-resident: pillar 3a, LPP buy-ins, actual expenses | TOU | 1 000 to 8 000 CHF | Amount actually paid. A second-pillar buy-in of 20 000 CHF is worth several thousand francs on its own. |
Two lessons emerge from these ranges. First, a cross-border worker who combines a scale error with quasi-resident status does not choose between the two: the TOU takes in both the correct scale and the deductions, and the gains add up. Second, the recoverable amount grows with salary but above all with the duration of the error — and that duration is capped at one year by the 31 March deadline. An error that has been running for four years can be made good only for the last one. That is where the largest sums are lost.
Which documents should you prepare, and which risks accept?
The request is judged on documents. An incomplete file submitted on 30 March is infinitely better than a perfect one submitted on 2 April, but a complete file spares you several months of correspondence.
- The withholding certificate issued by each of your Geneva employers for the year in question: it is the key document, summarising the gross salary and the tax actually withheld.
- Civil status documents: marriage certificate, divorce or separation judgment, family record book, birth certificate for a child born during the year.
- Proof of the spouse's income under scale C: French payslips, tax assessment notice, France Travail certificate or a sworn statement of no income.
- Documents relating to adult children: school or apprenticeship certificate, and proof of their income and wealth.
- For shared custody: parental agreement or judgment setting out how custody and maintenance contributions are divided.
- For a quasi-resident TOU only: pillar 3a certificates, LPP buy-in confirmations, childcare invoices, proof of actual expenses, evidence of maintenance payments.
How much does currency exchange eat into your refund?
A refund from the Geneva tax administration is paid in Swiss francs, by bank transfer. Your family costs, meanwhile, are paid in euros: the nursery in Saint-Genis, the maintenance payment, the mortgage in Gaillard. Between the two, an exchange margin applies — invisible, because it is built into the rate.
The order of magnitude is modest on the refund itself, but it reveals a gap that becomes decisive on recurring flows.
| Converted flow | Standard bank margin (1.5 %) | ibani margin | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| DRIS refund: 5 000 CHF, once a year | about 75 CHF | about 20 CHF (0.40 %) | about 55 CHF |
| Salary transferred: 96 000 CHF a year | about 1 440 CHF | about 288 CHF (0.30 %) | about 1 152 CHF |
| Maintenance payment: 1 000 € a month | about 180 € | about 48 € | about 132 € |
The lesson is arithmetical. The correction happens once a year and can bring back several thousand francs; the currency exchange happens twelve times a year and costs, at a standard bank margin, the equivalent of a third of that refund. Optimising one without looking at the other amounts to filling a leaky bucket.
The ibani scale is degressive: 0.40 % up to 10 000 CHF, 0.35 % from 10 000 to 50 000 CHF, 0.30 % from 50 000 to 100 000 CHF, 0.20 % from 100 000 to 250 000 CHF, then 0.15 % beyond. No opening, account-keeping or transfer fee is added.
An account with a personal Swiss IBAN, 12 currencies, fee-free transfers and a transparent exchange margin from 0.40 per cent. ibani is a Swiss financial intermediary based in Geneva, not a bank: the aim is not to replace your existing institution but to bridge your franc salary and your euro spending at the real market rate.
Discover the cross-border offer →You can simulate the exact amount you would receive with our currency converter, or read our guide to transferring your Swiss salary abroad. And if your return raises other tax questions, our guides on the deductions cross-border workers forget and on cross-border taxation in general usefully complete this Geneva picture.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the deadline for filing a withholding tax correction request in Geneva?
31 March of the year following the year of the deductions. For tax withheld on 2025 salaries, the request had to reach the Geneva cantonal tax administration by 31 March 2026 at the latest; for 2026 salaries, the deadline is 31 March 2027. This is a forfeiture deadline, not merely an indicative date: after 31 March, tax withheld in excess stays with the canton, even where the tax-scale error is obvious and entirely the employer's doing. The request can only be filed using the DRIS/TOU form, either online from the e-démarches tax portal or on paper. If the employer's withholding certificate or a supporting document is still missing at the end of March, you must nevertheless file within the deadline, flagging the missing items and sending them on afterwards.
What is the difference between a DRIS and a subsequent ordinary assessment (TOU) in Geneva?
The DRIS corrects the parameters of the withholding, the TOU changes the taxation regime altogether. The withholding tax correction request lets you challenge the gross salary taken into account, the tax scale applied or the rate used: wrong scale code, a child not taken into account, the spouse's real income under scale C, shared custody, an adult child still in education. The subsequent ordinary assessment, reserved for cross-border workers who meet the quasi-resident conditions, replaces the flat-rate withholding with a full assessment and is the only route to additional deductions: actual expenses, pillar 3a contributions, second-pillar buy-ins, childcare and training costs, maintenance payments for minor children. Both requests go through the same DRIS/TOU form and the same 31 March deadline.
How much can you get back from a withholding tax correction in Geneva?
The amount depends on the nature of the error, not on the number of receipts. A tax-scale error over a full year is by far the most rewarding case: on a Geneva salary of 70 000 to 130 000 francs, someone taxed under scale A0 while married to a spouse with no income typically recovers 4 000 to 9 000 francs, and a single-parent household taxed A0 instead of scale H can exceed 10 000 francs. Correcting the spouse's income under scale C most often yields 1 500 to 6 000 francs, and each forgotten child 1 500 to 3 500 francs. A quasi-resident subsequent ordinary assessment, which works on deductions rather than on the scale, generally refunds 1 000 to 8 000 francs. These ranges are orders of magnitude: only the Geneva scale applied to your exact situation gives the real figure.
My spouse lives in France and does not work: which tax scale should my Geneva employer apply?
Scale B, followed by the number of dependent children: B0 with no child, B1 with one child, B2 with two children, and so on up to B5. Scale B covers married couples or registered partnerships in which only one spouse carries on a gainful activity, whether that spouse lives in Switzerland or in France. It is the most favourable scale after scale H, and the gap with scale A0 for single people frequently exceeds seven percentage points. Your employer, however, applies only what was declared on the withholding declaration form: until the marriage, the end of the spouse's activity or the birth of a child is reported, it keeps applying the previous scale. Note that a French Pacs is not treated as marriage or as a Swiss registered partnership: Pacs partners fall under scale A or H, never B or C.
Can a correction request result in additional tax to pay?
Yes, and that is the main risk to quantify before filing. The correction recalculates the whole year's tax on the basis of the real figures: if those work against you, the administration claims the difference. The most frequent case concerns scale C, where the employer applies during the year a theoretical spouse income capped at 70 500 francs. Where the spouse earns more than that, the correction reveals the couple's real income, raises the applicable rate and ends in a supplementary bill. The quasi-resident subsequent ordinary assessment carries a comparable risk: it brings the household's worldwide income, including rent from a French property, into the determination of the rate, and it is irrevocable once filed. The practical rule never changes: simulate first, file second.