Wealth tax in Switzerland: what is taxed, in which canton, and what you have to declare

You have just moved to Geneva, Lausanne or Zurich, and your first tax return asks you for something your home country probably never required: a list of everything you own, on 31 December, including what stayed on the other side of the border. Wealth tax has disappeared from almost all of Europe; in Switzerland, it brings the cantons and communes close to CHF 9.5 billion a year. This guide explains who pays it, on what, at what value, and shows why the same wealth does not cost the same in Zug as in Lausanne.

1. What is wealth tax, and who pays it?

Wealth tax is an annual tax, levied by the cantons and the communes, on the net value of everything an individual owns on 31 December. There is no federal wealth tax: the Confederation gave it up in 1959, because combining it with cantonal and communal taxes would have led to too heavy a burden. The common framework is set by the Federal Act on the Harmonisation of Direct Taxation, the LHID (StHG), which lays down the object of the tax and the reference date but leaves each canton to set its scales, rates and exempt amounts.

The weight is far from trivial. In 2024, the cantons collected CHF 5.81 billion and the communes CHF 3.65 billion from this tax, CHF 9.46 billion in total: 10.17% of their tax revenue, and 5.46% of all tax revenue in the country, Confederation included.

Domiciled in Switzerland: taxed on worldwide wealth

A person has unlimited tax liability in the canton where they have their tax domicile, or where they stay for at least 30 days while carrying on a gainful activity, or at least 90 days without one. They then pay tax on the whole of their net wealth, in Switzerland and abroad, subject to double taxation agreements and to the specific rules for real estate located outside the canton, dealt with in chapter 4.

Domiciled abroad: taxed on what is in Switzerland

A person who is neither domiciled nor staying in Switzerland has limited tax liability, on the basis of economic affiliation: they own real estate in Switzerland, own or are a partner in a business there, operate a permanent establishment there, or hold a claim secured by Swiss real estate. The tax then applies only to those items. But to prevent an owner whose assets are scattered from being treated better than a resident, the tax is calculated at the rate applicable to their worldwide wealth. This is the typical case of the cross-border worker who buys a flat in Geneva or Valais, or of the person who has moved abroad while keeping a property in Switzerland.

The household is taxed as a whole

The wealth of spouses living in the same household is added together, whatever their matrimonial property regime. The wealth of minor children is added to that of the parent who holds parental authority. Marriage takes effect for the whole year: two people who marry on 1 September 2026 are taxed together for the whole of 2026. Conversely, de facto separation is enough to be taxed separately, again for the whole year. All cantons offset the effect of progression through a higher deduction for couples or a preferential scale, and Neuchâtel even applies splitting: taxable family wealth of CHF 500,000 is taxed there at the rate for wealth of CHF 260,000.

2. What counts as taxable wealth, and what is left out?

The object of the tax is net wealth: all assets, less established debts. The tax is general, which means that the list of taxable items given in the tax laws is only illustrative. Everything with a value expressible in money is included, including assets of which you are the usufructuary.

The line that matters: tied pension provision versus free savings

This is the most useful distinction for a new resident. Everything that falls under tied pension provision, that is the pension fund, vested benefits and pillar 3a, is exempt from wealth tax until it is paid out, in every canton, even where a 3a policy has a surrender value. The basis is federal: article 84 of the Occupational Pensions Act exempts claims against pension institutions and other forms of pension provision from the direct taxes of the Confederation, the cantons and the communes before they fall due. These funds are taxed only on the way out, as income, at a preferential rate.

An ordinary life insurance policy, known as pillar 3b, follows the opposite rule: if it can be surrendered, its surrender value, bonus shares included, enters taxable wealth every year. The insurer issues a certificate to attach to the tax return. How the three tiers work is set out in our guide on the three-pillar system, and the taxation of 2^nd pillar withdrawals in our guide on withdrawing your LPP.

3. At what value is each item taken into account?

At market value, that is the price an asset would fetch in a normal exchange between a buyer and a seller, and not the insured value, which is often higher. That is article 14 of the LHID. Three categories follow specific rules: securities, insurance and real estate.

Securities and currencies: the FTA price list

Listed securities are taken at their price on 31 December. All cantons apply the values published each year by the Federal Tax Administration in its price list, which covers Swiss and foreign securities listed in Switzerland, the main investment funds, the most widespread cryptocurrencies and the exchange rates on 31 December. For the 2025 tax period, one euro is worth CHF 0.9305, one dollar CHF 0.7923 and one pound CHF 1.0657. Unlisted securities are valued under circular 28 of the Swiss Tax Conference, which combines the capitalised earnings value and the intrinsic value of the company; several cantons grant a discount on holdings in Swiss companies, for example 50% in Aargau and 60% in Neuchâtel.

Real estate: a tax value, rarely the market price

The value of real estate is not recalculated every year but set periodically, and each canton has its own method. The canton of Vaud takes the average of the capitalised earnings value and the market value, without exceeding the latter. Zurich applies a formula-based valuation aimed at market value, with an individual valuation at 90% of market value where the formula gives a result higher than the market value. Geneva values detached houses and condominium flats at their weighted market value, then reduces it by 4% per year of continuous occupation by the same owner, up to 40%. Zug starts from market value while taking the yield into account. Agricultural property is valued everywhere at its capitalised earnings value. The result: the tax value of a home is generally well below its purchase price, which makes this tax lighter for the owner than the price paid would suggest.

Insurance: the surrender value

A capital or annuity insurance policy that can be surrendered is taxed at the amount the insurer would have to pay back on early termination. The capitalised value of an annuity remains taxable even once payments have begun, as the Federal Supreme Court has ruled.

Cryptocurrencies

The FTA classifies payment tokens as movable capital assets: they are subject to cantonal wealth tax and declared at their market value at the end of the tax period. For the most widespread cryptocurrencies, the taxable value appears in the price list; for the others, the year-end price on the exchange platform is used or, failing that, the purchase price converted into francs.

4. Your assets abroad: what must you declare, and what is taxed?

Everything is declared, but not everything is taxed. This is the rule that confuses newcomers most, because it separates two questions that are easily conflated: what the tax authorities must see, and what they levy tax on.

What the tax authorities must see: worldwide wealth

A taxpayer domiciled in Switzerland must provide a statement of their total wealth, in Switzerland and abroad. The current account left in the home country, the savings plan, the securities portfolio, the life insurance taken out before leaving, the flat kept and let out: all of it appears in the tax return, with the corresponding debts. Since 1 January 2017, Switzerland has applied the automatic exchange of information: banks in partner states transmit to the Swiss tax authorities every year the account holder's identity, tax identification number, account balance and capital income. In 2022, the FTA exchanged data with 101 states, covering around 2.9 million accounts received. A forgotten foreign account is no longer a discreet omission.

What the tax authorities levy on: movable assets, not the foreign property

Movable assets, accounts, securities and insurance, are taxed in the canton of domicile, whatever the country where they are held. Real estate located abroad, by contrast, escapes Swiss wealth tax: liability based on domicile does not extend to real estate located outside the canton, a rule laid down for instance in article 5 of the Geneva act and article 53 of the Vaud act, and confirmed by double taxation agreements. It is taxed, if at all, in the country where it is located.

Two consequences are often missed at first glance. First, the foreign property enters the calculation of the rate: Swiss wealth is taxed at the rate that total wealth, property included, would attract, which weighs in a progressive scale. Second, debts are apportioned proportionally: if part of the wealth is not taxable in the canton, debts are deductible there only in the proportion between the wealth taxable in the canton and total wealth. The mortgage on a property in France or Germany is therefore not deducted in full from the Swiss accounts.

5. Which deductions reduce taxable wealth?

Two families: debts, then social deductions. Debts are deducted from gross wealth to arrive at net wealth; social deductions are then subtracted from net wealth to arrive at taxable wealth, the only basis on which the tax is calculated.

Established debts

Only debts actually owed are deductible, not foreseeable ones. The mortgage, consumer credit, a loan from a relative documented by a contract and tax due but not yet paid all qualify. A guarantee is deductible only where the principal debtor's insolvency has been established. The obligation to pay an annuity constituted for consideration is a debt, valued at its capitalised value.

Social deductions, specific to each canton

The tax-free amount takes account of marital status, dependent children and sometimes age. The differences are considerable, and the FTA is careful to point out that the absolute amount of a deduction says nothing about the real burden as long as the scale and the annual multiplier are unknown.

Geneva, Vaud, Zug, Thurgau and Jura index these amounts automatically every year; Zurich adjusts them every two years. In Geneva, a taxpayer who runs a business additionally deducts half of the business wealth invested, up to CHF 534,500.

6. How much do you pay, canton by canton?

For the same net wealth, the tax varies sevenfold between the cantonal capitals. Three elements stack up: the social deduction, the basic cantonal scale, expressed in per mille and progressive in most cantons, and the annual multiplier that the canton and then the commune apply to that basic tax. Only Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Obwalden, Nidwalden, Appenzell Innerrhoden, St. Gallen and Thurgau apply a proportional rate; Basel-Stadt, Basel-Landschaft and Valais have a fixed scale, with no multiplier.

These amounts are calculated from the cantonal scales published for 2026 and the annual multipliers of the cantonal capitals recorded by the FTA, without church tax, which is added for members of a recognised church in the cantons of Zurich and Zug and remains optional in Geneva. They give an order of magnitude, not an assessment: the commune of residence, marital status, children and the exact composition of the wealth change the result. For a simulation down to the commune, the FTA's tax calculator covers every commune in Switzerland.

What the table shows clearly is that the burden comes from the scale more than from the deduction. Geneva grants a higher deduction than Zurich but applies a scale two to three times higher over the bands in the table, topped up by a supplementary tax above CHF 111,059. Lausanne has almost no deduction and a cantonal coefficient of 155%. At the other end, Zug exempts CHF 204,000 and caps its scale at 1.7‰.

7. When is the tax capped?

When the combined income and wealth taxes exceed a set share of income. This is the tax shield, introduced in Geneva on 1 January 2011 and also practised in the canton of Vaud, which addresses a specific situation: wealth that yields little, for example property or low-yield securities, can generate a tax higher than what the wealth produces.

The Geneva mechanism is laid down in article 60 of the cantonal act on the taxation of individuals (LIPP): for taxpayers domiciled in Switzerland, wealth and income taxes, cantonal and communal additional centimes included, may not in total exceed 60% of net taxable income. For this calculation, the net return on wealth is set at no less than 1% of net wealth. The reduction is set against the wealth tax. This notional 1% return is what prevents the shield from bringing the tax down to zero for wealth that produces no income. In Geneva, the shield is refused to people taxed on an expenditure basis, to those whose only link to the canton is a property in Switzerland and to taxpayers assessed ex officio.

The canton of Vaud combines three safeguards in its act on communal taxes (LICom): cantonal and communal wealth tax may not exceed 10 per mille; total cantonal and communal taxes on income and wealth may not exceed 60% of net income, with the return on wealth set at a minimum of 1% by the 2026 annual tax act; and once that ceiling has been applied, the wealth tax may not fall below 3 per mille.

8. When and how is wealth declared?

On the position at 31 December, known as the reference date, and after the event: the return for 2026 is completed in 2027, and the tax is calculated on the wealth existing at the end of 2026. If liability did not last the whole year, the tax is reduced pro rata.

Arrival, departure, moving house

• Arriving from abroad: unlimited tax liability begins on the day you take up residence. The first return covers wealth on 31 December of the year of arrival, the tax being reduced in proportion to the period of liability.
• Moving between cantons: the taxpayer is liable for the whole year in the canton of their domicile on 31 December. Moving from Lausanne to Zug in November changes the scale for the whole year.
• Leaving for abroad: unlimited tax liability ends on the day of departure. A property kept in Switzerland maintains limited liability. The other steps are in our checklist for leaving Switzerland.

The documents to gather

Each bank issues a tax certificate as at 31 December showing the balance and the year's interest; foreign banks sometimes call it an annual statement. Securities are entered in the securities schedule with their price on 31 December; life insurance policies with a surrender value come with a surrender value certificate; foreign property is declared with its value, its debt and its rental income. Foreign-currency accounts are converted at the FTA's year-end rate, income at the annual average rate: for 2025, CHF 0.9305 and CHF 0.9370 per euro respectively. Our checklist for moving to Switzerland covers the other steps of the first few months.

9. What does a euro account change in your tax return?

It introduces a variable you do not control: the year-end rate. An account of EUR 100,000 is worth CHF 93,050 on 31 December 2025. If the euro gains two centimes the following year, the same sum is worth CHF 95,050 of taxable wealth; if it falls by as much, CHF 91,050. Your taxable wealth therefore moves with the exchange rate, without your having touched anything, and it is the FTA's rate that decides, not your bank's.

Converting euros into francs, on the other hand, does not change your net wealth: EUR 100,000 and CHF 93,050 are, on that day, the same thing in the eyes of the tax authorities. What changes is the cost of the conversion, kept by the institution that carries it out, and the moment chosen. The question is therefore not a tax one but a practical one: where are your assets best placed to pay rent, tax instalments and bills in francs, without converting in a hurry in December?

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: your savings arrive in euros and conversion happens when you choose; the balance held on 31 December, in euros or in francs, is declared like any other account, at the FTA's rate. The daily rate can be followed on our CHF-EUR converter, and our personal service page sets out how it works. As for investing those savings, our guide on investing in Switzerland lays the groundwork; the taxation of an employee's income is covered in our guide to cross-border worker taxes.

10. Frequently asked questions