01
Cost of living
$2,028/mo
CHVerified relocation data for the location-independent
Switzerland for remote workers.
Alpine confederation of 26 cantons, in Schengen and EFTA but not the EU, with its own currency. Income tax is levied at three levels — federal, cantonal and communal — so the burden is a property of the commune rather than the country. Social contributions are unusually light for Europe (AHV/IV/EO 10%, degressive below CHF 60,500, no unemployment or occupational-pension obligation for the self-employed), but basic health insurance is a compulsory flat private premium rather than a payroll charge.
VerifiedUpdated
2 cities · 1 scheme · 3 active paths
CH · SettleMetric
01
At a glance
The headline numbers for Switzerland — each with its own source and freshness. A live official figure is not the same as a survey estimate or a 30-year climate normal.
4.2/10
02
Rent, 1–3 bed
$2,020–$3,697
/mo
03
Freelancer tax
27.8%
Safety
10.0/100.5/100k
Internet
6.5/1089 Mbps
English
7.0/10High
Private health
0.0/10$8,437/yr
Crypto
10.0/10Legal friendly
What the tags meanofficial — live figure from a government or authorityopen data — open dataset (Eurostat, EEA, M-Lab, UdSC…)survey — survey or index estimatecurated — SettleMetric-assembled estimate — open the source for the method
02
What it costs you per month
A planning estimate: real asking rent plus a cost-of-living basket scaled to your household. Not a quote.
Household
Lifestyle
Location
Estimated total
$4,047/mo
≈ $48,564 / year
Where it goes
- Rent (1-bed)$2,020
- Transport$442
- Food & non-alcoholic drinks$379
- Recreation, entertainment & culture$290
- Restaurants & cafés$254
- Other goods & services$190
- Utilities (service charges & home energy)$161
- Household goods & running the home$120
- Communications (mobile + internet)$96
- Clothing & footwear$95
- Living costs$2,027
Rent from the asking-rent matrix below. Living costs scale a one-person basket ($2,027/mo) by household size and lifestyle; the equivalence factors are our assumption. Schooling and one-off setup are excluded.
03
Cost of living
What a single person spends each month — food, utilities, transport, eating out and the rest — excluding rent.
01Cost of living (single, excl. rent)2,028USD/month, single person, excluding rent4.2
What this measures
Monthly cost of a defined single-person basket (food, transport, utilities, mobile+internet, modest leisure) excluding rent, curated from national statistics office price data and large local retailers' published prices, converted to USD at the ECB rate recorded in fx-rates. The method field of each value itemizes the basket inputs.
Lower is betterUSD/month, single person, excluding rentre-verified every 365 days
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2023
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Method
- Basket built from the 2023 Swiss household budget survey, per household per month in CHF: food and non-alcoholic drinks 637.76 + restaurants and cafés 427.20 (COICOP 531, excluding the 131.28 spent on accommodation) + service charges and energy of the main residence 271.46 (5712 + 5713, so the utilities without the 1,081.64 of net rent) + household goods and running the home 201.16 + clothing and footwear 160.60 + transport 743.53 + communications 161.81 + recreation, entertainment and culture 488.23 + other goods and services 319.26 = 3,411.01. Divided by the survey's own mean household size of 2.07 persons = CHF 1,647.83 per person per month, converted at 1 CHF = 1.2306 USD (ECB rates of 2026-08-13) = $2,028. Excluded: rent, alcohol and tobacco, out-of-pocket health spending, insurance premiums, taxes and social contributions.
- Notes
- Two things to hold against this figure. It is a PER-CAPITA share of average household spending, not a measured single-person budget, and a person living alone carries utilities, communications and household costs that a two-person household splits — so a real single in Zurich or Geneva will spend more than this. And it is 2023 data, the latest the survey publishes, with no inflation uplift applied. Health insurance is deliberately outside the basket even though it is compulsory, because it is carried separately by healthcare-private-cost and by the tax burden; add roughly $650/month for it if you want the all-in figure.
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2023
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Method
- Each 2023 household-average category divided by the survey's mean household size of 2.07 and converted at 1 CHF = 1.2306 USD; the nine items sum to the $2,028 headline.
- Notes
- Transport is the largest line and the one most open to change: CHF 555 of the household's CHF 744 is buying and running a car, against CHF 189 on public transport, so a car-free household in Zurich or Geneva — where that is entirely practical — cuts this basket by a good deal more than the difference in fares suggests.
01Transport442 USD
02Food & non-alcoholic drinks379 USD
03Recreation, entertainment & culture290 USD
04Restaurants & cafés254 USD
05Other goods & services190 USD
06Utilities (service charges & home energy)161 USD
07Household goods & running the home120 USD
08Communications (mobile + internet)96 USD
09Clothing & footwear95 USD
Switzerland's single-person household-budget basket, excluding rent.
04
Housing
What it costs to rent, by apartment type and location.
SettleMetric — population-weighted average of covered cities (Geneva, Zurich)
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- May 31, 2025
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Method
- Population-weighted mean of the rent-breakdown matrices of Geneva, Zurich; each cell averages the cities that report it. See each city page for its exact local matrix.
| Apartment | Central | Outside centre |
|---|---|---|
| Studio | 1,845 USD/mo | 1,560 USD/mo |
| 1-bedroom | 2,402 USD/mo | 2,020 USD/mo |
| 2-bedroom | 3,019 USD/mo | 2,466 USD/mo |
| 3-bedroom | 3,697 USD/mo | 3,031 USD/mo |
05
Safety
How safe daily life is, from official crime statistics.
01Homicide rate0.5intentional homicides per 100,000/year10.0
What this measures
Intentional homicide victims per 100,000 population, latest available year. Country level: UNODC national series. City level: official municipal/police statistics where published; otherwise null (country value shown as country-level).
Lower is betterintentional homicides per 100,000/yearre-verified every 730 days
Open data
Eurostat — police-recorded intentional homicide (crim_off_cat, ICCS0101, unit P_HTHAB)
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Notes
- 0.50 per 100,000 in 2024, at the very bottom of the European range and stable: the series has moved between 0.48 and 0.71 every year since 2008 with no trend.
Eurostat — police-recorded offences by category (crim_off_cat, ICCS, unit P_HTHAB)
Open data
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Notes
- The shape is the interesting part, not the level: violence against the person is very low (serious assault 11.5, robbery 23.6 per 100,000) while property and fraud offences are high — theft at 1,966 per 100,000 is among the higher rates reported to Eurostat. Recorded-crime counts reflect legal definitions and reporting habits as much as events, so these are context rather than a grade, and a country where people readily report a stolen bicycle will look worse than one where they do not.
01Theft1,966per 100k
02Drug offences538per 100k
03Burglary514per 100k
04Fraud412per 100k
05Sexual violence53.9per 100k
06Robbery23.6per 100k
07Serious assault11.5per 100k
The shape is the interesting part, not the level: violence against the person is very low (serious assault 11.5, robbery 23.6 per 100,000) while property and fraud offences are high — theft at 1,966 per 100,000 is among the higher rates reported to Eurostat. Recorded-crime counts reflect legal definitions and reporting habits as much as events, so these are context rather than a grade, and a country where people readily report a stolen bicycle will look worse than one where they do not.
OSCE ODIHR Hate Crime Reporting — Switzerland (official data reported by the State)
Official source
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Notes
- 595 offences recorded in 2024 and 104 sentences, up from 401 in 2023 and 159 in 2018. Do not read that rise as a rise in hatred: Switzerland has NO hate-crime provision in its criminal code, so these are prosecutions under Art. 261bis (discrimination and incitement to hatred), a count ODIHR itself notes includes offences outside its own hate-crime definition. There is also no breakdown by bias motive — ODIHR records that Swiss police do not register one — so the racist and xenophobic subset shown for other countries cannot be given here, and ODIHR's own key observation is that Swiss recording 'does not sufficiently distinguish hate crimes from other crimes'.
595
recorded by police
595 offences recorded in 2024 and 104 sentences, up from 401 in 2023 and 159 in 2018. Do not read that rise as a rise in hatred: Switzerland has NO hate-crime provision in its criminal code, so these are prosecutions under Art. 261bis (discrimination and incitement to hatred), a count ODIHR itself notes includes offences outside its own hate-crime definition. There is also no breakdown by bias motive — ODIHR records that Swiss police do not register one — so the racist and xenophobic subset shown for other countries cannot be given here, and ODIHR's own key observation is that Swiss recording 'does not sufficiently distinguish hate crimes from other crimes'.
06
Healthcare
What comprehensive private medical cover costs.
01Private healthcare cost8,437USD/year, comprehensive private insurance premium, healthy 35-year-old0.0
What this measures
Median of at least three publicly quoted annual premiums for comprehensive private medical insurance (outpatient + inpatient, ~$100k coverage, small deductible) for a healthy 35-year-old resident foreigner, from local and international insurers. Method field lists the insurers quoted.
Lower is betterUSD/year, comprehensive private insurance premium, healthy 35-year-oldre-verified every 365 days
Official source
- Data as of
- Jan 1, 2026
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Method
- Median of the 1,032 approved 2026 premiums across 34 insurers for an adult (age class 26+) on the standard model with free choice of doctor, the lowest CHF 300 franchise and accident cover included: CHF 571.35/month = CHF 6,856/year = $8,437 at 1 CHF = 1.2306 USD (ECB rates of 2026-08-13). Not a sample of three quotes — Switzerland approves and publishes every premium, so this is the whole population of them.
- Notes
- Switzerland is the one country in this dataset where the 'private insurance' figure is not optional: KVG/LAMal basic cover is a legal duty for every resident, so this number is a bill, not a choice, and it is already counted inside the freelancer tax burden. It buys more than the criterion asks for — there is no benefit ceiling at all, where the criterion assumes ~$100k. It is also the maximum-price configuration: the official enrolment-weighted average premium actually paid by adults in 2026 is CHF 465.30/month ($6,873/year) because most people take a restricted-choice model and a higher franchise, and the cheapest standard-model quote in the country is CHF 70/month lower than the median. City medians on the same basis: Zurich CHF 639.80/month, Bern CHF 681.50, Geneva CHF 752.20 — Geneva costs 18% more than Zurich for the same legal cover.
07
Money & crypto
Crypto rules and how freely personal money moves.
01Crypto regulationLegal friendly10.0
What this measures
Own classification of the legal status of holding, trading and cashing out cryptocurrency for individuals: legal-friendly (legal with clear, favourable rules or explicit tax exemptions), legal-regulated (legal under standard licensing/AML and taxation), restricted (partial bans: payments or banking access prohibited), banned (holding/trading prohibited). Classified from national regulators' and central banks' official positions.
Rated by category—re-verified every 180 days
Official source
- Data as of
- Jan 1, 2026
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Notes
- Holding and trading are legal and the tax treatment is published rather than improvised: the Federal Tax Administration's working paper sets out that gains realised by a private individual managing private assets are TAX-FREE capital gains (Art. 16 Abs. 3 DBG), while the holding itself is subject to the annual wealth tax at its 31 December market value, and losses are correspondingly non-deductible. The exemption is not unconditional — where the scale, financing and frequency of trading go beyond private wealth management the activity is reclassified as self-employment and the gains become taxable income, which is the line to watch if you trade actively. Mining and staking rewards are income, not exempt gains.
02Financial control levelLow10.0
What this measures
Own composite of state control over personal money flows: currency/capital controls (IMF AREAER), restrictions on foreign accounts and transfers, mandatory income declaration scope for residents, cash payment limits, banking access for foreigners. Low = free movement of personal funds and easy non-resident banking; very-high = strict capital controls and pervasive reporting. Method field on each value lists the inputs used.
Rated by category—re-verified every 365 days
Official source
Bundesgesetz über die Bekämpfung der Geldwäscherei und der Terrorismusfinanzierung (GwG, SR 955.0)
- Data as of
- Jan 1, 2026
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Method
- Inputs weighed: no exchange or capital controls on the movement of personal funds in or out of the country; no general legal ceiling on cash payments, only anti-money-laundering due-diligence duties on dealers and financial intermediaries under the GwG; residents declare worldwide income and worldwide net wealth in the annual cantonal return, and Switzerland exchanges account information automatically under the OECD standard.
- Notes
- Low control over the movement of money, but not low visibility. Two things surprise newcomers: the annual return asks for your WORLDWIDE assets, because the cantons levy a wealth tax on net assets, so there is a reporting duty here that most countries do not have; and opening an account is easy for a resident but often refused or heavily priced for non-residents, so 'Swiss bank account' is not something you arrange before you move.
08
Infrastructure
Internet speed and how parcels get to your door.
01Domestic delivery qualityExcellent10.0
What this measures
Quality of in-country parcel delivery. excellent = nationwide next-day widely available, dense parcel-locker network, real-time tracking standard; good = 1–3 day delivery, lockers in major cities; basic = reliable but slow (3–7 days), mostly to-door or post-office pickup; poor = unreliable delivery, street addresses often unusable, informal workarounds common. Classified from official service/coverage data of the national postal operator and the two largest private carriers; inputs itemized in each value's method field.
Rated by category—re-verified every 730 days
Official source
Die Schweizerische Post — Finanzbericht 2024 (Zugangspunkte) und My Post 24
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Sep 9, 2026
- Method
- Inputs: A-Post priority mail must arrive on the working day after posting, everywhere in the country; Swiss Post reports over 5,000 access points in its 2024 financial report, of which about 2,000 are staffed, plus 770 Postomaten, 563 drop-off and collection points in retailers such as Migros, and 14,077 letter boxes; tracking is standard on parcels.
- Notes
- The one part of the definition Switzerland does not meet on its own terms is the parcel-locker network: 303 My Post 24 terminals for nine million people is thin next to the locker-first markets in this dataset, where the count runs into five figures. What Switzerland has instead is an unusually dense network of STAFFED counters and retail collection points, which does the same job with different opening hours. Rated excellent on speed, coverage and tracking, with that caveat visible rather than averaged away.
02International delivery easeMinor friction7.0
What this measures
Ease of receiving goods from abroad. seamless = major international carriers deliver door-to-door, meaningful duty-free de-minimis threshold, customs clearance predictable in days; minor-friction = carriers present but low de-minimis, extra paperwork or routine delays; significant-friction = frequent customs holds, high brokerage fees, some marketplaces refuse to ship; unreliable = parcels regularly lost or blocked, informal import channels dominate. De-minimis thresholds and clearance rules from the national customs authority (official source, cite the regulation); carrier presence from carriers' official pages.
Rated by category—re-verified every 365 days
Official source
BAZG — Empfangen von Briefen und Paketen (Kleinsendungen, Wertfreigrenze)
- Data as of
- Sep 9, 2026
- Verified
- Sep 9, 2026
- Method
- Switzerland is outside the EU customs union, so every consignment is cleared. Import VAT is waived only where the tax due would be under CHF 5, which is a goods value of CHF 62 at the standard 8.1% rate and CHF 193 at the reduced 2.6% rate (books, food); customs duty under CHF 5 is likewise not levied, and unsolicited gifts between private individuals are free up to CHF 100. All the major carriers deliver door to door, and they set their own clearance fees, over which the customs administration states it has no influence.
- Notes
- Not friction from delay — clearance is quick and predictable — but from the threshold and the handling fee. A CHF 62 de-minimis is low, and the carrier's customs-clearance charge is often larger than the tax it collects, which is why a small parcel from an EU shop can arrive costing noticeably more than its price. Coming from an EU country this is the change people notice first: the same order that used to arrive with nothing to pay now clears customs.
03Internet speed88.5Mbps, median fixed download6.5
What this measures
Median fixed-broadband download speed over the trailing 6 months from M-Lab NDT open data (CC0), aggregated at country or city level. Not comparable with Ookla figures (different test methodology) — do not mix sources within this criterion.
Higher is betterMbps, median fixed downloadre-verified every 365 days
Open data
M-Lab NDT country aggregates for Switzerland
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2023
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Notes
- Median of the 2023 daily country medians over 343 days and 406,505 tests; monthly medians ran 77.8–102.1 Mbps. 2023 is still the latest full year M-Lab's public stats API carries for Switzerland — the 2024 file stops on 26 March. M-Lab NDT is single-stream and reads far below Ookla-style figures, so compare it only with other countries in this criterion.
09
Language
How far English gets you in daily life and services.
01English proficiencyHigh7.0
What this measures
Own banding of how far English gets a resident in daily life (government offices, healthcare, housing, services). Informed by EF EPI band (research source, cited with attribution, not republished) plus official language status and service-sector realities. Values are our bands, not EF scores.
Rated by category—re-verified every 730 days
Research
EF EPI 2025 — Switzerland (rank 30/123, score 564, High band)
- Data as of
- Nov 1, 2025
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Notes
- Our band, matching EF's own: 564 points, 30th of 123 countries and up 14 points on the previous edition. Do not read Switzerland as a Nordic-style English country — administration, healthcare and housing run in the local official language, which is German in Zurich and French in Geneva, and the two cities differ sharply in EF's own city scores (Zurich 621, Geneva 555). English gets a professional a long way inside international employers and almost nowhere inside a cantonal office.
10
Demographics
Who else lives here — the share of foreign residents and the largest national communities, from official statistics.
Openness to foreignersVery openGallup MAI 7.21/9 · 2016
What this measures
How accepting the resident population is of migrants and foreigners — the inverse of xenophobia, a real concern for someone relocating. Our own five-band reading (very-open / open / moderate / reserved / low) informed primarily by the Gallup Migrant Acceptance Index (0–9 scale: three questions on migrants living in the country, becoming neighbours, and marrying into the family; 2019 wave), cross-checked where available with the World Values Survey wave 7 / European Values Study 2017 question on whether people would not want immigrants or foreign workers as neighbours (a higher share = more hostile). Banding guide against the Gallup 0–9 score: ≥7.0 very-open, 5.5–7.0 open, 4.0–5.5 moderate, 2.5–4.0 reserved, below 2.5 low (the 2019 global average of 5.21 sits in 'moderate'). Country level only: no credible city-level survey of attitudes to foreigners exists, so on city pages the country reading is shown as country context. Gallup is a research source cited with attribution, not republished in bulk; the raw index score/year and any cross-check figure are carried inside each value. Value shape: { band, gallupMai?, gallupYear?, unwantedNeighborPct?, unwantedNeighborSource? }. Display-only: attitudinal, survey-based and ~2019 vintage, so it is shown as honest context and never folded into the composite score.
Reference data—re-verified every 1825 days
Research
- Data as of
- Aug 23, 2017
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Notes
- 7.21 of 9, against a global average of 5.29 — 21st of the 138 countries surveyed, which puts Switzerland in our top band. Treat it as attitudinal and roughly a decade old: it measures whether people are comfortable with migrants living in the country, as neighbours and in the family, not how easy the country makes it to move there, and Switzerland scores very differently on those two questions.
BFS — Permanent resident population by canton, residence permit and citizenship (STATPOP, 2025)
Official source
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2025
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Method
- 2,528,117 foreign nationals in a permanent resident population of 9,127,125 at 31 December 2025 = 27.70%.
- Notes
- READ THIS AS A BROAD BASIS, not a narrow register. The permanent resident population counts everyone staying at least twelve months, so the 2.53 million includes 1,406,673 people on settlement permits (C) who have lived here for years, 65,260 Ukrainians with protection status S, 40,560 provisionally admitted persons, and 31,742 diplomats and international civil servants. Roughly one in four of the foreign nationals counted here was born in Switzerland — the share is high partly because naturalisation is slow and does not follow from birth on Swiss soil.
Largest communities of foreign residents2,528,117 total
BFS — Permanent resident population by citizenship (STATPOP, 2025)
Official source
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2025
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Method
- The eight largest of the 197 citizenships the register records with a non-zero count in 2025, ranked by count; shares are of the 2,528,117 foreign-resident total. The full 197 rows plus the 6,599,008 Swiss citizens sum to exactly the published 9,127,125, which is what confirms the table is complete rather than a top-N extract.
- Notes
- Four of the top five are neighbours or long-standing labour-migration partners, and together Italy, Germany, Portugal and France are 44% of all foreign residents. Ukraine at 74,207 is almost entirely post-2022 and sits mostly on protection status S rather than an ordinary permit.
01Italy13.7%346,115
02Germany13.3%336,446
03Portugal10.2%258,139
04France7.1%179,386
05Kosovo4.6%116,865
06Spain4.1%104,448
07Türkiye3.1%78,804
08Ukraine2.9%74,207
Four of the top five are neighbours or long-standing labour-migration partners, and together Italy, Germany, Portugal and France are 44% of all foreign residents. Ukraine at 74,207 is almost entirely post-2022 and sits mostly on protection status S rather than an ordinary permit.
11
Your tax options
See what you would keep
Your income against Switzerland's real tax schemes — the same engine as the full calculator.
- 1 Einzelunternehmen — sole proprietorship, city of Zurich (federal + cantonal + communal tax, AHV/IV/EO, KVG)41,402 EURnet/year31.0% burden
12
Your legalization options
- 01Residence permit for self-employed persons (EU/EFTA, Free Movement Agreement)Freelance permitEU citizensCitizenship of an EU or EFTA state to which the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons applies (the Agreement has not applied to the United Kingdom since 1 January 2021)5 yrs +→ PR path
- 02Admission to self-employment for third-country nationals (Art. 19 AIG)Freelance permitAll except EU citizensA place must be free within the annual federal quota: for 2026 the Federal Council set 8,500 permits for gainfully employed third-country nationals — 4,500 B residence permits and 4,000 L short-stay permits (UK nationals have a separate quota of 3,500)1 yr +→ PR path
- 03Schengen short stay (90 days in any 180)Visa-free stayEU citizens, US citizens, UK citizens, Ukrainian citizensTravel document valid for at least three months beyond the intended departure and issued within the previous ten years3 mo
13
Who is Switzerland for?
The same place reads differently depending on why you move. Each lens pulls the facts that matter most for that plan — with sources, and the trade-offs stated plainly.
Contract or freelance in tech, billing clients abroad.
Works in your favour
Internet speed89 Mbps
M-Lab NDT country aggregates for Switzerland
Open data
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2023
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Notes
- Median of the 2023 daily country medians over 343 days and 406,505 tests; monthly medians ran 77.8–102.1 Mbps. 2023 is still the latest full year M-Lab's public stats API carries for Switzerland — the 2024 file stops on 26 March. M-Lab NDT is single-stream and reads far below Ookla-style figures, so compare it only with other countries in this criterion.
English proficiencyHigh
EF EPI 2025 — Switzerland (rank 30/123, score 564, High band)
Research
- Data as of
- Nov 1, 2025
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Notes
- Our band, matching EF's own: 564 points, 30th of 123 countries and up 14 points on the previous edition. Do not read Switzerland as a Nordic-style English country — administration, healthcare and housing run in the local official language, which is German in Zurich and French in Geneva, and the two cities differ sharply in EF's own city scores (Zurich 621, Geneva 555). English gets a professional a long way inside international employers and almost nowhere inside a cantonal office.
Domestic delivery qualityExcellent
Die Schweizerische Post — Finanzbericht 2024 (Zugangspunkte) und My Post 24
Official source
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Sep 9, 2026
- Method
- Inputs: A-Post priority mail must arrive on the working day after posting, everywhere in the country; Swiss Post reports over 5,000 access points in its 2024 financial report, of which about 2,000 are staffed, plus 770 Postomaten, 563 drop-off and collection points in retailers such as Migros, and 14,077 letter boxes; tracking is standard on parcels.
- Notes
- The one part of the definition Switzerland does not meet on its own terms is the parcel-locker network: 303 My Post 24 terminals for nine million people is thin next to the locker-first markets in this dataset, where the count runs into five figures. What Switzerland has instead is an unusually dense network of STAFFED counters and retail collection points, which does the same job with different opening hours. Rated excellent on speed, coverage and tracking, with that caveat visible rather than averaged away.
Watch-outs
Freelancer tax burden27.8%
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Jan 1, 2026
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Method
- Scheme ch-einzelfirma-zurich at €60,000 revenue with 10% expenses, converted at the 2026-08-13 ECB rate (1 EUR = 0.9373 CHF) to CHF 56,238 revenue and CHF 50,614 profit. Levies: family-allowance contribution CHF 519 + AHV/IV/EO CHF 3,927 (7.840%, the degressive band that applies below CHF 60,500) + direct federal tax CHF 300 + compulsory KVG health insurance CHF 7,678 + Zurich cantonal and communal tax CHF 3,184 = CHF 15,608 of CHF 56,238 = 27.75%.
- Notes
- TWO NUMBERS HIDE INSIDE THIS ONE. Swiss income tax at this level is very light — federal tax is CHF 300 on a CHF 50,600 profit — and social contributions are only 7.8% here, because the AHV scale is degressive below CHF 60,500 and the self-employed pay no unemployment or occupational-pension contribution. Nearly half the burden is the compulsory health premium, a flat CHF 7,678 that does not scale with income at all. That makes the Swiss figure unusually sensitive to the profile: at CHF 150,000 of revenue the same scheme comes out at 27.5%, LOWER than at CHF 80,000 (30.6%). It is also a Zurich number: the cantonal and communal share is set by the commune, and other Swiss communes would move this by several points.
Cost of living (single, excl. rent)$2,028/mo
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2023
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Method
- Basket built from the 2023 Swiss household budget survey, per household per month in CHF: food and non-alcoholic drinks 637.76 + restaurants and cafés 427.20 (COICOP 531, excluding the 131.28 spent on accommodation) + service charges and energy of the main residence 271.46 (5712 + 5713, so the utilities without the 1,081.64 of net rent) + household goods and running the home 201.16 + clothing and footwear 160.60 + transport 743.53 + communications 161.81 + recreation, entertainment and culture 488.23 + other goods and services 319.26 = 3,411.01. Divided by the survey's own mean household size of 2.07 persons = CHF 1,647.83 per person per month, converted at 1 CHF = 1.2306 USD (ECB rates of 2026-08-13) = $2,028. Excluded: rent, alcohol and tobacco, out-of-pocket health spending, insurance premiums, taxes and social contributions.
- Notes
- Two things to hold against this figure. It is a PER-CAPITA share of average household spending, not a measured single-person budget, and a person living alone carries utilities, communications and household costs that a two-person household splits — so a real single in Zurich or Geneva will spend more than this. And it is 2023 data, the latest the survey publishes, with no inflation uplift applied. Health insurance is deliberately outside the basket even though it is compulsory, because it is carried separately by healthcare-private-cost and by the tax burden; add roughly $650/month for it if you want the all-in figure.
Relocating with a partner and school-age children.
Works in your favour
Homicide rate0.5/100k
Eurostat — police-recorded intentional homicide (crim_off_cat, ICCS0101, unit P_HTHAB)
Open data
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Notes
- 0.50 per 100,000 in 2024, at the very bottom of the European range and stable: the series has moved between 0.48 and 0.71 every year since 2008 with no trend.
English proficiencyHigh
EF EPI 2025 — Switzerland (rank 30/123, score 564, High band)
Research
- Data as of
- Nov 1, 2025
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Notes
- Our band, matching EF's own: 564 points, 30th of 123 countries and up 14 points on the previous edition. Do not read Switzerland as a Nordic-style English country — administration, healthcare and housing run in the local official language, which is German in Zurich and French in Geneva, and the two cities differ sharply in EF's own city scores (Zurich 621, Geneva 555). English gets a professional a long way inside international employers and almost nowhere inside a cantonal office.
Watch-outs
Private healthcare cost$8,437/yr
Official source
- Data as of
- Jan 1, 2026
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Method
- Median of the 1,032 approved 2026 premiums across 34 insurers for an adult (age class 26+) on the standard model with free choice of doctor, the lowest CHF 300 franchise and accident cover included: CHF 571.35/month = CHF 6,856/year = $8,437 at 1 CHF = 1.2306 USD (ECB rates of 2026-08-13). Not a sample of three quotes — Switzerland approves and publishes every premium, so this is the whole population of them.
- Notes
- Switzerland is the one country in this dataset where the 'private insurance' figure is not optional: KVG/LAMal basic cover is a legal duty for every resident, so this number is a bill, not a choice, and it is already counted inside the freelancer tax burden. It buys more than the criterion asks for — there is no benefit ceiling at all, where the criterion assumes ~$100k. It is also the maximum-price configuration: the official enrolment-weighted average premium actually paid by adults in 2026 is CHF 465.30/month ($6,873/year) because most people take a restricted-choice model and a higher franchise, and the cheapest standard-model quote in the country is CHF 70/month lower than the median. City medians on the same basis: Zurich CHF 639.80/month, Bern CHF 681.50, Geneva CHF 752.20 — Geneva costs 18% more than Zurich for the same legal cover.
Optimising tax, banking and crypto rules.
Works in your favour
Crypto regulationLegal friendly
Official source
- Data as of
- Jan 1, 2026
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Notes
- Holding and trading are legal and the tax treatment is published rather than improvised: the Federal Tax Administration's working paper sets out that gains realised by a private individual managing private assets are TAX-FREE capital gains (Art. 16 Abs. 3 DBG), while the holding itself is subject to the annual wealth tax at its 31 December market value, and losses are correspondingly non-deductible. The exemption is not unconditional — where the scale, financing and frequency of trading go beyond private wealth management the activity is reclassified as self-employment and the gains become taxable income, which is the line to watch if you trade actively. Mining and staking rewards are income, not exempt gains.
Financial control levelLow
Bundesgesetz über die Bekämpfung der Geldwäscherei und der Terrorismusfinanzierung (GwG, SR 955.0)
Official source
- Data as of
- Jan 1, 2026
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Method
- Inputs weighed: no exchange or capital controls on the movement of personal funds in or out of the country; no general legal ceiling on cash payments, only anti-money-laundering due-diligence duties on dealers and financial intermediaries under the GwG; residents declare worldwide income and worldwide net wealth in the annual cantonal return, and Switzerland exchanges account information automatically under the OECD standard.
- Notes
- Low control over the movement of money, but not low visibility. Two things surprise newcomers: the annual return asks for your WORLDWIDE assets, because the cantons levy a wealth tax on net assets, so there is a reporting duty here that most countries do not have; and opening an account is easy for a resident but often refused or heavily priced for non-residents, so 'Swiss bank account' is not something you arrange before you move.
Watch-outs
Freelancer tax burden27.8%
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Jan 1, 2026
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Method
- Scheme ch-einzelfirma-zurich at €60,000 revenue with 10% expenses, converted at the 2026-08-13 ECB rate (1 EUR = 0.9373 CHF) to CHF 56,238 revenue and CHF 50,614 profit. Levies: family-allowance contribution CHF 519 + AHV/IV/EO CHF 3,927 (7.840%, the degressive band that applies below CHF 60,500) + direct federal tax CHF 300 + compulsory KVG health insurance CHF 7,678 + Zurich cantonal and communal tax CHF 3,184 = CHF 15,608 of CHF 56,238 = 27.75%.
- Notes
- TWO NUMBERS HIDE INSIDE THIS ONE. Swiss income tax at this level is very light — federal tax is CHF 300 on a CHF 50,600 profit — and social contributions are only 7.8% here, because the AHV scale is degressive below CHF 60,500 and the self-employed pay no unemployment or occupational-pension contribution. Nearly half the burden is the compulsory health premium, a flat CHF 7,678 that does not scale with income at all. That makes the Swiss figure unusually sensitive to the profile: at CHF 150,000 of revenue the same scheme comes out at 27.5%, LOWER than at CHF 80,000 (30.6%). It is also a Zurich number: the cantonal and communal share is set by the commune, and other Swiss communes would move this by several points.
Prioritising safety, air, and an easy daily life.
Works in your favour
Homicide rate0.5/100k
Eurostat — police-recorded intentional homicide (crim_off_cat, ICCS0101, unit P_HTHAB)
Open data
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Notes
- 0.50 per 100,000 in 2024, at the very bottom of the European range and stable: the series has moved between 0.48 and 0.71 every year since 2008 with no trend.
Domestic delivery qualityExcellent
Die Schweizerische Post — Finanzbericht 2024 (Zugangspunkte) und My Post 24
Official source
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Sep 9, 2026
- Method
- Inputs: A-Post priority mail must arrive on the working day after posting, everywhere in the country; Swiss Post reports over 5,000 access points in its 2024 financial report, of which about 2,000 are staffed, plus 770 Postomaten, 563 drop-off and collection points in retailers such as Migros, and 14,077 letter boxes; tracking is standard on parcels.
- Notes
- The one part of the definition Switzerland does not meet on its own terms is the parcel-locker network: 303 My Post 24 terminals for nine million people is thin next to the locker-first markets in this dataset, where the count runs into five figures. What Switzerland has instead is an unusually dense network of STAFFED counters and retail collection points, which does the same job with different opening hours. Rated excellent on speed, coverage and tracking, with that caveat visible rather than averaged away.
Watch-outs
Cost of living (single, excl. rent)$2,028/mo
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2023
- Verified
- Sep 8, 2026
- Method
- Basket built from the 2023 Swiss household budget survey, per household per month in CHF: food and non-alcoholic drinks 637.76 + restaurants and cafés 427.20 (COICOP 531, excluding the 131.28 spent on accommodation) + service charges and energy of the main residence 271.46 (5712 + 5713, so the utilities without the 1,081.64 of net rent) + household goods and running the home 201.16 + clothing and footwear 160.60 + transport 743.53 + communications 161.81 + recreation, entertainment and culture 488.23 + other goods and services 319.26 = 3,411.01. Divided by the survey's own mean household size of 2.07 persons = CHF 1,647.83 per person per month, converted at 1 CHF = 1.2306 USD (ECB rates of 2026-08-13) = $2,028. Excluded: rent, alcohol and tobacco, out-of-pocket health spending, insurance premiums, taxes and social contributions.
- Notes
- Two things to hold against this figure. It is a PER-CAPITA share of average household spending, not a measured single-person budget, and a person living alone carries utilities, communications and household costs that a two-person household splits — so a real single in Zurich or Geneva will spend more than this. And it is 2023 data, the latest the survey publishes, with no inflation uplift applied. Health insurance is deliberately outside the basket even though it is compulsory, because it is carried separately by healthcare-private-cost and by the tax burden; add roughly $650/month for it if you want the all-in figure.
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Cities
2 cities
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Video reviews
Hand-picked YouTube tours and living-here guides — each one checked to still play.
What’s it really like to live in Switzerland?
MrGeo · A grounded tour of daily life
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