This week, Switzerland’s lower house has narrowly backed a temporary VAT rise to finance the country’s new 13th month of state pension, reported SRF. Wage contributions are off the table and the National Council, Switzerland’s parliament, agreed only to lift VAT by 0.7 percentage points until the end of 2030. That vote puts an end […]
Switzerland’s housing squeeze tightens as vacancy rate hits 1%
Finding a home in Switzerland is getting harder. For the fifth year in a row the share of vacant flats has fallen, slipping to 1%. In other words, 99% of the country’s housing stock is now occupied. The broad region with the most acute crunch is Vaud and Geneva, but shortages are country wide. According […]
Swiss upper house says no to daycare initiative
Switzerland’s Council of States has rejected a popular initiative on subsidised childcare but endorsed a watered-down alternative, reported SRF. The initiative, backed by the Social Democrats, Greens, Centre Party, Green Liberals and trade unions, would entitle every child from the age of three months until the end of primary school to supplementary childcare. Parents’ contributions […]
Swiss government rejects call to double price of the motorway vignette
This week, Switzerland’s government rejected a call to double the price of the motorway vignette, reported RTS. The annual permit, which has cost CHF 40 since 1995, will not rise to CHF 80, as proposed by Martin Candinas, a centrist MP from Graubünden. He had argued that the increase should be coupled with a matching […]
Swiss rents set to rise sharply in coming years
Swiss tenants face steep rent increases in the coming years. According to Martin Tschirren, head of the Federal Housing Office, advertised rents are likely to climb by 3–5% annually. Demand for housing continues to outstrip supply, he told the NZZ am Sonntag on 25 August 2025, as his office released its latest housing market data. […]
Switzerland’s higher state pensions to be financed with VAT increase
In March 2024 Swiss voters approved, by 58%, a plan to grant pensioners a 13th monthly payment. That set off a quarrel over how to fund it. This week the National Council’s social-security committee backed a scheme to finance the extra benefit solely through a 0.7 percentage point rise in value-added tax, reported SRF. The […]
Swiss jobs market: more workers, more jobless
Switzerland’s labour market looked both buoyant and brittle in the second quarter of 2025. Employment edged up, but unemployment did too, according to a report published by the Federal Statistical Office this week. The number of people in work rose by 0.6% year on year to 5.36m, according to the Federal Statistical Office. Adjusted for […]
Bern rejects extra emergency-room charge
This week, Bern decided patients who turn up at accident-and-emergency units with trivial complaints should not face extra charges, reported RTS. On Wednesday it rejected a parliamentary proposal to let cantons impose a levy on such visits, arguing it would add bureaucracy without easing pressure on hospitals. The idea came from Thomas Weibel, a former […]
The F-35 fiasco – price hikes, tariffs, and US intransigence
Washington has refused to guarantee a fixed price for Switzerland’s 36 F-35 fighter jets, reported RTS. The total bill will therefore exceed the CHF 6 billion approved by voters. After weeks of talks with senior White House officials—including a call between America’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, and Switzerland’s defence minister, Martin Pfister—the United States has […]
Swiss government urges voters to back a tax on second homes to axe imputed rent
The Federal Council and Parliament urge voters to back, on 28 September 2025, a constitutional change that would let cantons levy a special property tax on owner-occupied second homes. The measure is a prerequisite for a wider reform of housing taxation that would scrap the “imputed rent” now charged to home owners. At a press […]
