VAT, UID, bookkeeping, audit: four thresholds

VAT: CHF 100,000

Liability becomes mandatory from CHF 100,000 of annual turnover, earned in Switzerland and abroad, on supplies not excluded from the tax. And not only once the limit is reached: as soon as it is obvious, at the start of the activity, that it will be.

• Standard rate 8.1%, the rule.
• Reduced rate 2.6%, food, medicines, books and newspapers, among others.
• Special rate 3.8%, accommodation, breakfast included.

Below the threshold, voluntary registration remains possible, and often advantageous as soon as your clients are themselves VAT-registered, because it lets you recover the VAT paid on your purchases. A painter buying CHF 30,000 of materials a year leaves more than CHF 2,000 with the State by staying outside VAT.

The UID: you already have it

The business identification number is assigned automatically by the Federal Statistical Office as soon as an authority reports your company, registration in the commercial register triggers it. It is published in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce and replaces the old register number. There is nothing to request; it follows you with every administration.

Bookkeeping: CHF 500,000

Two regimes, and the line is clear.

• Full accounts, balance sheet, income statement, notes, for every legal entity (Sàrl, SA), and for a sole proprietorship or partnership whose turnover in the last financial year exceeds CHF 500,000.
• Simplified accounts, receipts, expenses, statement of assets, for a sole proprietorship or partnership below that threshold.

In both cases, books and records are kept for ten years. A supplier invoice from 2026 must be producible in 2036.

Audit: ten jobs

An Sàrl and an SA must in principle have their accounts reviewed by an auditor. But they may waive it, the opting-out, on two cumulative conditions: the agreement of all members or shareholders, and a headcount not exceeding ten full-time jobs on annual average.

The waiver holds for the following years, but any member may demand a limited audit up to ten days before the general meeting. For a small company, opting out is the norm; it still has to be decided and registered.

And the tax itself

A sole proprietorship has no tax of its own: its profit is added to the owner's private income, in their personal return. An Sàrl or an SA pays tax on profit and on capital, to the canton and municipality of its seat , hence the importance of the registered office. Dividends it then pays are subject to withholding tax, which the company retains and the shareholder recovers by declaring the dividend.

Rates are not given here: they vary from one canton and municipality to another, and that is one of the real criteria for choosing the seat.