Switzerland Withholding tax rates
Switzerland Withholding tax rates: no single figure applies. The reason is set out below, cited to the governing instrument. Last checked against the official source on 10 Aug 2026.
The federal withholding tax (Verrechnungssteuer / impôt anticipé) Switzerland levies at source on income from movable capital - dividends and similar profit distributions, and interest on domestic bonds and bank deposits - at its domestic statutory rate before any double-tax agreement relief. Switzerland levies NO withholding tax on royalties and none on ordinary loan or intercompany interest, because those payments are absent from the charging provision. Levied under the Verrechnungssteuergesetz (VStG, SR 642.21) and administered by the Eidgenössische Steuerverwaltung (ESTV/AFC).
Compare withholding tax rates across all 34 European countries →
| Current value | structured — see the API |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2023-02-01 |
| Official source | Bundesgesetz über die Verrechnungssteuer (VStG, SR 642.21), consolidated text in force, Fedlex - Art. 4 Abs. 1 (charging provision) and Art. 13 Abs. 1: 'Die Steuer beträgt: a. auf Kapitalerträgen und auf Gewinnen aus Geldspielen ... 35 Prozent der steuerbaren Leistung' (EN: 'The tax amounts to: a. on capital income and on gambling winnings ... 35 per cent of the taxable payment') |
| Last verified | 2026-08-10 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
THERE IS NO SINGLE WITHHOLDING TAX RATE, WHICH IS WHY value IS NULL. Switzerland applies one 35% rate to some payment heads (dividends; interest on domestic bonds and bank deposits) and 0% to others (ordinary loan/intercompany interest; all royalties), because the Verrechnungssteuer charging provision (VStG Art. 4) enumerates taxable payments exhaustively and royalties and ordinary interest are simply not in it. A caller wanting a number must name which payment type; read withholding_rates rather than expecting a headline figure. ALL RATES ARE DOMESTIC STATUTORY RATES, BEFORE TREATY RELIEF. A double-tax agreement can reduce the 35% substantially, and Swiss practice for non-residents is normally deduct-then-refund: the payer withholds 35% and the foreign recipient reclaims the treaty-excess from the ESTV (for qualifying intragroup dividends a reporting procedure can replace withholding). We do NOT serve treaty rates: they are bilateral, run to thousands of country pairs, and applying one is a legal determination rather than a lookup. Additionally, although Switzerland is EFTA and not an EU member, Art. 9 of the CH-EU agreement (formerly the Savings Agreement, now the AEOI agreement) gives parent-subsidiary style relief - 0% on dividends between qualifying CH/EU associated companies (>=25% holding, 2 years) - noted here as RELIEF, not as a rate. The series effective_from 2023-02-01 is the in-force date of the consolidated VStG version quoted; it is NOT the commencement of the 35% rate, which has stood for decades (commonly documented as since 1976) - we do not assert a commencement date our primary source does not state.
Get it programmatically
curl https://euroref.dev/v1/ch/withholding-tax
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://euroref.dev/v1/ch/withholding-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://euroref.dev/provenance/ch/withholding-taxOther Switzerland series: SNB policy rate (SNB-Leitzins) · Statutory default interest (Verzugszins) · MWST/TVA standard rate (Normalsatz) · VAT registration threshold · National statutory minimum wage · Public holidays · CPI inflation (year-on-year) · Corporate income tax rate (federal, direkte Bundessteuer) · Personal income tax brackets (federal, direkte Bundessteuer) · Statutory social-insurance contributions
The same figure elsewhere: Türkiye · Ukraine · United Kingdom · Austria · Belgium · all 34