Times are changing. We see this more and more every day. Not so long ago, the Swiss could boast of operating in a legal environment conducive to business law. Everything was aligned: simplicity of the law, respect for privacy, protection of confidentiality, and proactive administrative services to promote entrepreneurial activity.
It is clear that this rosy picture is now increasingly a thing of the past.
According to a very recent study, bureaucracy is holding back the economy and costs around CHF 30 billion each year. Reducing certain regulations would not only make the country more competitive, but also free up capacity equivalent to more than 55,000 full-time jobs[1] .
The Swiss Federal Council has recognized this and very recently, at its meeting on November 26, 2025[2] , adopted a package of concrete measures aimed at easing the regulatory burden on businesses. According to its press release, “the new measures adopted include administrative relief in the areas of VAT, withholding tax and stamp duty, permits relating to working hours and notice of reduced working hours, and, for businesses that are large consumers of electricity, simplifications for the reimbursement of network surcharges and electricity reserve costs.”
This confirmation is commendable. However, it should be noted that the Federal Act on the Reduction of Regulatory Costs for Businesses (LACRE – effective April1, 2024) already requires the Federal Council and Parliament to estimate the regulatory costs for businesses in advance of each legislative project and to examine possibilities for simplification. Unfortunately, attitudes are not changing fast enough and urgent action is now needed.
Over time, the administrative burden on businesses has increased inexorably, and Switzerland’s economy, like a frog in a pot of boiling water, risks being completely scalded in this overly harsh environment.
As business law firm promoting the legal advancement of our clients’ businesses, we see evidence of this every day.
Our foreign clients suffer particularly from this, right from the outset. We are sorry to have to explain to them that Switzerland is no longer an exception and that they will have to face a very rigid and overly restrictive web of administrative hurdles in carrying out their entrepreneurial projects, right from the moment they arrive in Switzerland.
Here are a few examples, taking the case of a foreign company based in the European Union that wishes to open a subsidiary in Switzerland as an operating company in this market or elsewhere:
Opening a bank account is essential for two reasons when setting up a new company in Switzerland. Firstly, a deposit account must be opened in order to pay in the share capital of the company to be formed. This is not usually a problem in itself, as local banks are relatively willing to open such accounts.
Things get more complicated in the second phase, which involves converting this escrow account into an operational bank account. Not only is this much more complicated, but it also takes much longer. All banks based in Switzerland are extremely cautious about accepting to open an account in the name of a newly formed subsidiary of a foreign company. They now want to ensure that the account is not available to a domiciliary company with no commercial activity in Switzerland, but is actually opened in the name of an operational company conducting business in Switzerland. To do this, they will request a wide range of information depending on the concerns of their compliance department. The process can often take more than six months if it proceeds without interruption. In this regard, cantonal banks are not the most liberal, despite their semi-public status.
Registering the new company in the Swiss Commercial Register is mandatory. Unfortunately, this administration, which should be at the service of the public, now seems intent on creating obstacles and hurdles under various pretexts: authentication of signatures, legalization of signatures, correction of addresses, additions to various entries. Registrations are rejected and returned to the sender without further ado and, above all, without any justification based on any legal basis whatsoever, whether in the Code of Obligations or in the Federal Ordinance on the Commercial Register. It is a case of David versus Goliath, and agents are often reluctant to protest because they know that if they do, their file will be placed at the bottom of the pile, inevitably causing a delay of several weeks or more. Needless to say, it is very difficult to get through to members of this administration by telephone.
As soon as the company is registered in the Commercial Register, the members of its board of directors are inundated with threatening letters from the various local AVS funds, regardless of whether or not they have decided to hire employees. Other players also make themselves known through their endless solicitations, such as SUVA or the cantonal fire insurance company, regardless of whether the company is active in “the commercial sector” (as stated in the SUVA questionnaire) or whether premises have been rented or are owned by the company.
The extremely cautious attitude of landlords in this regard is regrettable. Not only do they often require a rent guarantee exceeding six months, but they also demand a personal guarantee from the newly formed company’s representative who is a natural person domiciled in Switzerland. There is no legal basis for this requirement. Anyone who has the misfortune to protest will be permanently blacklisted by the landlord in question, with no possibility of discussion or negotiation.
At both the federal and cantonal levels, Swiss tax authorities are quick to overwhelm new companies with a flood of forms and notifications. However, the company has no obligation to act hastily. It simply has to comply with its tax obligations in a timely manner.
As we can see, not only has Swiss regulation increased considerably in all areas of law, but the mentality of the authorities further accentuates this trend. It is therefore not enough to draft a new law to simplify the laws; it is also, and above all, necessary to change mentalities.
Awareness and a change of mindset are needed within all administrative departments. To achieve this, as in the story of the hummingbird, beautifully told by Pierre Rabhi[3] , based on an Amerindian legend, every economic, legal, and administrative actor at all levels—federal, cantonal, and municipal—can make a difference. The survival of Switzerland’s competitiveness as a business location depends on it.
[1] https://www.letemps.ch/economie/la-bureaucratie-couterait-30-milliards-de-francs-a-l-economie-suisse
[2] https://www.news.admin.ch/fr/newnsb/IthGy5linP3WF-drdHtNh
[3] https://ecole-publique-medreac.ac-rennes.fr/sites/ecole-publique-medreac.ac-rennes.fr/IMG/pdf/colibri-conte.pdf
