Starting an Einzelfirma in Switzerland, step by step

An Einzelfirma - raison individuelle, ditta individuale - is one person trading on their own account. No notarial deed, no founding meeting, no paid-in capital: the minimum capital for a sole proprietorship is CHF 0. The trade-off is that the business and the person are one legal entity, so business debts reach private assets. If limited liability matters more than simplicity, the usual alternative is a GmbH, whose minimum share capital is CHF 20'000. This guide does not cover that route.

Einzelfirma

The sole proprietorship. It exists from the moment you work on your own account, not from a filing date.

Ausgleichskasse

The cantonal compensation office. It decides whether you count as self-employed, and collects AHV, IV and EO.

Handelsregister

The cantonal commercial register. Compulsory at CHF 100'000 of turnover, voluntary below it.

MWST

Swiss VAT. Liability starts at CHF 100'000 of taxable turnover, measured over a rolling twelve months.

1. 1

   Choose the firm name

   It must contain your family name. Anything you add - a trade, a place, an invented word - has to be true and must not mislead.

2. 2

   Register with the compensation office

   Report the activity to your cantonal Ausgleichskasse. Its decision that you are self-employed is what turns an intention into a status, and it is not optional.

3. 3

   Decide on the commercial register

   Compulsory at CHF 100'000 of turnover. Below that it is voluntary: a decision about visibility and about the duties that follow the entry.

4. 4

   Check where you stand on MWST

   Below CHF 100'000 of taxable turnover you invoice without MWST. Once the rolling twelve-month view reaches the line, you have 30 days to notify liability.

5. 5

   Arrange your insurance

   AHV, IV and EO are compulsory. Unemployment insurance is not available to you at all. Accident cover, daily sickness, a pension fund and Säule 3a are yours to decide.

6. 6

   Open a business bank account

   Nothing forces a sole proprietor to hold one, but ten years of records are easier to keep when private and business movements are separate. This IBAN is what your QR-Rechnung prints.

7. 7

   Issue the first invoice

   The firm name, the UID if you have one, the MWST number if you are registered, and a QR-bill carrying a structured reference so the payment comes back matched.

The firm name of a sole proprietorship must contain the family name of the holder, with or without a first name. That is the part you cannot design around. Everything else is an addition, allowed as long as it is true and does not mislead.

• A pure fantasy name is not a valid firm name for an Einzelfirma.
• Additions are permitted: a first name, a trade, a place, a descriptive word.
• An addition implying a legal form you do not have, or work you do not do, is not.
• The cantonal register office decides. Check the register before anything is printed.

You report the activity to the cantonal Ausgleichskasse and it examines whether what you do is self-employment: your own invoices, your own equipment, several clients, your own economic risk. If it says yes, contributions start. If it says no, whoever pays you is an employer and owes social contributions on the payment - a conversation better had before the work than after it.

• At the full rate, AHV, IV and EO together come to 10.0% of income (8.1 + 1.4 + 0.5).
• Below CHF 60'500 a declining scale applies, from a floor of 5.371% under CHF 10'100.
• The minimum annual contribution is CHF 530.
• Instalments fall due 10 days after each period ends, the annual settlement within 30 days.
• Late payment carries interest at 5%.

Solory's calculator applies that scale for 2025 and 2026, names the year of official figures it used and labels the result an estimate. It refuses a year it has no figures for rather than extrapolating one, stores nothing per user and files nothing anywhere. The compensation office issues the binding figure.

Below CHF 100'000 the simplified regime is enough - the Milchbüechlirechnung - and that is the regime Solory is built for: an Erfolgsrechnung and a tax report drawn from your invoices, payments and expenses. It is not double-entry bookkeeping. No chart of accounts, no journal, no ledger, no balance sheet. Above the full-accounting line you need software or a Treuhänder that does those things.

Liability begins when turnover from taxable supplies reaches CHF 100'000 over a rolling twelve months. From then you have 30 days to notify the ESTV, and registration is something a person does, not software. The rates in force since 1 January 2024 are 8.1% standard, 2.6% reduced and 3.8% for lodging.

Then a method. Under the effective method you deduct input tax and file quarterly, each return and its payment due 60 days after the period ends. Under the Saldosteuersatz you apply one net rate to turnover, deduct no input tax and file semi-annually; it is open up to CHF 5'024'000 of turnover and CHF 108'000 of tax. Annual reporting carries minimum instalments of CHF 500 effective and CHF 1'000 saldo.

Solory watches the line, with conditions worth knowing: it counts sent, paid and overdue invoices only, over a rolling twelve months, and excludes foreign-currency invoices rather than guessing a rate. It warns from 80% of the threshold and names both the MWST registration and the register entry once you are over. It does not register you and does not contact the ESTV.

AHV is compulsory, ALV unavailable. The order most people work through is accident cover first, because the cover that came with employment ends with the employment, then loss of earnings through illness, then retirement.

Säule 3a is the part with a figure and a hard date attached. Without a second pillar you may pay in up to 20% of net earned income, capped at CHF 36'288 for 2026; with a second pillar the cap is CHF 7'258. The money has to be with the provider by 31 December.

Solory computes that ceiling from your own booked revenue and expenses rather than asking you to type a profit. In a loss year it says there is no 3a base yet and prints the real measured figure. If the year contains foreign-currency invoices it produces no number at all and explains why, because an over-contribution has to be withdrawn and loses the deduction.

By now the earlier steps have decided most of the content: your firm name and address, the client's, what you supplied and when, the amount, and - if you are registered - the MWST number and rate. A Swiss QR-bill on its own page is what makes it payable with TWINT or any Swiss banking app.

• The QR-bill is appended as its own page, payment part and receipt at 210 x 105 mm, so the payer can detach it.
• A structured reference is always attached: QRR from a QR-IBAN, an ISO 11649 Creditor Reference from an ordinary IBAN, so the payment matches back.
• It is skipped, with the missing field named on screen, when the IBAN is not a valid CH or LI one, the address is incomplete, the creditor name is missing, or the currency is not CHF or EUR.
• The document speaks its own language - English, German, French, Italian or Hungarian - taken from the invoice, then the client, then the account.
• Unbilled time entries become line items at the project rate, for one client at a time, and the preview beside the form is the real PDF.

• Solory files nothing with anybody: no eMWST submission, no tax return, no AHV declaration. You or your Treuhänder file.
• It does not register your Einzelfirma, enter you in the commercial register or contact the ESTV.
• It is not double-entry bookkeeping and not a replacement for a Treuhänder.
• It gives no legal or tax advice, and says so on every calculator and compliance surface.
• No bank connection. Statements arrive as a camt.053 or camt.054 file you export yourself, and that import is Business plan only.
• Expenses are booked in Swiss francs only; a mixed-currency year disables the tax-report export rather than inventing a rate.
• The assistant drafts and waits. It shows exactly what it would change and acts only after you confirm, and sending an email is not something it can do at all.