ERP and accounting software for Switzerland: VAT, QR-bill

Swiss compliance in one view

Keeping the books of a Swiss business means charging Swiss VAT at 8.1%, 2.6% or 3.8%, filing a return with the Federal Tax Administration within 60 days of each quarter, issuing QR-bills for payment, keeping ten years of records, and preparing accounts under the Code of Obligations. There is no B2B e-invoicing mandate. It matters because Swiss rules sit outside the EU framework that most software is built for.

The Swiss Federal Tax Administration, known as ESTV in German and AFC in French and Italian, administers VAT, with filing through its ePortal, and supervises the direct federal tax, which the cantons assess and collect. Income and profit taxes are also levied by the 26 cantons and their municipalities, which is why Swiss tax is genuinely regional in a way VAT is not. Social security runs through AHV compensation funds and cantonal family allowance funds.

This page sets out what those rules require as of September 2026, where a finance system helps or hinders, and what Skyline Nexus ERP covers for a Swiss business today and what is being rolled out.

• Tax authority: ESTV / AFC, filing through the ePortal
• Currency: Swiss franc; standard VAT rate 8.1%
• Accounts: Code of Obligations; Swiss GAAP FER or IFRS where chosen or required
• Retention: ten years under Article 958f
• E-invoicing: B2G only; no B2B mandate

VAT rates, registration and the Swiss VAT territory

Swiss VAT has three rates, unchanged since 1 January 2024. The standard rate of 8.1% applies to every taxable supply not covered by another rate. The reduced rate of 2.6% covers water, food, livestock, plants, seeds and animal feed, medicines, and newspapers and books without advertising, as well as menstrual hygiene products from 1 January 2025. The special rate of 3.8% covers accommodation, including breakfast when it is part of the price.

A business must register once its turnover from supplies that are not exempt reaches CHF 100,000 in a year, counting supplies made in Switzerland and abroad. Businesses below the threshold can register voluntarily, which lets them recover input VAT. Foreign businesses supplying services in Switzerland register on the same worldwide-turnover test.

The Swiss VAT territory is wider than Switzerland. It includes the Principality of Liechtenstein and the German enclave of Büsingen, while the Graubünden valleys of Samnaun and Sampuoir are treated as Swiss territory for services but as foreign territory for supplies of goods. A system that decides tax treatment from a country code alone will get these cases wrong.

• 8.1% standard rate
• 2.6% reduced rate: food, medicines, books and newspapers
• 3.8% special rate: accommodation
• Registration from CHF 100,000 worldwide taxable turnover
• VAT territory includes Liechtenstein and Büsingen

Filing VAT: periods, methods and the 2025 reform

Swiss VAT is reported per settlement period, normally the calendar quarter, and the return must be filed and the tax paid within 60 days of the end of the period, without a reminder from the ESTV. Returns are filed through the ESTV ePortal.

Smaller businesses can choose the net tax rate method (Saldosteuersatzmethode) if taxable turnover including VAT does not exceed CHF 5,024,000 and the tax payable does not exceed CHF 108,000 a year. They pay VAT at a sector-specific rate on gross turnover, report half-yearly and do not claim input VAT separately. Their invoices still show the statutory rates of 8.1%, 2.6% or 3.8%, not the net tax rate.

The partial VAT reform in force since 1 January 2025 added annual reporting. A business with turnover up to CHF 5,005,000 that has filed and paid on time for the past three years can apply through the ePortal within 60 days of the start of the period, then pays instalments set by the ESTV during the year and files one return by the end of February of the following year. Whichever method applies, the ledger has to keep taxable, exempt and export turnover apart, and hold input tax by rate, because the return reconciles to those totals.

E-invoicing and the QR-bill

Switzerland has no business-to-business e-invoicing or real-time reporting obligation as of September 2026, and none has been legislated. We are not going to invent a deadline. Because Switzerland is outside the EU, the VAT in the Digital Age package does not apply to Swiss domestic supplies, although a Swiss business invoicing EU customers will meet the EU member states' own mandates through its customers.

The public-sector rule is narrower. Since 1 January 2016 the Federal Council has required suppliers to the federal administration to submit electronic invoices when the contract value exceeds CHF 5,000.

What every Swiss business does need is the QR-bill. After a two-year transition, Swiss financial institutions stopped processing the red and orange payment slips on 30 September 2022. An invoice requesting payment now carries a QR-bill payment part, whose Swiss QR code holds the creditor account, amount, currency and a structured payment reference, or it is delivered as an eBill to the customer's online banking. The structured reference is what makes incoming payments matchable to open invoices automatically.

• B2B e-invoicing: not mandated, no legislated date
• Federal administration: e-invoices required above CHF 5,000 since 2016
• QR-bill or eBill: the only payment slips processed since 30 September 2022
• Structured QR reference makes payment matching automatic

Accounting under the Code of Obligations, and audit

Swiss accounting law is in Articles 957 onwards of the Code of Obligations. Companies must keep proper accounts; sole proprietorships and partnerships must do so once revenue reaches CHF 500,000 in the last financial year, and below that simplified records of income, expenses and assets are enough. Bookkeeping must be complete, truthful, systematic and supported by vouchers.

Two rules stand out for software. Books may be kept in Swiss francs or in the currency essential to the business, so a trading company whose revenue is mainly in euros can keep euro books, and they may be kept in any national language or in English. Some companies additionally report under a recognised accounting standard such as Swiss GAAP FER or IFRS.

Audit follows size, not legal form. A company must have an ordinary audit if in two consecutive years it exceeds two of three thresholds: balance sheet total CHF 20 million, revenue CHF 40 million and 250 full-time positions on annual average. Most SMEs have a limited audit instead. A company with no more than 10 full-time employees can opt out of the audit entirely with the consent of all shareholders. Records are kept for ten years from the end of the financial year.

Payroll: AHV, family allowances and tax at source

Swiss employers deduct and pay social insurance through an AHV compensation fund. Old-age, disability and income-compensation contributions (AHV, IV, EO) total 10.6% of salary, split equally between employer and employee, and unemployment insurance (ALV) is also uniform across the country. Occupational pension (BVG), accident insurance and family allowances vary by pension fund, insurer and canton.

Foreign employees without a permanent residence permit, including many cross-border commuters, are taxed at source (Quellensteuer). The employer withholds the tax at the canton's rate and pays it to the cantonal tax administration. At the end of the year every employee receives a salary certificate on the official Form 11, which several cantons also require the employer to send to the tax authorities.

For the ledger, each payroll run produces separate liabilities for social insurance, pension, accident insurance and withholding tax, and where the employer pays family allowances out and settles them with the cantonal fund, the balance with that fund needs its own account.

Cities and regions: where the rules differ

VAT is federal, so a business in Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Bern, Lausanne, Lugano, Zug, Lucerne, St. Gallen or Winterthur charges the same 8.1% and files the same return with the ESTV. What differs by canton is almost everything else.

Profit and capital taxes on companies are set by each canton and municipality on top of the direct federal tax, so the combined tax rate on profits differs between Zug, Zurich, Geneva and every other canton and commune. Tax at source on foreign employees follows the canton's own tariff, and family allowances are paid through cantonal funds at cantonal rates. A company with staff in Geneva and Zurich therefore runs two sets of withholding and allowance rules through one payroll.

Language is the other regional line. Switzerland works in German in Zurich, Basel, Bern and the centre and east, in French in Geneva and Lausanne, and in Italian in Lugano and Ticino, and the Code of Obligations lets the books themselves be kept in any national language or in English. Liechtenstein, next to St. Gallen, sits inside the Swiss VAT territory.

• Cantonal and municipal profit tax on top of federal tax
• Tax at source at cantonal rates
• Family allowances through cantonal funds
• German, French and Italian by region; books may be in English

How Skyline Nexus ERP handles Swiss requirements

Skyline Nexus ERP is a cloud ERP with a double-entry general ledger under Fiscal Authority. When the auto-post switches are on, final sales, purchases, payments, expenses and depreciation post balanced journals in the background, with VAT computed per line and 8.1%, 2.6% and 3.8% set up as separate tax rates. The VAT Return screen prefills tax-exclusive sales and purchase bases and VAT for a date range, ready to be entered on the ESTV ePortal. Posted journals are corrected by reversal, fiscal periods can be closed and locked, and an Accounting Audit Trail records every change with old and new values.

Business locations can represent sites in different cantons, with their own invoice numbering, stock and a branch-filtered trial balance, profit and loss and balance sheet. The interface is available in German, French and Italian among other languages. The ledger is kept in one base currency, and invoices in euros are raised with a manually entered exchange rate; period-end revaluation of foreign-currency balances is posted as a manual journal. Treasury bank reconciliation imports statements in CSV, TXT or Excel format and matches them to the books, and a yearly Audit Pack workbook in Excel supports the ten-year archive.

National connectors are being rolled out market by market, and for Switzerland that programme covers QR-bill and eBill output and Peppol delivery for federal suppliers: tell us your country and we will confirm your go-live date. Until then, the QR-bill payment part comes from the bank's or a specialist QR-bill tool. Swiss payroll, AHV, tax at source and Form 11 run in Swiss payroll software or through a payroll partner, with the monthly journal posted to the ledger.

Rates, regimes and deadlines in this summary change, and many countries are actively legislating on e-invoicing. This is general information, not tax or legal advice — confirm the current position with the authority named above or with your tax adviser before you rely on it.