Employer of record or your own Swiss entity

You do not need a Swiss company to hire in Switzerland, but you do need a Swiss employer, and an employer of record is one. What most comparisons leave out is that an employer of record in Switzerland is staff leasing under the Arbeitsvermittlungsgesetz: it needs a cantonal licence, an entry in the Swiss commercial register and a deposit of at least CHF 50'000, and staff leasing from abroad into Switzerland is not permitted at all.

Hiring one person in Basel does not require a Swiss company. It does require a Swiss employer: an entity registered with a compensation office, affiliated to a pension fund and an accident insurer, deducting the right amounts every month and settling them in the right canton. The question is never whether that employer exists. It is whether it is you.

Most comparisons of the two routes stop at price and speed. The more useful line runs elsewhere: one of the two routes is a regulated, licensed activity under federal law, and the other is not.

What is identical on both routes

The payslip does not know which route you chose. Whoever the employer is, the Swiss social insurance machinery applies in the same way.

The employer pays contributions to its compensation office, its pension fund and its accident insurer, and withholds the employee's share from wages. It carries half of the AHV, IV and EO contribution and at least half of the occupational pension contribution. It owes the occupational accident premium, while the employee pays the non-occupational one. All of that is federal and canton-blind.

One line is not canton-blind. Family allowance contributions follow the canton in which the employer has its seat, and the family compensation fund it belongs to. With your own entity that is your canton. With an employer of record it is the provider's. On a mid-level salary the difference between the cheapest and the most expensive cantonal rate is worth more than a month of pension contributions, which is why the cantons guide is worth reading before you pick a route.

Employment law is identical too. Notice periods, probation, the 13th salary and holiday entitlement come from the Obligationenrecht and the contract, not from the corporate structure. Our employment law basics and notice periods guides apply unchanged to an employee on an employer of record contract.

What the employer actually pays in 2026

These are the rates the Anstell calculator applies for 2026. Occupational accident and daily sickness premiums vary by industry and insurer, so treat those two lines as indicative.

Take a salary of CHF 120'000 and an employee aged 38. The coordinated salary is CHF 120'000 less the coordination deduction of CHF 26'460, which gives CHF 93'540, capped at the maximum coordinated salary of CHF 64'260. At the 10 percent rate for ages 35 to 44 the annual pension premium is CHF 6'426, of which the employer carries at least CHF 3'213.

Roughly twelve to thirteen percent on top of gross, then, and the whole cantonal spread in this example sits in one line worth CHF 1'434 a year. Whichever route you take, this cost is the same. Nobody escapes it by choosing a structure.

Only one of the two routes is a licensed activity

Here is the part that rarely appears in vendor comparisons. An employer who commercially makes employees available to a client business is a lender within the meaning of Art. 12 of the Arbeitsvermittlungsgesetz, and needs an operating licence from the cantonal labour office. That is precisely what an employer of record does: it employs the person and places them with your business.

The consequences are concrete.

• The licence comes from the cantonal labour office. A branch in a canton other than the head office needs its own licence; a branch in the same canton must at least be notified. Leasing staff abroad requires an additional licence from SECO, limited to named countries.
• To get the licence the business must be entered in the Swiss commercial register, hold suitable business premises, and run no other trade that could endanger the interests of employees or client businesses. The people responsible for management must be Swiss citizens or foreigners holding a settlement permit, must offer a guarantee of proper conduct, and must be of good repute. They are named individually in the licence.
• The lender must lodge a deposit to secure wage claims. It is CHF 50'000 per lender, rising to CHF 100'000 if more than 60'000 assignment hours were leased in the previous calendar year, plus a further CHF 50'000 for lenders who also lease abroad, up to CHF 1'000'000 for a head office and its branches.
• Where a generally binding collective agreement covers the sector, the lender must hand the joint committee everything needed to check that local pay and working conditions are respected. Where there is none, the same duty runs to the cantonal tripartite commission.
• The licence fee itself is modest: CHF 750 to CHF 1'650 depending on how much work the authority has, and CHF 220 to CHF 850 for a change to an existing licence.

And one sentence that decides a lot of architecture questions: Art. 12 para. 2 states that staff leasing from abroad into Switzerland is not permitted. A foreign company cannot employ someone in Germany or Ireland and lease them to a Swiss client. The employing entity has to be in Switzerland and hold a Swiss licence.

Checking a provider before you sign

The licence is granted for an unlimited period, covers the whole of Switzerland, and names the responsible managers individually. Four questions get you most of the way:

• Which cantonal labour office issued the licence, and in which canton does the provider have its seat? That canton also sets the family allowance rate on your invoice.
• Who is named in the licence as responsible for management? The licence names people, not just a company.
• Has the deposit been lodged, and at which level? A provider leasing more than 60'000 hours a year should be at CHF 100'000, not CHF 50'000.
• Does a generally binding collective agreement cover the work your hire will do? If so, the provider owes documents to the joint committee, and the pay you offer has to survive that inspection.

When your own entity is the better answer

An employer of record is not always the cheaper end state. It is the faster start, and a way to hire one or two people without building a Swiss finance function. Your own entity tends to win when you need a Swiss legal presence for reasons beyond payroll, such as contracting with Swiss customers, holding a licence of your own or building a team large enough that the per-employee fee outgrows the cost of a payroll provider and an accountant.

The permit position does not decide it either way. For an EU or EFTA national, the permit follows the employment contract, and an employer of record contract is an employment contract. Which document you need is set out in B permit or L permit and the permits guide. Tax at source works the same way in both cases, as described in Quellensteuer for EU employers.

What this article does not tell you

The honest summary is short. Both routes cost the same in contributions, roughly twelve to thirteen percent of gross on the employer side in 2026. Both are subject to the same employment law. Only one of them requires a federal licence, a Swiss commercial register entry and a deposit securing your employee's wages, and if you buy that route, those three things are what you are actually buying.

Common questions