RISTER News & Insights
Setting Up a SaaS Startup in Geneva: Tax, VAT and Accounting
Setting up a SaaS startup in Geneva raises no licensing question: software publishing is not a regulated activity anywhere in Switzerland. The questions that matter are accounting and tax ones, and they arrive earlier than founders expect. We will be direct about one...
Setting Up a SaaS Startup in Geneva: Tax, VAT and Accounting
Setting up a SaaS startup in Geneva raises no licensing question: software publishing is not a regulated activity anywhere in Switzerland. The questions that matter are accounting and tax ones, and they arrive earlier than founders expect. We will be direct about one...
Opening a Restaurant, Café or Hotel in Geneva: Licence, Diploma and the LRDBHD
Opening a café, a restaurant, a bar or a hotel in Geneva requires an operating licence issued by the trade police, and that licence rests on a personal diploma. None of it can be obtained in a company's name. This is what most projects discover too late. The licence...
Setting Up an Engineering Company in Geneva: the MPQ Registration
Setting up an engineering company in Geneva takes no authorisation: incorporating a Sàrl or an SA for engineering services works like any other Swiss company. The gate is elsewhere, and it opens at the moment you file your first application. For any works requiring a...
Starting a construction company in Geneva: CBAs, tenders and the cross-border workforce
In Geneva you do not win a building site without papers. No federal licence is needed to start a construction company, but the labour-standards attestation opens or closes public tenders, a binding collective agreement applies from the first worker, and joint...
Setting up an electrical company in Geneva: ESTI licence, SIG and payroll
The licence is federal, the daily grind is Geneva. To set up an electrical company here, the installation licence comes from the Federal Inspectorate for Heavy Current Installations (ESTI) and is valid throughout Switzerland. Everything that follows is local: work...
Setting up a security company in Geneva: licence, examination and costs
Setting up a security company in Geneva requires a prior licence, granted by the Weapons, Private Security and Explosives Brigade of the cantonal police. The concordat that binds six French-speaking cantons requires a manager who has passed the concordat examination,...
Posting of workers to Switzerland: the obligations of a foreign employer
Posting workers to Switzerland means a foreign employer temporarily sending its own employees to perform a service on Swiss soil, without changing their employment contract. The operation is governed by the Posted Workers Act (LDét): notification at least eight days...
The notification procedure for short-term work in Switzerland: a step-by-step guide for foreign employers
The notification procedure for short-term work in Switzerland is the mandatory online declaration a foreign employer must file at least eight days before sending workers on assignment to Swiss territory. It applies as soon as assignments exceed eight working days per...
Salary certificate in Switzerland: the employer’s guide to Form 11
The salary certificate (Lohnausweis in German, certificat de salaire in French) is the annual statement every employer in Switzerland must issue to each employee, summarising the full remuneration paid over the calendar year: salary, bonuses, benefits in kind, social...
Swiss GAAP FER and Swiss Accounting Standards: Which Rules Apply to Your Company?
Swiss GAAP FER is Switzerland's national accounting standard for financial statements that give a true and fair view of a company's position. Swiss accounting standards work in three tiers: the Code of Obligations (art. 957–963b CO) sets the legal minimum for every...
Swiss VAT Refund for Foreign Companies (and Other Cases)
"Swiss VAT refund" means very different things depending on who is asking. The one that matters most to businesses: a foreign company, not registered in Switzerland, that has paid Swiss VAT (trade fairs, suppliers, services) and wants it back through the official...
Swiss VAT Number: Format, UID and How to Check It
A Swiss VAT number has the format CHE-123.456.789 MWST. Since 2014 it is the same as the company's UID (business identification number), simply with a VAT suffix. Whether you need to read one, verify a supplier's, or obtain your own, the rules are precise. This guide...
Virtual Office for a Company in Switzerland: How to Do It and Which Canton to Choose
To domicile a company in Switzerland is to give it a legal address — its registered office — recorded in the Commercial Register. Four routes exist: your home, business premises, a coworking space or a fiduciary. The choice of canton (Geneva, Vaud, Zug...) influences...
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