Geneva did not become one of the world’s commodity trading capitals because of a licence, but because of the absence of one. No Swiss authority authorises commodity trading, no register records it, and no minimum capital attaches to the activity. A company that buys a cargo, takes title and resells it operates under ordinary company law. What matters, then, is not how to obtain permission but where the boundaries sit, because three of them turn a trading business into a regulated one, and each carries a figure that catches traders who assumed it did not concern them.
Contents
- What Geneva actually offers a new trading house
- Cash: CHF 100,000, and CHF 15,000 on metals and stones
- Own book or someone else’s: where the regulated line runs
- Minerals, metals and the 100 kilogram rule
- Sanctions screening, built in rather than bolted on
- Trade finance decides the structure
- Goods that never enter Switzerland
- Setting the company up in Geneva
- FAQ
What Geneva actually offers a new trading house
Switzerland hosts over 900 commodity trading companies according to the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, concentrated in Geneva, Zug and Lugano. Geneva’s particularity is not volume alone but density: trade finance desks that have priced the same commodities for decades, inspection companies, maritime and arbitration lawyers, insurers, and an industry association that speaks for the sector.
For a company being formed today, that density translates into something concrete. The counterparties you need exist within a short radius, the banks understand the collateral, and the people who have run a book before are findable. None of that is regulatory, and all of it is why the address matters.
What Geneva does not offer is exemption. The obligations below apply to a company registered here exactly as they would elsewhere in Switzerland, and the assumption that a trading company sits outside financial regulation altogether is the single most common error we correct.
Cash: CHF 100,000, and CHF 15,000 on metals and stones
The Anti-Money Laundering Act covers three categories: financial intermediaries, dealers and, since 1 October 2026, advisers. Dealers are persons who trade in goods professionally and accept cash in payment. If your company settles exclusively by transfer or documentary credit, this category does not concern you at all.
Where cash is taken, duties begin above a threshold: identifying the contracting party, identifying the beneficial owner, and producing and keeping documentation, once more than CHF 100,000 in cash is received in a trading transaction.
| Case | Threshold | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Cash in a trading transaction | CHF 100,000 | Identification, beneficial owner, documentation |
| Precious metals or precious stones | CHF 15,000 | Nearly seven times lower, and decisive for gold and diamonds |
| Payment in several instalments | Sum of instalments | Splitting a settlement changes nothing |
Source: Anti-Money Laundering Act (SR 955.0), art. 8a, consolidated version in force. Only the German, French and Italian texts are authoritative.
The lower threshold on precious metals and stones deserves particular attention in Geneva, where the metals and gemstone trade is well represented. And the anti-structuring rule is written into the act itself: the duties apply even where cash arrives in several instalments individually below the threshold, if together they exceed it.
Dealers must also clarify the background and purpose of any transaction that appears unusual, unless its lawfulness is obvious, and whenever there are indications that assets stem from a crime or an aggravated tax misdemeanour, that a criminal or terrorist organisation controls them, or that they finance terrorism.
Own book or someone else’s: where the regulated line runs
The second boundary separates a trader from a financial intermediary, and it is misread in both directions. The act covers those who professionally accept, hold on deposit or help invest or transfer assets belonging to third parties, and names among them those who trade, for their own account or for others, in currencies, money market instruments, precious metals, commodities or securities and their derivatives.
Taken out of context that looks like every trader. In context it is not: the definition concerns assets belonging to third parties, and it addresses commodities treated as financial assets or instruments, not the physical purchase and resale of a cargo the company owns and finances.
The Federal Council’s ordinance draws the line. For commodities, only three activities count as trading in this sense: exchange trading for third parties, off-exchange trading for third parties in commodities standardised enough to be liquidated at any time, and own-account trading in bank precious metals (art. 5 para. 1 AMLO, in force since 1 October 2026, French text). What remains are the arrangements that come close: running flows for a producer’s account instead of trading on own book, pre-financing that looks like lending, derivatives handled for clients. Among credit operations, the Act names the financing of commercial transactions, which reaches directly into trade finance structures.
The same logic separates a trader from a broker. A broker introduces counterparties and takes a commission without a position; a trader takes title and carries price risk. Financing, accounting and, on this point, regulation all follow from that difference.
Your trading house in Geneva
A credit line is granted to a company that genuinely decides in Geneva
Incorporating the AG or GmbH, registered office and commercial register entry, accounting for cargoes, open positions and hedges, VAT reviewed on flows that never touch Swiss territory, payroll for the trading and operations team: RISTER® builds and runs the Geneva structure so that the conversation with the trade finance desk starts from a file that holds together.
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Minerals, metals and the 100 kilogram rule
The third boundary comes from company law. Companies with their registered office, central administration or principal place of business in Switzerland owe supply chain due diligence duties, and must report on them, where they place in free circulation in Switzerland or process in Switzerland minerals or metals containing tin, tantalum, tungsten or gold from conflict-affected or high-risk areas, or where they offer goods or services in respect of which there is reasonable suspicion of child labour.
Territory decides the first question, and the wording is narrow: the obligation is tied to goods released for free circulation on Swiss soil, or processed on Swiss soil. A great deal of Geneva trading concerns cargoes that never come near Swiss territory, and those flows fall outside this particular duty, which says nothing about sanctions law.
Volume decides the second. Annual thresholds below which a company is exempt from both the due diligence and the reporting duty are set in kilograms per year, and the spread between them is what surprises people.
| Description | Tariff number | Exemption threshold (kg/year) |
|---|---|---|
| Tin ores and concentrates | 2609 00 00 | 5,000 |
| Tungsten ores and concentrates | 2611 00 00 | 250,000 |
| Tantalum or niobium ores and concentrates | ex 2615 90 00 | 100,000 |
| Gold ores and concentrates | ex 2616 90 00 | 4,000,000 |
| Gold, unwrought, semi-manufactured or in powder | ex 7108 | 100 |
| Tin oxides and hydroxides | ex 2825 90 00 | 3,600 |
| Tin chloride | 2827 39 00 | 10,000 |
Source: Ordinance on Due Diligence and Transparency regarding Minerals, Metals and Child Labour (SR 221.433), Annex 1, in force since 1 January 2024. Selected lines; the annex has 23 in all, ores in Part A and metals in Part B.
A hundred kilograms a year of unwrought, semi-manufactured or powdered gold, against four million kilograms of gold ore. Any business actually trading gold crosses the first figure almost at once, while a reading that stops at the ore line would suggest a comfortable margin. Where a company controls others, the volume is measured across the group.
The ordinance also sets out two exits, and both are earned by documenting rather than by ignoring. If verification shows the minerals and metals do not come from conflict-affected or high-risk areas, the company records that finding and is exempt from the due diligence and reporting duties. The same applies where verification shows no reasonable suspicion of child labour.
Sanctions screening, built in rather than bolted on
Since 2022 this has consumed more compliance time in Geneva than any other subject. Switzerland gives effect to sanctions through ordinances made under the Embargo Act, and it is those ordinances, not the framework act, that carry the prohibitions: designated persons and entities, restricted goods, price caps, shipping and insurance measures.
For a company being set up now, the practical consequence is sequencing. Screening has to sit inside the transaction workflow from the first deal, covering counterparty, beneficial owner, vessel and cargo origin against instruments that change often. Separately, the goods themselves may be caught by export control rules, particularly dual-use items, independently of any sanctions programme.
Trade finance decides the structure
Capital is rarely what limits a new trading house. The credit line is. A bank opening documentary credit facilities examines the experience of the team, the risk management framework, the audited accounts, and whether decisions are genuinely made in Geneva.
That last point is where structure and substance meet. A company whose management sits abroad and whose Geneva presence is an address will struggle to obtain facilities regardless of what the commercial register says. Conversely, a properly staffed Geneva operation with clean reporting opens conversations that a similar company elsewhere would not. Our guide on choosing the canton for a Swiss company sets out the trade-offs, and a business centre in Geneva is a starting point rather than a destination for a trading business.
Goods that never enter Switzerland
A large share of Geneva trading consists of transactions on goods moving between two foreign countries without ever entering Swiss territory. Swiss VAT taxes domestic supplies and imports, so transactions on goods located abroad throughout fall outside its scope.
The company itself does not sit outside VAT. Only a business whose annual turnover in Switzerland and abroad stays below CHF 100,000 is exempt from liability (art. 10 para. 2 let. a VAT Act), so a Geneva trading house selling exclusively abroad must register above that level. It generally gains from doing so, because input tax on supplies made abroad can be deducted as if those supplies had been made in Switzerland (art. 29 para. 1bis VAT Act). Our guide to Swiss VAT sets the framework, and the Swiss VAT number covers registration itself.
Setting the company up in Geneva
Most trading houses choose the AG, for the capital structure and because counterparties expect it, though the GmbH is workable for a small desk. The comparison is in our guide to creating a GmbH or an AG in Geneva, the sequence in our checklist to set up a company in Geneva, and the budget in what forming a Swiss company costs.
Two points specific to trading. Accounting has to be designed for the activity from the outset, because cargoes in transit, open positions and hedges do not fit a standard chart of accounts: our Swiss chart of accounts is the starting point and a trading business needs it adapted. And governance is not decorative here, since the board carries responsibility for exactly the risks this article describes, as set out in the responsibilities and duties of the board. Taxation across cantons is covered in Swiss taxation.
FAQ: commodity trading companies in Geneva
Is a licence required to trade commodities in Switzerland?
No. Swiss law provides no authorisation for commodity trading, and no minimum capital attaches to the activity. A company buying and reselling goods on its own account operates under ordinary company law. Duties arise only through cash above the thresholds, acting for third parties, or importing or processing certain minerals and metals in Switzerland.
How much cash can a trading company accept?
Duties are triggered above CHF 100,000 received in cash in a trading transaction, and above CHF 15,000 where the trade concerns precious metals or precious stones. Several part payments that individually stay under the limit but together pass it count as one. Below those amounts the cash itself creates no specific duty.
Does a Geneva trader owe supply chain due diligence?
Only where the company places in free circulation in Switzerland, or processes in Switzerland, minerals or metals containing tin, tantalum, tungsten or gold from conflict-affected or high-risk areas above the annual thresholds, or where there is reasonable suspicion of child labour. Cargoes that never enter Swiss territory fall outside this duty.
What is the gold threshold?
One hundred kilograms per year for gold that is unwrought, semi-manufactured or in powder form, against four million kilograms for gold ores and concentrates. Volumes are measured at group level where a company controls others, so a gold trading operation crosses the threshold quickly.
Does a trading house need to be regulated to obtain trade finance?
No, and regulation is not what banks look at. Credit facilities depend on the experience of the team, the risk management framework, audited accounts, and evidence that decisions are genuinely taken in Geneva. Substance is a financing requirement well before it is a tax one.
Is Swiss VAT charged on a cargo shipped from Brazil to China?
Not on the sale: the cargo is abroad when title passes, so the supply takes place abroad (art. 7 para. 1 VAT Act). The Geneva company is nonetheless liable to Swiss VAT once its worldwide turnover reaches CHF 100,000, and recovers the Swiss VAT on its own costs (art. 10 para. 2 let. a and art. 29 para. 1bis VAT Act).
Sources
- Federal Act on Value Added Tax (VAT Act, SR 641.20), art. 7, 10 and 29
- Anti-Money Laundering Ordinance (AMLO, SR 955.01), art. 5 (in French)
- Anti-Money Laundering Act (SR 955.0), art. 2 and 8a
- Code of Obligations (SR 220), art. 964j
- Ordinance on Due Diligence and Transparency regarding Minerals, Metals and Child Labour (SR 221.433), Annex 1
- Embargo Act (SR 946.231)
- Goods Control Act (SR 946.202)
- Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, commodities trading in Switzerland
Conclusion
Forming a commodity trading company in Geneva takes no licence, and the absence of one is precisely what built the cluster. The work is elsewhere: knowing that cash duties start at CHF 100,000 and at CHF 15,000 on metals and stones with instalments added together, that acting for a producer’s account rather than on own book changes your status, that gold crosses its due diligence threshold at a hundred kilograms a year, and that sanctions screening belongs inside the workflow rather than beside it. Then building the substance that a trade finance desk actually finances. RISTER® incorporates and administers trading structures in Geneva, from the commercial register entry to the accounts, the VAT position and the payroll of the operations team.
