Switzerland

Switzerland’s tax system is administered by the Federal Tax Administration (Eidgenössische Steuerverwaltung, ESTV). Although not an EU member, Switzerland operates its own VAT system (Mehrwertsteuer, MWST).

VAT applies at standard, reduced, and special rates. The reduced rate covers everyday goods such as food, non-alcoholic beverages, books, newspapers, and medicines, while a special rate applies to accommodation services.

Businesses with annual taxable revenues exceeding CHF 100,000 must register for VAT. Tax identification uses the UID (Unternehmens-Identifikationsnummer) in the format CHE-XXX.XXX.XXX followed by “MWST” for VAT purposes.

Switzerland supports credit notes for invoice corrections. E-invoicing is not mandatory but is increasingly used, particularly in business-to-government (B2G) transactions.

Base Details

Key	Value
Tax Country Code	CH
Currency	CHF
Base Time Zone	Europe/Zurich

Tax Categories

Code	Name	Title
VAT	VAT	Value Added Tax

VAT Rates

Rate	Keys	Name	Percents	Description
general	standard	General Rate	8.1%	Applies to most goods and services.
intermediate	standard	Intermediate Rate	3.8%	Applies to accommodation services.
reduced	standard	Reduced Rate	2.6%	Applies to food, books, newspapers, and public transport.

Correction Definitions

Auto-generation of corrective invoices or credit and debit notes is supported.

Invoice Types

The types of invoices that can be created with a preceding definition:

• credit-note

Scenarios

Scenarios attach notes and extensions to a document when its filters match. Read more about scenarios.

bill/invoice

Tags	Categories	Output
reverse-charge	VAT	{   “note”: {     “cat”: “VAT”,     “key”: “reverse-charge”,     “text”: “Reverse charge: Customer to account for VAT to the relevant tax authority.”   } }

Validation Rules

Validation rules check each struct against a set of assertions and report any failures with a unique code and message. Read more about validation.

tax.Identity

Field	Test	Validation Code / Message
code	Code in [CH] Valid	GOBL-CH-TAX-IDENTITY-01 Invalid Swiss VAT identity code