THE CREATION AND MAINTENANCE OF A COMPANY IN SWITZERLAND
Establishing and maintaining a company in Switzerland can have various purposes: You may want to establish an operating business, e.g. in manufacturing, services or trade. This can be done alone or as a joint-venture with a local partner. Also, a Swiss entity can be a holding company of an international group, or it can be used for profit allocation and tax optimising, or as a vehicle to keep and invest funds. The rules that apply to the procedures of creation and to the governance of a Swiss company are basically the same for all these cases and in the entire country.
Differences between the cantons (there are twenty-six) exist with respect to costs and taxation. The following figures are approximate and may vary over time: The costs of incorporation and maintenance depend on the service provider, the level of services required and the volume of business of the company. The initial costs in simple cases for consulting, structuring, establishing the documents, notary and registry begin at approximately CHF 5,000. The annual costs may be as low as CHF 2,500, if the company has no operations, there is complete transparency, and the owner himself can act as a director. This can now even be the case if the owner lives outside of Switzerland, but at least one person (a director or an executive) in Switzerland must be able to legally represent the company (Art. 718 paragraph 4 of the Swiss Code of Obligations). The company and the members of the board of directors and all signatories of the company are registered and published in the commercial register, but not its shareholders. All entities (apart from some forms of charitable associations or foundations) are obliged to maintain appropriate accounting and produce annual statements, which are not published or registered. Based thereon, tax declarations must be provided to the authorities on a yearly basis. Depending on its size and the decisions of its shareholders, a company can have annual ordinary audits, reduced audits or none at all.
Ordinary operating Swiss companies pay taxes on profit of approximately 10% to the federal government and approximately 5 15% to the canton. Not only the percentages of taxation are important, but even to a greater extent the additional rules and conventions, e.g. transfer pricing, minimum profits etc. Usually discussions with the tax-authorities are possible, so that future taxation can be planned with sufficient precision and security. As Switzerland is not a zero or very low-taxation "offshore country", it maintains a large network of double taxation treaties offering a wide range of opportunities in tax planning. Nevertheless, the tax aspect should not be the primary motivation for creating and maintaining a company in Switzerland.
More important are the high degree of professionalism and reliability of service providers, a stable and well-functioning, non-corrupt political and legal system and an excellent infrastructure located in the heart of Europe.
