Swiss stamp duty on securities trades

• The Umsatzabgabe is 1.5‰ on domestic and 3‰ on foreign securities, calculated on the consideration, meaning the price paid.
• Normally each contracting party bears half. For you as a client that is 0.075% on domestic and 0.15% on foreign securities, on the purchase and again on the sale.
• It applies only if a Swiss securities dealer (Effektenhändler) takes part, as a contracting party or as an intermediary. A bank in Switzerland always is one, and so is a Swiss asset manager.
• On a CHF 10,000 purchase that is CHF 7.50 for a domestic share and CHF 15.00 for a foreign share or an ETF domiciled abroad.

You can work through your own case with the stamp duty calculator.

The Umsatzabgabe applies to the transfer of ownership of taxable securities for consideration (Art. 13 StG). Taxable are bonds, shares, GmbH and cooperative shares, participation and dividend-right certificates, and units in collective investment schemes, when issued by a Swiss resident, plus foreign securities whose economic function is equivalent to those.

Domestic means the issuer is domiciled in Switzerland or the Principality of Liechtenstein. The ESTV puts it this way: securities count as domestic when their debtor is resident in Switzerland. An ETF domiciled in Ireland is therefore a foreign security.

The rate follows that distinction. According to the ESTV the duty is 1.5‰ for domestic and 3‰ for foreign securities, calculated in each case on the consideration, which on a purchase or sale is the price paid. On a sale the base is therefore the sale proceeds, not what you originally paid.

The duty is owed not by the investor but by the Swiss securities dealer involved in the trade (Art. 17(1) StG). In the ESTV's words, normally half of the duty is payable for each contracting party. A dealer acting as intermediary owes half a duty for every contracting party that does not identify itself to the dealer as a registered securities dealer or an exempt investor. As a private client you are neither.

So the bank pays the duty, and you are charged it. The ESTV notes that, for practical reasons, the Umsatzabgabe is almost always passed on to the client.

Who counts as a securities dealer is wider than the term suggests:

• Banks under the Swiss Banking Act. Treated the same are the head offices, branches and agencies that foreign banks have established in Switzerland, and the representatives of foreign banks operating in Switzerland.
• Professional dealers and intermediaries. This explicitly includes anyone who arranges purchases and sales of taxable securities as an investment adviser or asset manager, as well as fiduciaries, remisiers, brokers and other securities intermediaries.
• Companies whose assets, according to their latest balance sheet, include more than CHF 10 million of taxable securities.
• The Confederation, cantons and municipalities and their institutions, if they report more than CHF 10 million of taxable securities, as well as Swiss occupational and tied pension institutions and social security institutions.

The surprising case is the second one: a Swiss asset manager who arranges your purchases and sales is a securities dealer in their own right. Because a Swiss intermediary alone is enough, a trade can become taxable that way even if your account is not held at a Swiss bank.

If the counterparty is a foreign bank or a foreign stock exchange agent, the duty for that party falls away. That does not apply to the Swiss dealer, who in the ESTV's words remains liable for its own share. So when your Swiss bank buys for you from a foreign counterparty, the counterparty's half falls away and your half remains.

The calculation is always the full rate on the consideration, divided by two: CHF 10,000 × 3‰ = CHF 30.00, half of which is CHF 15.00.

PostFinance shows what this looks like on a real price list. Under "Other charges", its e-trading price list shows Swiss federal stamp duty at 0.075% for Swiss companies and 0.15% for foreign companies, plus 0.15% on funds domiciled abroad. Other Swiss providers point out in general terms that the duty comes on top of their fees: Swissquote and CornerTrader state in their price lists that stamp duties are not included in their prices, Yuh that stamp duties may still apply, and Saxo Bank (Schweiz) says on its AutoInvest page that the statutory stamp duty may apply.

Exempt from the Umsatzabgabe are, among others (Art. 14 StG):

• the issue of domestic shares, bonds, units in collective investment schemes and other equity securities. The issue of units in foreign collective investment schemes, by contrast, is taxable;
• trading in subscription rights and, according to the ESTV overview "Geltende Steuern" 2026, in options;
• trading in domestic and foreign money market instruments;
• the return of securities for redemption;
• trading in foreign bonds, as far as a contracting party is domiciled abroad; only that party's half is exempt;
• trades for the trading stock of a professional securities dealer, for the part attributable to the dealer itself.

For private investors this means: subscribe to units of a foreign fund on issue and you pay the duty. Receive newly issued shares of a Swiss company in an offering and you do not.

Certain investors are exempt as well (Art. 17a StG): foreign states and central banks, domestic and foreign collective investment schemes, foreign social security and occupational pension institutions, foreign life insurers under comparable supervision, and foreign companies whose shares are listed on a recognised stock exchange. The exemption covers only their own half; the Swiss investor on the other side remains liable for their share.

If no Swiss securities dealer takes part in the trade, neither as contracting party nor as intermediary, the trade is outside the scope of the Umsatzabgabe. A purchase through a broker whose contracting entity is abroad can therefore go through without it.

Whether that is the case at your provider depends on which company is your contracting party and whether a Swiss entity acts as intermediary. That is why we do not infer it from where a company is headquartered. So far we have only recorded the contracting entities the providers name themselves: Interactive Brokers serves clients in Switzerland through Interactive Brokers U.K. Limited, Trading 212 lists Switzerland under Trading 212 EU GmbH, and DEGIRO operates in Switzerland as flatexDEGIRO Bank Dutch Branch. We found no explicit statement on the Swiss Umsatzabgabe from any of these three. DEGIRO's Swiss price list only says in general that the prices shown include no stamp duty or transaction tax, and that all taxes levied are passed on to the client.

What remains with a foreign broker:

• Foreign transaction taxes. They depend on the security, not the broker. Saxo Bank (Schweiz), for example, lists in its trading conditions UK stamp duty of 0.5% on all purchases of UK shares and 1.0% on Irish shares, on purchases only. PostFinance passes on French, Italian and Spanish financial transaction tax and UK stamp duty at cost.
• The work at tax time. Not every provider supplies a tax statement in the Swiss format. DEGIRO lists as its annual overviews an annual statement for tax purposes and an overview of all costs and fees. Saxo Bank (Schweiz) provides eTax statements free of charge from the 2025 financial year, Swissquote charges CHF 85 for the digital tax statement including the eTax statement, Yuh CHF 25 for the eTax statement, PostFinance CHF 97.30, and CornerTrader CHF 20 plus VAT.
• Different protection for cash. esisuisse protects balances at member banks up to CHF 100,000 per client and bank; several accounts at the same bank are added together. Securities in a custody account are not covered: they are the client's property and are handed over to the client if the bank fails. The esisuisse member list includes Swissquote Bank SA, PostFinance AG, Saxo Bank (Schweiz) AG, Cornèr Banca SA, Dukascopy Bank SA and IG Bank S.A. Interactive Brokers U.K. Limited, flatexDEGIRO Bank and Trading 212 EU GmbH are not on it. Which protection applies to clients in Switzerland at those three, we have not yet documented.

The features per provider, with source and date, are on the page brokers for investors in Switzerland and on the provider pages, for example Swissquote, PostFinance, Saxo Bank or DEGIRO.

A savings plan of CHF 500 a month into an ETF domiciled abroad, executed through a Swiss bank: each execution costs 0.15% of CHF 500, which is CHF 0.75. Over a year that is 12 × CHF 0.75 = CHF 9.00. When you sell later, the half duty applies again on the proceeds.

A commission-free savings plan does not change this. Yuh, for example, executes recurring buy orders on ETFs from its eligible list without a trading fee and adds that stamp duties, the TER and sell fees still apply.

1. 1Check a contract note to see whether the Umsatzabgabe is shown and whether the rate matches the security: 0.075% for an issuer domiciled in Switzerland or Liechtenstein, 0.15% for all others.
2. 2Work out larger purchases in advance, including the later sale: stamp duty calculator.
3. 3With a foreign broker: find out which company is your contracting party and whether a Swiss entity, such as an asset manager, acts as intermediary.
4. 4With a savings plan: include the duty in your annual costs. At CHF 500 a month into foreign ETFs it is CHF 9.00 a year.
5. 5Compare providers on tax statement, CHF account and deposit protection as well: brokers for investors in Switzerland.
6. 6Holding US securities? Then also read Reclaiming US withholding tax: W-8BEN and DA-1.

• ESTV, Geltende Steuern, Stand der Gesetzgebung 1. Januar 2026, section 2.2.3.2 (Umsatzabgabe)
• ESTV, Eidgenössische Stempelabgaben, Stand der Gesetzgebung 1. Januar 2024, sections 4.1 to 4.4
• ESTV, Umsatzabgabe kurz erklärt
• esisuisse, Fragen und Antworten and Bank suchen
• PostFinance, Brokerage fees and other charges (e-trading)
• Swissquote, Account fees
• Yuh, Pricing and FAQ
• CornerTrader, Commissions & conditions and Swiss tax statement
• Saxo Bank (Schweiz), AutoInvest, Trading conditions and Steuer- und andere Auszüge
• DEGIRO, Preis- und Leistungsverzeichnis Schweiz, Stand 1. Januar 2026 and Welche Berichte gibt es
• Interactive Brokers, Europe home page; Trading 212, Supported countries

This article is for information only and does not constitute investment, legal or tax advice.