Stamp Duty (Umsatzabgabe)

Stamp duty, in German Umsatzabgabe, is a federal tax on buying and selling securities such as shares, bonds and fund units. It's due whenever a Swiss securities dealer, a Swiss bank or broker for example, is a party to the trade or arranges it. Strictly speaking the bank owes the tax. The law doesn't say who bears it, but banks usually charge it to you, and they may not charge you more than the tax they owe.

The Federal Act on Stamp Duties sets the tax at 0.15% of the amount for Swiss securities and 0.3% for foreign ones, rates that have applied since 1978 and still do in 2026, and charges half of it for each side of the trade. Your half is 0.075% for a Swiss security and 0.15% for a foreign one, on the purchase and again on the sale. A few transactions are exempt; the Swiss note below covers the ones that matter to you.

What decides the rate is where the issuer is based, not where the security trades or in which currency. An ETF bought on SIX Swiss Exchange in francs but issued by an Irish fund counts as foreign. Securities from issuers based in Liechtenstein count as Swiss. Here's the difference on one purchase:

Buying CHF 10,000 of a Swiss security costs CHF 7.50 in stamp duty, and of a foreign one CHF 15.00. Sell later and you pay the same rate again on the sale, so buying and selling CHF 10,000 costs CHF 15.00 or CHF 30.00 in all.

Because stamp duty is a percentage, it grows with the amount you trade, not with the number of trades. Here's the stamp duty on a whole year of buying the same amount every month, for Swiss and for foreign securities:

CHF 1,000 a month adds up to CHF 12,000 a year: CHF 9.00 in stamp duty for a Swiss security and CHF 18.00 for a foreign one, exactly what buying all CHF 12,000 at once would cost. CHF 200 a month costs CHF 1.80 or CHF 3.60 a year, and CHF 2,000 a month CHF 18.00 or CHF 36.00. A broker's flat fee per trade works the other way: twelve small purchases pay it twelve times.

A foreign broker that isn't a Swiss securities dealer doesn't charge Swiss stamp duty. That can look like an easy saving, but it brings other considerations: your account then sits under another country's rules and supervision, you should check that you get a statement you can use for your Swiss tax return, and changing francs into other currencies has its own cost. The exception also has limits: Swiss branches of foreign banks count as Swiss, and so does a Swiss asset manager whose business consists wholly or to a substantial part of arranging such trades.

For someone who buys and holds, stamp duty is also small next to a fund's running costs. On CHF 10,000 of a foreign ETF it's CHF 15.00 once, when you buy. A total expense ratio of 0.20% costs CHF 20.00 every year.