The idea of taxing immigration is making its way in Bern. Last week, in response to two motions from the PLR and the Centre, the Federal Council was open to the idea of creating a legal basis to this effect.
In May, in response to a 2023 postulate by PLR National Councillor Andrea Caroni, the Federal Council presented an unfavourable report on an immigration tax. He considered it difficult to apply, discriminatory and “not desirable from an economic point of view” given that Switzerland takes advantage of immigration. But the debate, already discussed several times in Bern, has returned in force in the context of the UDC initiative “against a Switzerland with 10 million inhabitants”.
Last Wednesday, in response to a motion by the same Member and another by Councillor of States Heidi Z’graggen (Centre), the executive said it was ready to “continue the study of models in accordance with the Constitution and international law” to submit to Parliament the legal bases for such a tax.
Pay to work
The reflection is as follows: since immigrants benefit from infrastructure and public services without having contributed to their financing, they should pay a tax. The revenues would then be redistributed to the entire population.
But for Geneva environmentalist MP Delphine Klopfenstein Broggini, this is a worrying signal. “With this proposal, we are saving another debate: migration clearly pays off to Switzerland. Without this labour force, Switzerland would not have the wealth it has today,” she recalls Monday in La Matinale.
An idea that is making its way
Despite the reservations of the left, the mechanism has also invited itself in the context of parliamentary debates on the new agreements with the European Union. A commission has proposed to integrate such a tax into the ‘safeguard clause’ which provides that Switzerland can take specific measures to restrict the free movement of people “if immigration from the EU or EFTA causes serious economic or social difficulties”.
In this context, it would rather be up to companies that hire European workers to fulfil it. Employers would thus be encouraged to favour the Swiss workforce.
As an immigrant to Switzerland (C permit) I think this is totally reasonable, depending on how it’s implemented.
Wow very easy to apply and is already what European countries apply.
For example, to bring a non EU person into France the company has to pay 1mo/salary for the first visa.
Easy to control, you need a job for the first visa, so the company pay a first visa fee equal to 1 salary.
It protects the Swiss market, it protects the foreigners already in Switzerland with a B permit to not be kicked out for not having a job and de facto being prioritized vs just taking another foreigner vs a person in RAV or just without a job.
Then to check the legality of doing this to EU people and if they should also do it to CH people trying to go abroad.
But the argument used of complaining that people didn’t pay for the infrastructure while they were abroad and didn’t use it makes little sense. On top of that foreigners come with studies paid for abroad….
Don’t understand the argument as I pay taxes which is used to build infrastructure and such just like everyone else.
Anything but tax the rich! Like seriously.
my guess is this will conveniently not apply to seasonal workers (basically all restaurant waiters, farm helping hands, etc.)
“Since immigrants benefit from infrastructure and public services without having contributed to their financing, they should pay a tax” mmmmh, usually immigrants come when their are adults, so no public money needed to bring them to adulthood (school, doctors etc). I mean, immigrants come ready to work, while Swiss people (those who were born here from Swiss parents) benefit from public money from the ripe age of “out of mum’s vagina”.
Let’s see how they decide and enforce it.
Interesting idea but the rationale isn’t congruent. If the important part is whether someone has contributed to beneficial infrastructure then would such a tax also apply to Swiss citizens born abroad moving to Switzerland for the first time?
Just make permit processing and other required administrative steps (residency permits, apostille stamping, driver’s license and credential conversion, various mandatory social benefits memberships etc) exorbitantly expensive with a stamp tax/fee and the same effect is achieved without having to do logical pirouettes.
When push come to shove, I even doubt the the SVP will support this tax. Because it will make immigrants appear as fully having a financial net positive impact on the Country (which they have already even without the tax), and even negate the assumption that companies hire them because they cost less.
Why not just block it entirely and stop treating immigrants like slaves?
Its better for everyone. China doesnt give illusions to immigrants they can ever become citizens of CCP China.
“immigrants benefit from infrastructure and public services without having contributed to their financing”
What infrastructure and public services are we talking about here, exactly?
* SBB? AFAIK, everybody pays for tickets.
* Immigration Office? AFAIK, getting a residence permit etc already have processing fees.
* Parks etc? AFAIK, funded from cantonal tax applied to ones salary.
I am not really against incentives to protect local job market, but I would appreciate to be explained what does this have to do with the fairness argument. IMHO, one expense that is clearly out of balance iskindergarten/school/university subsidies of the home country, which leaves the home country as a loser and Switzerland as a winner.
This is a way smarter answer to the problem than this 10 millions bullshit
Make the companies pay the tax more than the people tho? It’s quite weird how they do it
And their taxes actually pay for that
Wtf?
Maybe tax the foreign companies that refuse to hire locals instead?
Sounds as of employers don’t favour Swiss residents already. Like they need even more incentives to do so.
I don’t see how they realistically push this through. In any case, low wages high demand fields like nursing and tourist/farm seasonal workers will probably not be affected, I don’t see how it realisticaly could.
So instead of bringing people in to fill vacant positions, they would just hire offshore
Make them pay the military tax at a minimum. Everyone just wants to profit in Switzerland.
But immigrants pay taxes last time I checked.
Well, so I’ve paid 17k CHF/year in taxes and road tax, and I’ve never received a single benefit… I’ve paid as much as someone in Switzerland, but it’s not enough.
There are to many in swizerland reddit is a hardcore left wing eco chamber. But you guys are crazy there are to many people in zurich and basel. Crazy crazy i voted no but I kinda regret it now ):
on the one hand, immigrants did not play any tax here before they arrived, equally CH did not contribute anything to the early childhood/education costs, so perhaps CH should then reimburse their country of origin for preparing them for the CH workforce
Why would foreign companies invest here if they cannot bring in the talent they want/need?
22 comments
Translated from the original article
L’idée d’une ‘taxe sur l’immigration’ se fait de plus en plus concrète sous la Coupole fédérale https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/2026/article/taxe-sur-l-immigration-le-conseil-federal-ouvert-au-projet-29349634.html
The idea of taxing immigration is making its way in Bern. Last week, in response to two motions from the PLR and the Centre, the Federal Council was open to the idea of creating a legal basis to this effect.
In May, in response to a 2023 postulate by PLR National Councillor Andrea Caroni, the Federal Council presented an unfavourable report on an immigration tax. He considered it difficult to apply, discriminatory and “not desirable from an economic point of view” given that Switzerland takes advantage of immigration. But the debate, already discussed several times in Bern, has returned in force in the context of the UDC initiative “against a Switzerland with 10 million inhabitants”.
Last Wednesday, in response to a motion by the same Member and another by Councillor of States Heidi Z’graggen (Centre), the executive said it was ready to “continue the study of models in accordance with the Constitution and international law” to submit to Parliament the legal bases for such a tax.
Pay to work
The reflection is as follows: since immigrants benefit from infrastructure and public services without having contributed to their financing, they should pay a tax. The revenues would then be redistributed to the entire population.
But for Geneva environmentalist MP Delphine Klopfenstein Broggini, this is a worrying signal. “With this proposal, we are saving another debate: migration clearly pays off to Switzerland. Without this labour force, Switzerland would not have the wealth it has today,” she recalls Monday in La Matinale.
An idea that is making its way
Despite the reservations of the left, the mechanism has also invited itself in the context of parliamentary debates on the new agreements with the European Union. A commission has proposed to integrate such a tax into the ‘safeguard clause’ which provides that Switzerland can take specific measures to restrict the free movement of people “if immigration from the EU or EFTA causes serious economic or social difficulties”.
In this context, it would rather be up to companies that hire European workers to fulfil it. Employers would thus be encouraged to favour the Swiss workforce.
As an immigrant to Switzerland (C permit) I think this is totally reasonable, depending on how it’s implemented.
Wow very easy to apply and is already what European countries apply.
For example, to bring a non EU person into France the company has to pay 1mo/salary for the first visa.
Easy to control, you need a job for the first visa, so the company pay a first visa fee equal to 1 salary.
It protects the Swiss market, it protects the foreigners already in Switzerland with a B permit to not be kicked out for not having a job and de facto being prioritized vs just taking another foreigner vs a person in RAV or just without a job.
Then to check the legality of doing this to EU people and if they should also do it to CH people trying to go abroad.
But the argument used of complaining that people didn’t pay for the infrastructure while they were abroad and didn’t use it makes little sense. On top of that foreigners come with studies paid for abroad….
Don’t understand the argument as I pay taxes which is used to build infrastructure and such just like everyone else.
Anything but tax the rich! Like seriously.
my guess is this will conveniently not apply to seasonal workers (basically all restaurant waiters, farm helping hands, etc.)
“Since immigrants benefit from infrastructure and public services without having contributed to their financing, they should pay a tax” mmmmh, usually immigrants come when their are adults, so no public money needed to bring them to adulthood (school, doctors etc). I mean, immigrants come ready to work, while Swiss people (those who were born here from Swiss parents) benefit from public money from the ripe age of “out of mum’s vagina”.
Let’s see how they decide and enforce it.
Interesting idea but the rationale isn’t congruent. If the important part is whether someone has contributed to beneficial infrastructure then would such a tax also apply to Swiss citizens born abroad moving to Switzerland for the first time?
Just make permit processing and other required administrative steps (residency permits, apostille stamping, driver’s license and credential conversion, various mandatory social benefits memberships etc) exorbitantly expensive with a stamp tax/fee and the same effect is achieved without having to do logical pirouettes.
When push come to shove, I even doubt the the SVP will support this tax. Because it will make immigrants appear as fully having a financial net positive impact on the Country (which they have already even without the tax), and even negate the assumption that companies hire them because they cost less.
Why not just block it entirely and stop treating immigrants like slaves?
Its better for everyone. China doesnt give illusions to immigrants they can ever become citizens of CCP China.
“immigrants benefit from infrastructure and public services without having contributed to their financing”
What infrastructure and public services are we talking about here, exactly?
* SBB? AFAIK, everybody pays for tickets.
* Immigration Office? AFAIK, getting a residence permit etc already have processing fees.
* Parks etc? AFAIK, funded from cantonal tax applied to ones salary.
I am not really against incentives to protect local job market, but I would appreciate to be explained what does this have to do with the fairness argument. IMHO, one expense that is clearly out of balance iskindergarten/school/university subsidies of the home country, which leaves the home country as a loser and Switzerland as a winner.
This is a way smarter answer to the problem than this 10 millions bullshit
Make the companies pay the tax more than the people tho? It’s quite weird how they do it
And their taxes actually pay for that
Wtf?
Maybe tax the foreign companies that refuse to hire locals instead?
Sounds as of employers don’t favour Swiss residents already. Like they need even more incentives to do so.
I don’t see how they realistically push this through. In any case, low wages high demand fields like nursing and tourist/farm seasonal workers will probably not be affected, I don’t see how it realisticaly could.
So instead of bringing people in to fill vacant positions, they would just hire offshore
Make them pay the military tax at a minimum. Everyone just wants to profit in Switzerland.
But immigrants pay taxes last time I checked.
Well, so I’ve paid 17k CHF/year in taxes and road tax, and I’ve never received a single benefit… I’ve paid as much as someone in Switzerland, but it’s not enough.
There are to many in swizerland reddit is a hardcore left wing eco chamber. But you guys are crazy there are to many people in zurich and basel. Crazy crazy i voted no but I kinda regret it now ):
on the one hand, immigrants did not play any tax here before they arrived, equally CH did not contribute anything to the early childhood/education costs, so perhaps CH should then reimburse their country of origin for preparing them for the CH workforce
Why would foreign companies invest here if they cannot bring in the talent they want/need?