Were the votes held at the start of October, Switzerland’s proposed inheritance tax would have failed. Support and opposition to compulsory community service, meanwhile, remain neck and neck, according to a recent poll.
On November 30th 2025, Swiss voters will decide on two federal initiatives. The first, the Inheritance Tax Initiative, would introduce a levy a 50% tax on estates and gifts exceeding CHF 50 million, with the proceeds earmarked for climate projects. The second, the Citizen Service Initiative, would make public service compulsory for all Swiss citizens, a more inclusive system than the current one that is compulsory only for young Swiss men.
In the case of the Citizen Service Initiative, fewer than half of likely voters have made up their minds (22% definitely for; 26% definitely against). If those fairly for and against are included the poll is 46% for and 48% against, with 6% undecided. Younger, more highly educated people, men, and respondents from French-speaking Switzerland have so far shown more support.
For the inheritance tax, more than two-thirds already have definitively decided, with 21% definitely for it and 49% definitely against it. If those fairly for and fairly against are included the results are 35% for and 62% against, with only 3% undecided.
Resistance to the inheritance tax
The inheritance tax proposal, launched by the Young Socialists (Juso), enters the campaign facing strong opposition. The familiar partisan pattern holds: supporters of the Socialist Party (SP) and the Greens back the measure, while voters for centre and right-wing parties oppose it. Regional divides also persist—support is higher in French- and Italian-speaking cantons than in German-speaking Switzerland.
Citizen service on the fence
Slightly more respondents favour than oppose the idea of mandatory public service, but once the margin of error is accounted for, the race is a dead heat. Here, too, voting intentions align with political leanings: left-leaning voters support the initiative; centrists and conservatives do not.
If the usual pattern of Swiss referendums holds, opinion may shift towards the position of the Federal Council and Parliament, both of which oppose the plan—suggesting growing resistance as the vote nears.
As votes near there tends to be a drift towards the status quo, in this case towards rejecting both of these initiatives. This shift reflects several familiar polling biases. Voters often display a status-quo bias, tending to reject change once the implications sink in. Social desirability bias leads some to tell pollsters what sounds respectable rather than what they truly think. Poll turnout bias skews samples toward politically active and urban voters, who are typically more open to reform. And late campaign effects matter: in Switzerland, the official voting booklet and final debates arrive only weeks before polling day, often prompting second thoughts. However, this trend is not guaranteed.
How the survey was conducted
The poll, commissioned by SRG SSR and conducted by gfs.bern, took place between October 6th and 20th 2025. It included 14,785 eligible voters. The statistical margin of error is ±2.8 percentage points, meaning that with 95% confidence, an estimated 50% support translates to a range between 47.2% and 52.8%.
More on this:
gfs.bern poll (in German)
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