Author: switzerlandtimes.ch

This week, Switzerland’s lower house has narrowly backed a temporary VAT rise to finance the country’s new 13th month of state pension, reported SRF. Wage contributions are off the table and the National Council, Switzerland’s parliament, agreed only to lift VAT by 0.7 percentage points until the end of 2030. That vote puts an end to a centre-left plan, passed earlier in the Council of States, which coupled higher VAT with increased salary tax and linked pension funding to the abolition of the marriage tax penalty – married couples are currently taxed on combined income. However, the National Council rejected…

Switzerland’s Council of States has rejected a popular initiative on subsidised childcare but endorsed a watered-down alternative, reported SRF. The initiative, backed by the Social Democrats, Greens, Centre Party, Green Liberals and trade unions, would entitle every child from the age of three months until the end of primary school to supplementary childcare. Parents’ contributions would be capped at 10% of income, with the federal government footing two-thirds of the additional bill. The Federal Council opposed the plan, as did the upper house, which debated it for the first time this week. Instead, senators preferred an indirect counterproposal, now returning…

Finding a home in Switzerland is getting harder. For the fifth year in a row the share of vacant flats has fallen, slipping to 1%. In other words, 99% of the country’s housing stock is now occupied. The broad region with the most acute crunch is Vaud and Geneva, but shortages are country wide. According to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), the vacancy rate dropped by 0.08 percentage points in the year to June 1st 2025, from 1.08% to 1%. That leaves just over 48,000 homes empty nationwide—around 3,600 fewer than a year earlier. It marks the fifth consecutive annual…

Zurich is the latest German-speaking Swiss canton to question Switzerland’s policy of teaching French from the first years of school. This week, its cantonal council voted to scrap early French lessons, joining Appenzell Ausserrhoden, which made a similar decision earlier this year. Proposals to delay French instruction until high school are under discussion in other German-speaking cantons, including St Gallen, Thurgau and even bilingual Bern, reported SRF. Switzerland has three main national languages: German, French and Italian. Teaching national languages at school is viewed by many as part of the political and cultural glue that unifies the multilingual nation. However,…

Guy Parmelin, Switzerland’s economics minister, has travelled to Washington to present a revised proposal aimed at ending a long-running customs spat with the United States, reported RTS on 5 September 2025. His colleague, Ignazio Cassis, the foreign minister, confirmed during a visit to Reichenau that Bern had developed an optimised offer for Washington. The trip marks the second round of negotiations; the first, Mr Cassis admitted, wasn’t a success. Earlier negotiations broke down, leaving Switzerland with 39% tariffs on exports to the United States. There were rumours last week that Karin Keller-Sutter, Switzerland’s president had lectured Trump for half an…

This week, Switzerland’s government rejected a call to double the price of the motorway vignette, reported RTS. The annual permit, which has cost CHF 40 since 1995, will not rise to CHF 80, as proposed by Martin Candinas, a centrist MP from Graubünden. He had argued that the increase should be coupled with a matching cut in the mineral-oil surtax, easing the burden on Swiss drivers. Mr Candinas pointed out that a third of vignettes are sold to foreign motorists. By making Switzerland less attractive for leisure transit, he hoped to reduce congestion on Alpine routes such as the Gotthard…

Switzerland has shelved plans for a national study on the health effects of chemical pollutants, reported RTS. The scheme, intended to track the impact of pesticides, heavy metals and “forever chemicals” such as PFAS on 100,000 volunteers over two decades, would have cost as much as CHF 240 million. The Federal Council cited budget constraints in scrapping it, according to a reply to parliament revealed by Swiss broadcaster SRF. Officials had explored co-financing with outside partners, the Federal Office of Public Health said, but legal hurdles blocked the effort. The decision follows a pilot study, which found traces of PFAS…

Robotaxis are common place across much of the US and China. Waymo, a self-driving taxi pioneer, operates in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Austin and Atlanta, with plans to expand further. In China, robotaxi services are widespread across major cities such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing. Progress in Europe has been relatively slow, however, that may be about to change. The economics of self-driving taxis are more compelling than those of privately owned cars. Conventional taxis must bring along an extra person—the driver—whose time must be paid for. A family car may double as a taxi, with…

Did a phone call with Switzerland’s president provoke Donald Trump into slapping punitive tariffs on the country? According to SonntagsBlick, citing unnamed American sources, Karin Keller-Sutter, Switzerland’s president, so irritated the US president during an exchange on 31 July 2025, that he imposed a 39% tariff on Swiss goods—the highest rate imposed on any developed economy. The paper claims she lectured Mr Trump for half an hour on economic politics, prompting him to tell aides he would no longer negotiate with her. The spat appears personal. Later, on television, Mr Trump referred to the Swiss president as Switzerland’s prime minister,…

This week, Swiss Post announced it would stop accepting parcels bound for America from 26 August 2025. The suspension, which follows similar moves by other European postal operators, stems from new American customs rules requiring every package—regardless of size or value—to be declared and cleared. Letters, documents and express deliveries remain unaffected. The change follows the Trump administration’s decision to abolish the US$800 duty-free allowance for imports, originally introduced to counter the flood of low-cost shipments from Chinese e-commerce firms such as Temu and Shein. The measure has since been extended to all countries. European parcels will now face tariffs…