Switzerland 2026 Guide

How to Write an Invoice as a Private Individual in Switzerland

Selling your old mountain bike? Tutoring a neighbor's kid? You don't need a company to send an invoice—but you do need to get a few things right.

Yes, You Can Invoice
Without a Company

Swiss law allows private persons to invoice without a registered business. The key word is occasional—regular activity may require self-employment registration.

🚴

Selling personal items

Bikes, furniture, electronics
📚

Occasional services

Tutoring, pet-sitting, consulting
🏠

Renting property

Rooms, equipment, parking
Required Elements

What Must Be on Your Invoice

Swiss invoice requirements are less strict for private individuals. However, including the right information prevents payment delays and disputes.

Complete Invoice Elements

ElementExample
Your full nameMaria Keller
Your addressBahnhofstrasse 15, 8001 Zürich
Recipient's name and addressPeter Müller, Hauptstrasse 7, 3011 Bern
Unique invoice number2025-001
Invoice date15.01.2026
Description of goods/servicesUsed road bike, Cannondale CAAD13
Amount dueCHF 850.00
Payment methodIBAN or QR-bill
  • Service date (if different from invoice date)
  • Payment terms — "Due within 14 days" or "Net 14"
  • Your email or phone — makes follow-up easier
  • A thank-you note — improves relationships

💡 Simplified Invoices Under CHF 400: A simple receipt with your name, date, description, and amount is sufficient. However, a proper invoice still looks more professional.

VAT Rules for
Private Individuals

If you're not VAT-registered, do not add VAT to your invoice. This is the most common mistake. Private individuals selling occasional items almost never need to charge VAT.

🇨🇭 Swiss Compliant
✅ No VAT Required
📋 Clear Rules
💼 Private Sales
🚫
Don't Add VAT

Unless you're registered

💰
CHF 100,000 Threshold

Registration only above this

📊
8.1% Standard Rate

If you register later

🏔️
Low European Rates

Switzerland has among the lowest

Current Swiss VAT Rates (2025/2026)

For reference, if you do register later:

RateApplies to
8.1%Standard rate (most goods and services)
3.8%Hotel accommodation
2.6%Food, books, medicines, newspapers

Switzerland has one of the lowest VAT rates in Europe. But again: don't charge it unless you're registered.

Invoice Template

Step-by-Step Invoice Example

Here's a complete invoice template you can adapt for selling goods or services as a private individual in Switzerland.

Invoice list example

Complete Invoice Template

Maria Keller
Bahnhofstrasse 15
8001 Zürich
maria.keller@email.ch | +41 79 123 45 67

                                    INVOICE

Invoice No: 2026-001
Date: 15.01.2026

Bill to:
Peter Müller
Hauptstrasse 7
3011 Bern

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Description                              Amount (CHF)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Used road bike (Cannondale CAAD13)            850.00
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Total due                                 CHF 850.00
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Payment terms: Due within 14 days (by 29.01.2026)

Bank details:
Account holder: Maria Keller
IBAN: CH93 0076 2011 6238 5295 7
Reference: Invoice 2026-001

Thank you for your purchase!

For Services, Add Quantity and Rate

Description                     Qty    Rate      Total
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
English tutoring                 4h    CHF 50    CHF 200
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Self-Employment

When Private Becomes Self-Employed

This is where many articles get it wrong. Let's be precise about the rules.

Common Myth

There's No Automatic CHF 2,300 Registration Rule

The CHF 2,300 threshold (CHF 2,500 from January 2025) applies to AHV social security contributions, not self-employment registration.

  • Primary self-employment requires AHV office recognition
  • The office evaluates your situation based on multiple criteria
  • Secondary self-employment under CHF 2,500/year is voluntary for AHV
  • Over CHF 2,500/year you should register and pay contributions
Self-employment analysis

What Makes You "Self-Employed"?

The AHV compensation office considers:

  • Do you work for multiple clients?
  • Do you bear your own business risk?
  • Do you invest in equipment?
  • Do you market your services?
  • Is this activity regular and income-oriented?

Selling a few personal items per year doesn't make you self-employed. Teaching German to five different students every week for payment likely does.

Commercial Register Requirements

If your annual turnover exceeds CHF 100,000, you must register in the commercial register and maintain proper accounting. But this threshold is far beyond occasional private activity.

Record-Keeping

Keep Your Records for 10 Years

Even as a private individual, Swiss law requires retaining invoices and financial documents for 10 years from the end of the tax year.

  • 📁
    10-Year Rule

    Retain all invoices legally

  • 📋
    Tax Documentation

    Authorities may request proof

  • ⚖️
    Dispute Protection

    Issues arise years later

  • 🧾
    Warranty Claims

    Proof of sale required

Invoices
  • Invoice #3

    Magic Heidi

    CHF 500

    Jan 29

  • Invoice #2

    Webbiger LTD

    CHF 2000

    Jan 24

  • Invoice #1

    John Doe

    CHF 600

    Jan 20

Payment Tips

Getting Paid Faster

Swiss residents take an average of 31 days to pay invoices. 49% of B2B invoices are overdue at any given time.

Late Payment Interest

Under Swiss law (Article 104 OR), you can charge up to 5% annual interest on overdue payments. Include this in your payment terms:

"Payment due within 14 days. Late payments subject to 5% annual interest per Art. 104 OR."

Most private individuals won't enforce this, but it encourages timely payment.

Language Considerations

Switzerland has four official languages. For invoices:

  • Use the language you've been communicating in
  • German works in most of German-speaking Switzerland
  • French for Romandie, Italian for Ticino
  • English is acceptable for international clients
FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I invoice without a company in Switzerland?

Yes. Swiss private individuals can legally invoice for selling personal items or providing occasional services without any business registration.

Do I need to charge VAT on my invoice?

No, unless you're VAT-registered. Registration is only required when annual turnover exceeds CHF 100,000 from taxable activities.

What invoice number should I use?

Any consistent system works. Simple options include sequential numbers (001, 002) or year-prefixed (2026-001, 2026-002).

Can I invoice in cash?

You can accept cash payment, but still issue a proper invoice. Mark it "Paid in cash" with the date.

Do I need to declare this income on my taxes?

Yes. Income from selling goods or services should be declared as "other income" on your tax return, even without formal self-employment.

How long should I keep invoice copies?

Ten years from the end of the tax year. This is a legal requirement in Switzerland.

Create Your Invoice in 30 Seconds

Formatting invoices manually gets tedious. Magic Heidi generates Swiss-compliant invoices with proper IBAN or QR-bill formatting in under a minute. Perfect for private individuals and anyone testing freelance work.

Generate My InvoiceLearn More
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Last updated: January 2026. This guide reflects current Swiss regulations including the November 2025 QR-bill changes and January 2025 AHV threshold adjustments.