FAQ: A brief guide to salaries in Switzerland

See that Sticky Thread at the top of the Employment section? - well it says

Salaries in Switzerland - questions answered before you ask! so have a look in there!

The idea was to try to cut down on the actual number of stickies 'blocking' the list of new posts, when so often no-one even reads their titles let alone opens them. I hoped that with a title like this, maybe, one day in the far distant future, some EFer with nothing to do with his 'mouse' might just click on it...

And, for the record, there are several stickies with links to quite a few informative and helpful Threads in other areas of the Forum too.

Wages wage earnings earn

(I've added these to make sure than anyone searching for them gets this Thread coming up in the LONG list of less helpful ones)

Perhaps what you need is a sticky with links to all the other stickies.

The sticky situation is deciding where to stick it.

Cheers,

Nick

This official 'salarium' calculator, does it have enough reliability from your experience? Is it a good indicator for the real-swiss-world situation concerning swiss companies?

Hi Guys, I am digging on this forum since few days but this topic looks like the most suitable for me...

I received an offer to work in Geneva (100k p/a), however it is a gross amount and I tried to calculate net one (actually disposable net amount - money which I wil receive on my account). I found few online calculators:

https://www.lohncomputer.ch/en/calculator/

https://www.ethz.ch/en/the-eth-zuric...alculator.html

http://neuvoo.ch/tax-calculator/

I also found something on Geneva Canton website but this was only in French which is not the language I speak.

Each of them gives me different result. I am just simply looking on the amount which will stay in my pocket.

Can you please tell me which of the above ones is the most accurate (single, no religion, living and working in Geneva) OR what are the exact %s for each factor to allow me calculate that on my own (original post was some time ago - are the %s still valid?).

And second question. Lets say that I will be leaving Switzerland in next 2-3 years - I hears somehing about possibility to get back 2nd pillar money? Any website where I can read something more about that?

Would appreciate answers...

As you will be taxed at source by your employer, looks like the ethz and Lohncomputer are more reliable. They calculate your tax using the Quellensteuer rate (the average cantonal rate with some assumptions about deductions applied) and also take into account the social contributions and pension which will be deducted by your employer.

You can confirm the pure tax rate here..

http://ge.ch/finances/ael-afcportail...2017/iscal.php

Enter your tax band (A0) and salary and you get 1,365.78 CHF/Month (16.39 %)

Don't forget health insurance as well - there are also quoting tools and comparison websites so that you can get an an estimate.

why not ask your company if they can give you a simulated amount, taking the company's specific allowances and deductions like pension into consideration?

Great advice, thank you very much for help. Seems that 100k is not the best business ever... Minus Health Insurance (ca. 300CHF as I found on comparis) stays in my pocket around 5,5k.

Thanks anyway!

You do know that that is quite a good salary and an amount you can live quite nicely on??

Good point, Firstly I would prefer o find hat on my own - to check if there would be discrepancy

Depends on needs... I am considering this offer as an adventure and sth what can boost my career but it does not mean that I want to lower level of my current life. I am not in the situation that I urgently need to change employer or start earning more.

Simply saying - I am aware that Geneva is extremely expensive and finding a flat below 2k might be hard (I want to live in the city and not spend my free time travelling to France), food is not so cheap either. I count 1,2-1,5 k per month, I would like to go for a beer from time to time, gym, swimming pool, weekend in mounains...

Apologies if I am missing something but all of these adds up to quite high amounts - at least as per sources I've checked (comparis, numbeo, friends). And my assumption is to make some savings and not only work, eat and sleep. Maybe I am wrong, then, sorry for my ignorance

It's crazy expensive in Geneva and will be like living in London on GBP35k. You can do it but you will be tightish.

Clueless as usual.

As a single with no dependants, all of that is possible and you will still be able to save money. If not, then you're doing something wrong.

No single person spends 1500/month on food. Not even if includes eating out over lunch every day plus once or twice for dinner in the evening. Unless of course you eat at a five-star place every time.

Whether it's a step up or not compared to your current living situation only you can tell. Depends on what you do and what you make now and where.

While Switzerland is expensive, even in Geneva you can go on with relatively low funds. If you eat lunch out ever day, I'd expect it to be 25 CHF per average, ie 500 CHF per month. That would mean your food at home would be breakfast and dinner only. Unless you dine out, that's about 300 CHF (c'mon, you don't eat caviar for breakfast, and dinner isn't usually a very expensive steak either..)

Even in Geneva proper, you can survive with 3000 CHF per month. No fun, but it can be done.

SFr100k for a single person is more than adequate - even though the official EF poverty line is SFr120k.

There will be any number of posts on here telling that SFr100k is enough to be able to afford a trip to the cinema, a few pints afterwards and a bag of chips on the way home.

And these days I hear SFr130k is the new SFr120k.

Cheers,

Nick

Definietely not every day, small breakfast and proper dinner and somethin hot during the day... It might be that I overestimated such expense...

Yep, I see this inconsisency... Hard to define which is true

Seems that I need to recalculate costs again then.

To all of you guys - thank you very much for your replies, need to think about decisions now

Hey Camillo,

How did it go? What did you decide? Was 100k CHF enough for you?

Cheers

Seeing that Camillo hasn ́t been active here since October 2017, I doubt there will be an answer.

If it's not, you got a SERIOUS problem, even for family of 4

Not really. 100K isn't enough for my current lifestyle, which I'm very happy to continue to maintain. It isn't a problem.

Whatever you guys are up to - 100k is a decent salary (way above Swiss average income) and perfectly fine to "feed" a 4 person family on a single income.

Sure that doesn't include 5x yearly holidays for everyone in business class somewhere expensive, a super luxury-place or driving a Ferrari, but it's more than enough for a happy life without any worries.

People of small faith^^

@chilledout:

I am a single who likes to live well. So with my lifestyle (renting veeeery small flat in type of already furnished business apartment near the lake, parties, skiing, leaving the city for the weekends, eating outside of my home) 100 k is good. Could be better to make more savings but nothing to complain about. Having a bit less wouldn't be a problem. Probably with some more savings-approach you can have cheaper flat and not spend so much on other things but why not if you can

Might be safer to drop me a private messages, I got an email about reply in this thread only today.