My Experience Founding a GmbH Company

Finance, Taxes, Banking, Insurance and Retirement
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Dear Forum Members,

I thought to share my experience in founding a company in Switzerland with IFJ and banks so it may help you if you plan to embark on the same journey…

I chose IFJ vs. startups.ch because IFJ offers discounts with various vendors such as Swisscom (300 CHF voucher), a domicile service which I required and I have used them before. They also partner with PostFinance which was advantageous to streamline the overall process.

The paperwork with IFJ for the corporate registry was relatively straightforward however took some time since they also required the capital deposit confirmation before sending my application to the corporate registry. Once submitted, it took about 2 weeks to receive a confirmation for my company name. However, since the company name conflicted with another one that is in liquidation I had to choose an alternative which took an additional 1 week.

The banking paperwork was a huge challenge. PostFinance was very thorough (compliance department), however they declined my application because my business required international transactions. Therefore, I tried with Credit Suisse, UBS, Raiffeisen and a cantonal bank. UBS was relatively easy with their Key4 app, Credit Suisse with an online process, cantonal bank was paper-based and Raiffeisen was more manual based since they had no online application process. It is hard to recommend which bank to go with, it is always a personal preference and what services you require, but I personally preferred a cantonal bank since I bank personally with one. I would strongly recommend going with two banks in parallel just in case you get declined by one.

The high-level steps were as follows (I may have missed some details):

  1. Complete incorporation paperwork
  2. Notarize incorporation paperwork
  3. Apply for capital deposit account; expect delays if this goes through a compliance department (it is good to have a business plan and your prior year tax returns in case they ask)
  4. Send capital deposit confirmation alongside incorporation paperwork to corporate registry
  5. Get registered at corporate registry office; expect delays if the name gets rejected
  6. Send incorporation confirmation to bank to unblock the capital deposit
  7. Start business

Overall the entire process from start to finish took me about 2 months primarily due to the banking process. Had it not been for the PostFinance decline it would have taken about 1 month.

What has been your experience like if you have done this before? Feel free to share… Questions welcomed!

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Thanks for sharing. Do you have an idea of annual compliance costs?

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Not sure yet; just started… I will have to ask honestly.

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I started by identifying a good accountant and having a good initial discussion (almost 2 hours) of the current situation of the family, revenue streams, savings, investments, contracts and gigs. She scoped the needs and recommended a notary and a bank in the region. The notary was fast, accepted me same week, and then the bank came in… two weeks of crickets after TEN YEARS banking with them as private customers. I ended up calling my account manager and he is “on it”, hoping that in 2-3 days we will have the account where capital must be submitted.
The whole exercise will cost us 2500 for the notary and 250 for the bank, so 2750 to registration.

To @Phil_MCR 's point - compliance is important and costs depend on volume and type of work. The bare-bones-minimum (social security, pension, loss of revenue, incidents, etc) will get you to about 650/year but are mandatory - failure to have these in place may rake fines far exceeding any ‘savings’. I really hit the jackpot with my accountant as she is working with trusted “courtier” people who broker and negotiate all insurance coverage. So, once my papers are out, we will give this work to the “courtier” and be ready to sign contracts :slight_smile:

My experience is representative for the bigger Lausanne (Vaud) area, feel free to ask questions - will answer to the best of my abilities.

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