Swiss Payroll Frequently Asked Questions

Regardless whether your Swiss payroll is hourly, weekly or monthly based, it is always recalculated for the entire year to date; the difference between the latest and the previous payroll is the basis for the calculation of insurance premiums, and social deductions. In this way you always are charged precisely the right annual premium on your year to date salary, so when you leave there is no large or unexpected adjustment.

Payrolls are normally calculated monthly (because some premiums and tax rates are based on monthly income) but they can be processed at shorter intervals (e.g. weekly) in some circumstances.

An hourly salary is based purely on the hours you work each month paid at a fixed hourly rate. You may be paid uplifts on top of the standard hourly rate for overtime, work on Sundays or public holidays and night- or shift work.

A monthly salary is fixed per month based on a number of target hours for a given month (business days times hours contracted per day).

With an hourly salary you will always be paid for the actual hours worked. With a monthly salary, even if you work overtime or undertime you should receive the same salary, and can arrange with your employer whether to take a payroll adustment for the difference in hours, or to compensate time in later months.

Monthly salaries require more sophisticated payroll work, are more flexible, better for tax optimisation, and result in a constant cashflow that makes personal financial management easier. Accurity therefore provides monthly payroll as standard.

Most of your forecasted income is paid as an agreed monthly salary. The remainder is a floating bonus (paid out each month) in order to absorb differences between what is billed to the client and the actual payroll costs  (adjusted for uplifts, and absence insurance credits when they arise). Accurity is unique in ensuring you receive anything left over, after paying the regular salary, as a bonus. It is not possible to calculate the cost of Swiss payroll precisely in advance, but by using the bonus model, we do not keep for ourselves a ‘margin’ for unexpected variations in payroll cost.

Yes. you are covered for absences due to sickness (from the third day) and accident (from the first day) at up to 80% salary.

You are also covered  by the state for statutory maternity/paternity leave and Swiss military service.

Under our monthly salary model you will receive the basic salary as long as you work the work weighting (percentage) agreed in your contract, regardless of the number of business hours in a given month.

We pay salaries on the 5th and on the 15th of the month following the month worked, depending on the category of contract you are payrolled under – as long as we receive your authorized timesheet in time.

Under Swiss employment law if we lease you to a client and you earn less than a gross full time equivalent salary of CHF 148’200.- per year you must be payrolled under a slightly more stringent general employment agreement for leased personnel (GAV Arbeitsverleih).

Those of you earning more than this limit benefit from a slightly more flexible employment contract and you do not have to pay the extra GAV premiums (totalling 1% of salary).

We run a computer simulation of your contract which determines a salary that fits the revenue we expect to bill your client, less our agreed commission. You can try a simple version of this simulator here.

The thirteenth month salary arises from the time when Swiss folk were less well off. The annual salary is divided into thirteen instalments and the thirteenth instalment is typically paid with the December salary in time for christmas and the annual tax bill.

This artifact has been included in the “GAV Leasing” contract that all Swiss personnel leasing companies required to work under. Bizarrly however, we are allowed to pay out the thirteenth month in twelve instalments (one each month). This effectively eliminates the need to hold it back until December, but it still must be separately itemized in your payroll.