Businesses
The life of a business, from set-up to deregistration
Eight stages, in the order they are lived. Each has its obligations, its thresholds and its traps, and each links to the guide that covers it in detail. You can start at the beginning or at the stage you have reached.
Prepare
Choose a legal form, a registered office and the people around you, before the first franc of turnover.
- The legal form decides what you risk of your private assets, how much capital you must put in and what becomes public.
- The registered office decides which commercial register is competent and which canton taxes you.
- Networks and incubators help for free, often better than people expect.
Set up
Exist in law: notary, commercial register (registre du commerce), and recognition as self-employed.
- An Sàrl or an SA is created by a notarial deed and only exists once it is entered in the commercial register.
- A sole proprietorship needs neither a notary nor capital; registration becomes mandatory from CHF 100,000 of annual turnover.
- The UID number (numéro IDE) arrives on its own, and the AVS compensation office must recognise you as self-employed.
- Pre-filled form: registering a sole proprietorship with the Geneva commercial register.
Get insured
Tell apart what the law requires, what your clients demand and what remains a choice.
- Nothing is mandatory for the self-employed person themselves; everything changes with the first employee.
- Some clients require professional liability insurance before they sign.
Hire
The first employee triggers seven obligations at once.
- AVS as an employer, unemployment insurance, family allowances, accident insurance, occupational pension (LPP), withholding tax, salary certificate.
Run it, every year
The core obligations, with their thresholds, and the calendar that comes back every year.
- VAT from CHF 100,000 of turnover, full accounts for every company, an audit you can avoid below ten jobs.
- The obligations people discover too late: recording working hours, reporting vacancies, business parking.
Finance and grow
Borrow or open up your capital: what your legal form allows.
- A guarantee (cautionnement) helps you obtain a bank loan of up to CHF 1 million.
- Bringing in investors requires a company, in practice most often an SA.
Get through a difficulty
Debt enforcement (poursuite), over-indebtedness, bankruptcy: know before you need it.
- A payment order (commandement de payer) gives you 10 days to file an objection.
- A business entered in the commercial register is pursued by way of bankruptcy, including, since 2025, for its taxes and social contributions.
- Unpaid social contributions of an Sàrl or an SA can be claimed personally from its managers.
- Pre-filled form: the official debt enforcement request (réquisition de poursuite), when you are the creditor.
Pass on or close
From the sale to deregistration from the commercial register, and the ten years of archives that follow.
- A sole proprietorship is closed with a few notices; a company is wound up, in three months at best, in a year most often.
- After 55, a self-employed person's liquidation profit is taxed at a reduced rate.
- Pre-filled form: the request for deregistration (réquisition de radiation) with the Geneva commercial register.
Every year: the list to keep
For a business that is already running, the year comes back with the same deadlines.
- Close the accounts for the financial year. For an Sàrl or an SA, the meeting that approves them is held within six months of the year end.
- Declare salaries to the compensation office, the accident insurer and the pension fund, and hand out salary certificates, at the start of the year.
- File the VAT return, every quarter or every half-year depending on the method chosen, if you are registered for VAT.
- File the tax return: the company's, or your private return for a sole proprietorship.
- Check the thresholds again: turnover (VAT, register, accounting) and headcount (audit, insurance), which trigger new obligations once they are crossed.
Obligations by legal form
The same questions, three answers. Each row is explained in the guide for the stage concerned.
Sole proprietorship
- Commercial register
- Mandatory from CHF 100,000 of annual turnover, optional below
- Capital
- None
- What you risk
- All your private assets
- Accounting
- Simplified up to CHF 500,000 of turnover, full accounts above
- Audit
- None
- If it does not pay
- Bankruptcy if it is in the register, seizure otherwise
- You, for AVS
- Self-employed
- Tax
- The profit is added to your private income
Sàrl (LLC)
- Commercial register
- Mandatory: it only exists once registered
- Capital
- CHF 20,000 minimum
- What you risk
- Your contribution, except unpaid social contributions
- Accounting
- Full
- Audit
- Limited audit, or opt-out possible up to ten full-time jobs
- If it does not pay
- Bankruptcy
- You, for AVS
- Employee of your company
- Tax
- Profit and capital tax, at the registered office
SA (company limited by shares)
- Commercial register
- Mandatory: it only exists once registered
- Capital
- CHF 100,000, of which at least 50,000 paid in at formation
- What you risk
- Your contribution, except unpaid social contributions
- Accounting
- Full
- Audit
- Limited audit, or opt-out possible up to ten full-time jobs
- If it does not pay
- Bankruptcy
- You, for AVS
- Employee of your company
- Tax
- Profit and capital tax, at the registered office
Coming soon
Support with internal organisation: setting up the processes, the tools and the division of roles in a small business that is growing. It will be a service on quote; it is not open yet.
This page summarises the business guides; every amount and every deadline is dated and sourced there. It explains how things work; it does not replace a notary, a fiduciary (fiduciaire) or a lawyer for your own situation.