§ Reference · Ten areas, twenty clarifications
Written answers to the questions that come up most often in session, grouped by area. Each reflects current Geneva cantonal practice and the applicable federal framework. They do not replace the review of a file: the legitimation card, the applicable headquarters agreement and the composition of the household often change the answer.
No. Under the Health Insurance Ordinance (OAMal), most legitimation card holders, notably B, C, D, K and P cards, may apply to be exempted from compulsory Swiss insurance.
That exemption is not automatic. You must file a formal application with the Geneva Service de l'assurance-maladie (SAM, the cantonal health insurance office) within three months of taking up your functions, providing proof of equivalent private cover. The decision belongs to the canton, never to a broker.
The private insurer must formally warrant that your contract covers the full range of basic benefits required by LAMal in Switzerland: outpatient treatment, hospitalisation and maternity, with no ceiling on basic care.
The bureau works with international insurers whose policies are pre-validated by the cantonal authorities of French-speaking Switzerland, which materially reduces the risk of the file being refused.
In almost every case, no. Complementary insurance contracts governed by the Swiss Insurance Contract Act (LCA) contain a territoriality clause. As soon as you return your legitimation card and leave Swiss territory, those contracts terminate as of right.
This is why we favour portable international private medical insurance (IPMI) for diplomats, which follows the household without interruption of cover or fresh medical underwriting at the next posting.
Your spouse's salary will be subject to the ordinary impôt à la source (tax withheld on salary) in Geneva. The cantonal tax administration nonetheless applies the global-rate, or effective-rate, rule to mixed households.
To set the rate applicable to your spouse's salary, the Geneva authorities notionally add both incomes together: your exempt diplomatic salary and their taxable salary. Your spouse's income therefore ends up taxed in a high marginal bracket. We run precise tax simulations before any employment contract is signed, to assess the real net return of that activity for your household.
No. From the moment a Ci permit is issued for gainful employment, the holder loses their exemption under international law. They must join a Swiss basic health insurance fund within three months.
The principal legitimation card holder retains exempt status: the two regimes coexist within the same household.
At 25, or on completing their studies if they are between 18 and 25, children lose the right to hold a transfer legitimation card or a Ci permit under family reunification.
They must then leave Switzerland or apply for an ordinary residence permit, B or L, subject to the standard admission conditions for foreign workers: cantonal priority measures and quotas for third-country nationals.
The Pillar 3A is fiscally attractive only because contributions are deductible from taxable income in Switzerland. As an international civil servant or diplomat exempt from tax on official income, you make no tax saving. There is also an access condition: article 7(1) OPP 3 requires AVS-liable income, which a B, C, D or E card holder does not have.
Your capital would be locked away until statutory retirement age in a rigid structure with nothing in return. We consistently direct clients to the unrestricted Pillar 3B or to capitalisation life-insurance wrappers under Luxembourg law, which are fiscally neutral and fully liquid.
ANobAG status, employment by an employer not liable for contributions, concerns Swiss nationals and permanent residents holding a C permit who work for diplomatic missions or international organisations in Geneva.
Because those international employers are exempt from contributing to the Swiss social security system, the local employee must take on the full registration process and the payment of AVS/AI/APG/AC contributions, employee and employer shares alike. We support these profiles in structuring their status compliantly and avoiding gaps in pension cover.
Yes, but only as a primary residence. The Federal Act on the Acquisition of Immovable Property by Persons Abroad (Lex Koller) allows legitimation card holders resident in Switzerland to acquire their main home without prior authorisation.
Acquiring second homes or rental investment property, by contrast, remains prohibited or subject to very strict quotas. The exemption is personal, non-commercial and temporary.
Diplomats enjoy immunity from execution and from jurisdiction. Should mortgage instalments go unpaid, a Swiss bank cannot bring ordinary enforcement proceedings nor readily attach the diplomat's income.
To offset that legal risk, banks require enhanced guarantees: an equity contribution often above 25%, the pledging of financial assets, or specific sureties. The bureau works with the few Geneva banks that maintain teams dedicated to financing the diplomatic corps.
All Swiss banks automatically levy the 35% impôt anticipé (federal withholding tax) on the interest generated by your savings accounts as soon as it exceeds CHF 200 per year. The reclaim is a procedure, not an error to be argued about at the counter.
The bureau handles the preparation and the follow-up of these claims.
No. VAT refunds are governed by strict FDFA rules and concern mainly Heads of Mission and diplomats of B or C rank.
To be eligible, the purchase must be made from a Swiss retailer, for strictly personal or official use, and the amount of the single invoice, or of a set of grouped invoices from the same supplier, must reach a minimum threshold of CHF 450 including VAT. Services, notably restaurants and hotels, are generally excluded.
The tax treatment of a lump-sum payment from an international pension fund depends on your residence status at the time of payment.
A case-by-case analysis is indispensable before the withdrawal is confirmed.
No. The pension funds of international organisations, such as the UNJSPF or the CERN pension fund, are autonomous systems governed by public international law. They are not integrated into the Swiss occupational pension system (LPP).
No direct transfer, or vested-benefits transfer, is therefore possible into an ordinary Swiss pension institution. If you join the Swiss private sector, you will start a new second pillar from zero.
The employment of private domestic staff by beneficiaries of privileges and immunities is strictly governed by the FDFA Ordinance on Private Household Employees (OPE). Your principal obligations are as follows.
No. Unlike you, a private domestic employee does not benefit from tax exemption. Their salary is subject to withholding tax in Geneva.
As the employer, you are legally responsible for deducting that tax directly from their gross salary and remitting it periodically to the cantonal tax administration.
No. Vehicles imported or acquired duty-free in Switzerland are subject to a retention period, generally three years for diplomats and accredited personnel.
Under the Federal Act on Private International Law (LDIP), the estate of a foreign national whose last domicile was in Switzerland is governed by Swiss law, unless the deceased made testamentary dispositions submitting the estate to their national law (professio juris).
For diplomats, although their factual domicile is in Geneva, their temporary expatriate status under the Vienna Convention can complicate the determination of the legal domicile for succession purposes. Recording a choice of law in writing is strongly recommended, to avoid conflicts of law between Switzerland and your state of origin.
In Geneva, the estates of persons benefiting from diplomatic privileges and immunities (B and C cards) are exempt from cantonal inheritance tax on movable property: bank accounts, securities portfolios, works of art.
Immovable property located in the canton of Geneva, by contrast, remains fully subject to Geneva inheritance tax, whatever the status of the deceased.
If you hold a legitimation card of diplomatic rank, or are an international civil servant exempt from direct taxation, your worldwide movable wealth, bank and securities accounts abroad included, is not taxable in Switzerland.
However, if a member of your tax household holds a Ci permit, or if you own property in Switzerland, those foreign assets will have to be declared in order to determine the applicable tax rates, under the global-rate rule.
For legitimation card holders benefiting from the standard tax exemption (B, C, K), foreign-source property income does not have to be declared in Switzerland.
It remains subject exclusively to the tax rules of the state where the property is located, in accordance with the applicable double taxation treaties.
§ Begin
Every file has its particularities, and the legitimation card often changes the answer. A first confidential conversation with the bureau is the place to put the question precisely, with no commitment.
Mandat Genève