Buying Property in Switzerland as a Foreigner: The Lex Koller Rules

Switzerland is one of the few high-income countries that actively limits foreign ownership of housing. The rules sit in the Federal Act on the Acquisition of Real Estate by Persons Abroad (German BewG, French LFAIE, Italian LAFE), almost always called the Lex Koller after the minister who shaped it. Enacted in 1983 and in force since 1985, the Act treats residential property as a protected asset and requires many foreign buyers to obtain a cantonal authorisation before they can complete a purchase, if they are permitted to buy at all.

The practical answer depends on three things: your nationality, your residence status in Switzerland, and what kind of property you want. A settled resident buying a flat to live in is treated very differently from a non-resident investor seeking a second apartment in the Alps. This guide sets out who needs a permit, where the permit-free cases lie, how holiday-home quotas work, why buying through a company does not get around the law, and what the 2025/2026 reform may change.

Yes, but it depends on who you are and what you want to buy. Acquisition of residential property by a person abroad needs an authorisation under the Lex Koller, while residents with the right permit buy much like Swiss citizens. The deciding factor is whether you count as a person abroad under the Act, which turns on residence and nationality rather than on how much you are willing to pay.

As a quick self-check by buyer type: a foreign national with a C settlement permit buys residential property freely; an EU or EFTA national resident in Switzerland on a B permit can buy a main home where they live; and a non-resident is generally limited to a holiday home in a designated tourist area, within quota. Commercial and business premises sit largely outside the restriction, which matters for entrepreneurs. The hard limits bite on housing, in particular on second homes and buy-to-let residential property held by people who do not live in Switzerland.

The core distinction is between buyers who are treated like Swiss citizens and those who count as persons abroad. Buyers who can acquire residential property without a Lex Koller authorisation include:

• Holders of a C settlement permit, of any nationality, who are treated like Swiss residents for these purposes and can buy a home freely.
• EU and EFTA nationals resident in Switzerland on a B permit, buying a property to use as their main residence at their actual place of residence.
• Anyone, for genuine commercial premises used as a permanent business establishment, whatever the buyer's nationality or residence.

Buyers who do need authorisation include non-resident foreign nationals, EU or EFTA nationals who are in Switzerland without a permit, and third-country nationals living in Switzerland without a C permit. A non-EU national on a B permit sits in a special position covered in the matrix below: typically one home for their own use only. If you already live and work in Switzerland, your permit category is therefore the first thing to confirm, and our Swiss residence permit guide explains how each status is acquired.

The most common route for a non-resident is the holiday home, and it is the most tightly controlled. Purchases are only possible in cantons and municipalities designated as tourist areas, and each canton works within an annual federal quota of authorisations thought to total roughly 1,500 a year nationally. The allocation is split into cantonal sub-quotas, with the larger tourist cantons such as Valais holding a few hundred and smaller cantons only a handful, so popular alpine and lakeside resorts use their allocation quickly. Treat any specific quota figure as indicative and verify the current cantonal allocation before relying on it.

Holiday-home permits also come with conditions on the property itself. Cantons typically cap the net living area at around 200 square metres and the plot at around 1,000 square metres, restrict the buyer to one holiday home per household, and forbid using the property as a permanent, year-round let. Resale is often subject to a minimum holding period. Roughly 17 cantons and regions allow foreign holiday-home purchases, among them Valais, Grisons, Ticino, Bern and Vaud. You can see the wider picture in our cantonal overview; note that low-tax business cantons such as Zug are not tourist-zone cantons, so the holiday-home route does not apply there.

A frequent assumption is that a foreign investor can sidestep the restriction by having a Swiss company buy the home. The Act anticipates exactly this through an anti-circumvention rule. If a foreign-controlled company acquires residential property, or if foreign persons acquire a controlling interest in a company that owns restricted property, the transaction is treated as an acquisition by a person abroad and needs the same permit. Financing arrangements that put a foreign lender in a dominant position can be caught as well. The law looks through the structure to who really controls the asset, so corporate ownership does not unlock residential property the buyer could not own directly.

Where a structure genuinely works is commercial real estate. A Swiss operating company can own the premises it trades from, and a foreign group can hold Swiss business property through a local entity without authorisation. That is a normal reason to form a Swiss company, and investors building a property-holding platform for commercial assets often use a holding structure to consolidate ownership. The key is that the structuring follows the commercial exemption, rather than trying to defeat the residential restriction.

A Swiss property purchase is a formal, public process. The sale contract must be executed as a notarial deed before a notary, and ownership only passes when the transfer is entered in the cantonal land register (Grundbuch). Where a Lex Koller permit is required, it has to be in place for the registration to proceed. On top of the price, buyers should budget transaction costs of roughly 3 to 5 percent: a property-transfer tax (Handänderungssteuer) in many cantons, notary fees of around 0.2 to 1 percent, and land-register charges. These vary significantly between cantons, with some levying little or no transfer tax and others charging a few percent, so confirm the figure for the specific canton before you commit.

The steps run in a predictable sequence: agree terms and sign a reservation; carry out due diligence and arrange financing; obtain the Lex Koller permit if one is needed; sign the notarial deed of sale; and complete with the land-register entry that transfers ownership. From an accepted offer to handover, a clean purchase usually takes around two to three months, longer where an authorisation has to be granted first.

Last reviewed November 2026. Verify the current status before relying on any of the items below, because the law is mid-revision and these are proposals, not enacted rules.

A revision of the Lex Koller has been under consultation. The proposals discussed would tighten the regime rather than relax it, and have included: requiring an authorisation for non-EU nationals buying a primary home; a duty to resell within roughly two years of leaving Switzerland; reduced cantonal holiday-home quotas; re-subjecting foreign-to-foreign resales to authorisation; and a letting ban on foreign-bought establishment property. None of these is settled law as this guide is published. If you are timing a purchase, treat the reform items as a planning risk and confirm the position with a Swiss adviser at the point of decision.