Practical and Convenient: Swiss E-Tax Statements Explained

Filling out your tax returns can be tedious. If you hold stocks and other securities, getting e-statements from your bank can drastically reduce the work involved. Get informed about electronic tax statements from Swiss banks in this moneyland.ch guide.

Tax certificate, tax statement, or e-tax statement?

In Switzerland, three different documents can be used to declare your bank accounts and securities custody accounts.

• Tax certificate: Most banks provide you with a complimentary tax certificate, sometimes called an interest statement in relation to bank accounts. The disadvantage of these – particularly for custody accounts – is that you have to manually copy all the information to your tax return.
• Tax statement: Many banks offer tax statements, often in exchange for a fee. The advantage of these is that you only need to copy three values from the tax statement to your tax return.
• E-tax statement: An e-tax statement is an electronic version of the tax statement. All data is automatically transferred to the correct fields in your tax return. The information in this guide pertains to e-tax statements.

What is an e-tax statement?

An e-tax statement is a PDF with an integrated barcode. It is a digital collection of tax-relevant data related to banking services (like bank accounts, loans, mortgages, and securities custody accounts). Swiss e-tax statements are based on the e-CH 0196 standard. They simplify the process of completing your tax returns.

The bank provides you as the customer with a PDF file. Typically, this file can be downloaded through the online banking portal. This file can be imported into the electronic tax return software of Swiss cantons. If you are filling out your tax return online, you can upload e-tax returns to the online tax platform.

Good to know: Swiss banks do not send e-tax returns to the tax office. The tax administration can only access the information after you have uploaded the PDF and submitted your completed tax returns to the tax office.

Who can use e-tax returns?

E-tax returns can only be used by private individuals who live in Switzerland. More precisely, Swiss e-tax statements are only available to actual people who are tax residents of Switzerland.

E-tax statements are not offered to legal entities like companies, foundations, and associations.

Which information is included in e-tax statements?

Among other data, Swiss e-tax statements include the following information:

• Account balance as per December 31
• Value of securities in custody as per December 31
• Debts (personal loans, mortgages)
• Yields for the whole tax year (interest and dividends, with and without Swiss withholding tax)
• Securities buy and sell transactions
• Interest paid on debts
• Flat tax credit for US withholding taxes
• Banking costs that are tax deductible in your canton

Important: An e-tax statement is not the same thing as a tax statement. It does not include information about incoming and outgoing transfers to and from your bank account. The tax office cannot see who you received money from, or who you have transferred money to.

However, there may be differences depending on the bank: for instance, Berner Kantonalbank's e-tax statement does not contain any information on any debts.

What are the advantages of e-tax statements?

The biggest advantage of e-tax statements is that you can transfer all of the important data to your tax returns electronically. The necessary information is even automatically entered into the correct fields in your tax return.

That eliminates the need to collect and evaluate all the data needed for your tax returns. When you receive a regular tax statement from your bank, you have to fill out the information for each security individually on separate lines on your tax return’s securities declaration form.

The differences between tax statements and e-tax statements are minimal. But when you use a tax statement without a barcode, you have to enter your full portfolio in your tax return manually. When you use a tax statement with an integrated barcode, that work is done automatically.

When is using e-tax statements necessary?

You are not obligated to use e-tax statements. But doing so does make it easier to declare all types of bank accounts and custody accounts.

Using e-tax statements is most beneficial for custody accounts in which you hold many different securities, and/or when you make large numbers of securities trades.

If, on the other hand, your account has just a few different securities and you made few securities trades during the last tax year, or none at all, then it is relatively quick and simple to copy the information manually. In that case, the basic tax certificate you get from your bank is sufficient, and you can save yourself the cost of getting a tax statement or an e-tax statement.

For regular bank accounts, the added value of using e-tax statements is small, because declaring bank account balances in your tax returns is very simple.

In which cantons can I use e-tax statements?

E-tax statements are now accepted by all of Switzerland’s cantons. Where in Switzerland you live no longer affects whether or not you can use e-tax statements.

Which Swiss banks offer e-tax statements?

Many – but not all – Swiss banks offer e-tax statements. The table below provides an overview.

Will I automatically receive e-tax statements?

Most financial services providers only give you an e-tax statement if you specifically order one.

Only a few banks automatically make e-tax statements available for customers to download via their online banking portals. Examples include:

• The Aargauische Kantonalbank and the Luzerner Kantonalbank automatically make e-tax statements available to its customers – including those who do not have securities.
• Berner Kantonalbank customers with securities automatically receive an e-tax statement free of charge.
• Nidwaldner Kantonalbank customers with custody accounts automatically receive e-tax statements free of charge. Other customers can order them free of charge.
• Zuger Kantonalbank customers who obtain their documents via e-banking automatically receive an e-tax card free of charge.
• Neon customers with securities automatically receive an e-tax statement free of charge.

How much do e-tax statements cost?

The fees charged for e-tax statements vary broadly between banks. While some financial services providers make them available free of charge, others charge hundreds of francs. Some banks calculate their fees based on how many different securities positions you hold.

Some service providers generally do not charge fees for e-tax statements. That is the case with e-tax statements from the cantonal banks of Aargau, Bern, Nidwalden, and Uri. Valiant, Neon, and nearly all Robo Advisors also offer e-tax statements free of charge.

Many other Swiss banks generally charge a fee for e-tax statements, but waive their fee for customers who use certain banking products. In other words, the e-tax statement fees are covered by the flat fees charged for these banking products.

Table: The cost of e-tax statements

The table above shows the costs of e-tax statements for securities custody accounts. The fees shown are those for online banking and are the effective fees that you have to pay, including value-added tax (VAT). The fees published by many service providers do not account for VAT. The fees shown in the table are rounded to the nearest 5 centimes.

¹ Free of charge if you use online banking to access documents. Otherwise, you pay a flat fee of between 0 and 200 francs, depending on the banking product.
² This fee calculation is for securities positions only. It does not account for regular bank accounts or loans.
³ CHF 25.00 discount for customers with an execution-only custody account, a service package, or financing.
⁴ This only applies to Neon Invest. However, the e-tax statement also includes information about your private account and spaces).
⁵ Free of charge for customers retrieving their documents digitally in e-banking.
⁶ Costs using Basic investment advice
⁷ Recommendation to independent Raiffeisen cooperative banks from Raiffeisen Switzerland. Conditions vary between individual Raiffeisen banks.

What should you pay attention to?

E-tax statements are practical and convenient. But tax offices stress that you as the taxpayer are still responsible to ensure the correctness of information. That means you are obligated to check the data that is transferred onto your tax returns.

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