Switzerland: rental market overview

Switzerland runs tenancy law federally: the Code of Obligations (Obligationenrecht, OR), Art. 253 onwards, applies identically in every canton — there is no equivalent of Austria's tiered MRG system. What does vary by canton is procedure: which official forms are required and how the local conciliation authority is composed.

A fixed-term lease simply ends at expiry with no notice needed (Art. 255 Abs. 2 OR); Swiss law sets no statutory minimum or maximum duration for it. A tenant who wants out early isn't stuck, though: they can propose a solvent, reasonable replacement tenant willing to take over on the same terms, and if the landlord refuses without good cause, the original tenant is released from the contract (Art. 264 OR).

• Some cantons — per the Federal Housing Office's 2026 directory: Basel-Stadt, Bern, Fribourg, Geneva, Lucerne, Neuchâtel, Vaud, Zug and Zurich — require the landlord to disclose the initial rent on an official cantonal form (Formularpflicht), a rule tied to local housing shortage.
• Subletting needs the landlord's consent, but it can only be refused on the specific grounds Art. 262 OR lists — non-disclosure of sublet terms, terms abusive compared to the head lease, or a substantial disadvantage to the landlord.

The letting is residential by default; business use needs the landlord's prior written consent, mirroring the pattern in every other Brokik market.

The deposit (Kaution) for residential space is capped at three months' rent (Art. 257e Abs. 2 OR) — a hard ceiling, not a guideline. It must sit on a blocked account or deposit at a bank, held exclusively in the tenant's own name; a landlord cannot legally route it through a private account.

• Interest earned on the account belongs to the tenant and is added to the deposit.
• If the landlord raises no claim — through debt collection (Betreibung) or a court action — within one year of the lease ending, the bank must release the full deposit plus interest to the tenant on request (Art. 257e Abs. 3 OR).
• Settlement happens after the lease ends, the flat is returned and the handover report is signed, minus any legitimate counterclaim.

This blocked-account requirement is one of the sharpest differences from neighbouring markets: Finland, for instance, needs no dedicated account at all for the same purpose.

An open-ended lease can be terminated by either party with three months' written notice to the customary local term (Art. 266a in conjunction with Art. 266c OR) — or, absent a customary date, to the end of a three-month tenancy. The landlord's notice is only valid on the canton-approved official form; served any other way, it is void (Art. 266l Abs. 2 in conjunction with Art. 266o OR).

A tenant who thinks a termination is contrary to good faith can contest it within 30 days at the cantonal conciliation authority and ask for an extension of the tenancy of up to four years for residential space (Art. 271-273c OR). And once a landlord and tenant have gone through conciliation or litigation over a tenancy dispute, the landlord is barred from terminating on account of that dispute for the following three years.

• Rent itself moves with the published mortgage reference rate (hypothekarischer Referenzzinssatz) and general cost and index changes; an increase must be served on the official form at least ten days before the notice period for the next termination date starts (Art. 269d OR), and a tenant can contest it as abusive within 30 days.
• If the reference rate falls, the tenant can demand a matching rent reduction — the mechanism cuts both ways.
• Qualified payment arrears trigger a written 30-day grace period (Nachfrist) with a termination warning; only after that does a minimum 30-day notice to the end of a month apply for family or residential space (Art. 257d OR).

Federal law imposes no duty to draw up a written handover report, but Art. 267a OR does require the tenant to flag any apparent defect at handover without delay — and several cantons publish jointly-drafted (paritätische) protocol forms, worked out between landlord and tenant associations, as the market standard.

The Übergabeprotokoll is the primary evidence of the flat's condition at both ends of the tenancy: it anchors an Art. 267 OR damages claim if the flat comes back in worse shape than ordinary wear explains, and it is the reference point when the Kaution is settled.

Brokik keeps the signed protocol attached to the lease record for exactly this reason: a returning landlord or a departing tenant should never have to dig through email threads to find the one document a Schlichtungsbehörde will actually ask for.

The landlord's duty to keep the flat fit for its agreed use runs throughout the tenancy (Art. 256 Abs. 1 OR) and is relatively mandatory — a clause working against the tenant is void unless the OR itself expressly allows the deviation (Art. 256 Abs. 2 OR).

• The tenant covers the small cleaning and touch-up repairs that ordinary care would have avoided (Art. 259 OR), and must promptly report anything beyond that which is the landlord's responsibility.
• If the landlord doesn't fix an urgent, reported defect within a reasonable time, the tenant can arrange the repair and bill the landlord.
• A defect that impairs the flat's fitness for use can justify a rent reduction until it's fixed, plus damages.
• Alterations always need the landlord's written consent (Art. 260a OR); ordinary small pets that don't disturb or damage the flat are the one exception to the general consent-for-pets rule.