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Rent · Switzerland

Should your rent fall with the reference rate?

The reference rate is the mortgage rate that the Federal Office for Housing (BWO) publishes every three months, worked out from Swiss mortgage rates; when it falls, tenants may ask for a lower rent. Your contract calls it Referenzzinssatz, taux de référence or tasso di riferimento.

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Without service charges (Nebenkosten), as in your contract.

When was your rent last set?

The start of your contract or your last rent increase; a cut the landlord made does not count. Your contract or your last rent notice shows the date.

Your contract or last rent notice states it (Referenzzinssatz). If it does not, leave it and we use the rate in force then.

The landlord claims general cost increases

Landlords may count higher maintenance and running costs against a cut, but under Federal Supreme Court case law they must prove them; a flat percentage is disputed. Enter one only if your landlord states it.

How to claim

  1. Write to your landlord. The cut takes effect on the next date you could give notice, so your letter must arrive before your notice period starts: for a cut from 1 July with three months’ notice, by the end of March. Send it by registered mail.
  2. The landlord has 30 days to answer, and may count inflation and proven cost increases against the cut.
  3. If you disagree with the answer, you can take the request to your district’s conciliation authority within 30 days of receiving it; if the landlord does not answer, within 60 days of sending your letter. The procedure is free.

The reference rate does not apply to index-linked or graduated rents, to subsidised or cooperative flats, or to rents fixed for five years or more. If your contract or last rent notice states a reservation (“Vorbehalt”), or you are unsure, ask your cantonal tenants’ association. This check is information, not legal advice.

Reference rate and publication dates: BWO (bwo.admin.ch), read every working day. A quarter point less allows 2.91% less rent (BWO; Art. 13 of the Ordinance on Residential and Commercial Leases, VMWG); several steps follow the table of the Swiss homeowners’ association (HEV Schweiz), the same figures as the tenants’ association. Inflation: the national consumer price index of the Federal Statistical Office (BFS), of which the landlord may count 40% against a cut (VMWG Art. 16). We add the percentages together; multiplying them instead changes the result by about a hundredth of a point.

The check runs in your browser. Your rent and dates are kept in the page address only, so a reload or a shared link keeps them and a link you share shows your rent; the page without that address starts empty. The names and addresses you type in the letter are not sent or saved: a reload clears them.