Switzerland Employer Cost of Hiring Calculator

Beyond the gross salary, Zurich employers pay their matching share of AHV/IV/EO and ALV, an employer BVG pension contribution, and two employer-only costs, FAK family allowances and UVG/BU accident insurance. For a CHF 100,000 hire aged 35, that's a total load of roughly 1.13× base salary, about CHF 12'713 above the quoted salary, before any recruitment fee or equipment budget.

Yes, both are a straight 1:1 match. AHV/IV/EO is 5.30% employer plus the same on the employee side, uncapped. ALV is 1.10% each, up to the same CHF 148'200/year insured-earnings ceiling. BVG occupational pension is also a 50/50 split under the standard model this calculator uses, though the law only requires the employer to fund at least as much as the employee, some employers voluntarily cover more.

FAK (Familienzulagen, family allowances) funds Switzerland's child and family allowance system and is 100% employer-paid, set by canton rather than federally, currently a family-allowance reform is phasing in through 2026 that could shift Zurich's rate. UVG/BU (occupational accident insurance) covers workplace accidents and is also 100% employer-paid, priced by industry risk class rather than a flat rate, office-based roles typically pay well under 1%. Neither has an employee-side equivalent, which is exactly why they don't appear in lib/ch-tax.ts's employee take-home calculation.

NBU covers accidents outside of work and is employee-paid, typically deducted directly from the payslip at around 2.5% of insured salary. Since it's not an employer cost, it's intentionally left out of this calculator, it already appears on the employee's own take-home breakdown, not the employer's.

Swiss occupational pension contributions rise in bands as an employee gets older, reflecting the shorter time remaining to build retirement savings: 7% of coordinated salary for ages 25-34, up to 18% for ages 55-65 (employer plus employee combined, split 50/50 under the standard model). A 55-year-old hire costs meaningfully more in BVG contributions than a 28-year-old at the identical salary, purely because of this age-banded structure.

AHV/IV/EO, ALV, and BVG are federal, so those figures apply nationwide. FAK is canton-set and this calculator's default reflects Zurich specifically, other cantons can differ. UVG/BU rates depend on industry, not canton, so the configurable field applies regardless of location. For income tax itself (not covered by this employer-cost calculator), Zurich canton and city are the only jurisdiction this site models, see the main Switzerland take-home calculator for that scope note.