Whether you can settle in Switzerland without working depends first on your passport. A national of an EU or EFTA state is entitled to a B residence permit under the free movement agreement, provided that he or she has sufficient means not to depend on social assistance and holds comprehensive health and accident insurance. Federal law fixes no amount in francs. A national of any other country, including a British, American or Australian citizen, is not covered by that agreement and falls under a different, much more restrictive Swiss regime.
Which regime applies to you: EU/EFTA or non-EU
The English-speaking readers of this page split into two groups, and the split decides everything that follows. If you hold the nationality of an EU or EFTA state (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway are the EFTA states besides Switzerland itself), you come under the agreement on the free movement of persons between Switzerland and the European Union. That includes, for example, an Italian, German or French national resident in Italy, and the rest of this page is written for you.
If you are a non-EU national, you do not come under that agreement, and this holds even after many years of Italian tax residence. Residing and paying tax in Italy gives you no right of entry or settlement in Switzerland. A non-EU national is subject to a separate Swiss regime, with cantonal quotas and discretionary admission, in which the authority is not obliged to say yes even to an applicant who is wealthy, insured and perfectly lawful in Italy.
We do not set out the conditions of that regime on this page, because they were not verified here, and we would rather say so than hand you an approximation. We therefore give no quota, no category name and no time limit for it. If you are in that situation, the position must be checked for your individual case before anything else is planned: before a lease is signed, before notice is given on a home in Italy and before a date is fixed for the move. A plan built on the free movement route and then applied to a non-EU passport fails at the first step.
The same caution applies to timing. If your move is organised around the Italian calendar described in our page on the Italy exit tax, remember that the date is only as firm as the permit behind it.
The EU/EFTA route: what the agreement requires
For an EU/EFTA national who does not work in Switzerland, the right of residence rests on annex I, article 24 of the agreement, applied through articles 16 to 20 of the ordinance on free movement of persons and the directives issued by the State Secretariat for Migration (directives of 2026). Two conditions are set, and only two.
- You must have sufficient financial means not to depend on social assistance, assessed against the cantonal social-assistance norms (the CSIAS guidelines).
- You must hold comprehensive sickness and accident insurance.
No amount is fixed in federal law, and that is the point that most websites get wrong. There is no published threshold in francs, no minimum bank balance and no minimum pension that the law prescribes. Each canton assesses the means of the person in front of it. For a retiree who has just arrived, the means must exceed the threshold of the supplementary benefits scheme, failing which a refusal is possible. That is a comparison with a scheme, not a number we can quote you in a form that would hold up for your case.
Any website that quotes you a figure in francs for the B permit is therefore inventing it, or is describing one canton's practice in one year as if it were the law. We publish no figure for the same reason. What we can do is show what the authority will look at: the sources of your means, their stability, and whether they cover your living costs in your canton without recourse to public help. A well-constructed file answers that question with documents rather than with a headline sum.
Duration, renewal and the settlement permit
In principle, the B permit of an EU/EFTA national without gainful activity is issued for five years (article 17 of the ordinance). Exceptionally, the authority revalidates it after two years instead. There are no quotas for this category: the number of permits granted in a year does not cap your application, which is the major difference with the regime that applies to non-EU nationals.
After five years of regular and uninterrupted residence, you can apply for a settlement permit, the C permit, under the establishment agreement, where the other conditions are met. In practice this means that the date of your first registration should be documented and that the five years should be kept regular, with no gap in your residence or in your cover. The C permit is a separate application, decided on the file as it stands at that date. If you are searching for how to retire in Switzerland on a permit that lasts, this is the path: a five-year B permit, then the C permit.
Geneva in practice
In the canton of Geneva the file goes to the cantonal population and migration office (OCPM). The papers usually requested are the following.
- Form M, duly completed.
- A valid identity document.
- A lease, or any other proof of the address at which you will live.
- Evidence of your means. Depending on your situation this may be a pension, wealth, remote work for a foreign employer, the activity of your spouse, or a guarantor, in which case form O is added.
The fees and the processing times of the OCPM are not published, and we will not guess them: ask for them when you file. How an authority treats a given source of means, in particular income from a foreign employer, is a matter for the individual case. A file showing several independent sources is usually easier to read than one resting on a single fragile one, but that is a drafting point, not a rule of law.
The registration deadline is a point on which two official Geneva pages contradict each other. The page of the OCPM says 14 days. The cantonal guide for EU nationals says 3 months. Both pages are official and they do not agree. Our advice is to act within 14 days of arrival, and not to present 3 months as a safe deadline, since nothing is gained by testing which of the two pages the administration would apply to you. If you are still choosing between cantons, our comparison of Geneva and Vaud sets out what differs for a wealthy newcomer.
Vaud in practice
In Vaud, the first step is the announcement of your arrival to the residents' office of your commune, which then passes the file to the cantonal population service (SPOP). The papers are an identity document, a motivation letter, a curriculum vitae and the financial evidence. The deadline for the announcement in Vaud has not been verified for this page, so ask the commune for it before you arrive.
For a wealthy applicant, one point matters more than the rest. A copy of the decision granting expenditure-based taxation (the lump-sum tax ruling) can serve as evidence of means. In other words, the document that fixes your tax can also help to establish that you are able to support yourself. The mechanics of that taxation, its federal conditions and its cantonal minimums are set out in our page on lump-sum taxation in Switzerland. The order in which the two decisions can be obtained is something to settle with the authorities on the facts of your file; this page does not promise any sequence.
The permit says nothing about tax, and tax says nothing about the permit
This is the most common confusion we meet. A residence permit does not establish tax residence. It tells the migration authority that you may live in the canton, and it says nothing about where you are taxed. Conversely, expenditure-based taxation is not a residence title: a tax ruling does not entitle you to live in Switzerland, and a refused permit is not cured by a favourable ruling.
On the Italian side, the position is the same: your leaving Italy is judged on facts, not on a single registration. A Swiss permit is useful evidence of a genuine move, but it does not end Italian tax residence by itself.
The two files are nevertheless built in parallel, because they feed each other. A lease supports the permit and also fixes the base on which the expenditure-based tax is computed, which is seven times the annual rent or rental value. A tax ruling can support the evidence of means of the permit. A mistake in one file therefore travels into the other. Expenditure-based taxation also requires that neither spouse carries on gainful activity in Switzerland, which is one more reason to have the permit and the tax position reviewed together before you commit to a lease.
What has to happen immediately after you arrive
Several obligations start on the day you take up residence, whatever the state of your permit file.
Health insurance
You must join the Swiss basic health insurance scheme within three months of taking up residence. If you enrol late, cover starts at enrolment but the obligation is treated as having begun on arrival, and a surcharge may be imposed when the delay is not excusable.
On application, an exemption is possible for holders of a free-movement permit without gainful activity and for people who receive only an EU, EFTA or UK pension, subject to keeping equivalent cover and to the decision of the cantonal authority. Whether other arrangements are open to someone who is not yet a pensioner has not been verified for this page. The average premiums published by the Federal Office of Public Health, for all ages together, are the following.
| Area | Average monthly premium 2026 | Average monthly premium 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| Geneva | 487.20 CHF | 508.60 CHF |
| Vaud | 439.30 CHF | 454.50 CHF |
| Switzerland | 392.40 CHF | 412.00 CHF |
These are averages across all ages and not a quotation for you. The averages for adults living alone in Geneva and Vaud have not been verified here, and the premium you pay depends on your age, your insurer and your chosen deductible.
Old-age insurance contributions
A person without gainful activity who lives in Switzerland pays contributions to old-age and survivors' insurance (AVS/AHV). For 2026 the annual contribution lies between a minimum of 530 CHF and a maximum of 26'500 CHF. The maximum is reached when wealth plus twenty times income in the form of a pension comes to 8'950'000 CHF. Below that level the contribution climbs by steps: 106 CHF for each 50'000 CHF band up to 1'750'000 CHF, then 159 CHF for each 50'000 CHF band. An administrative surcharge of up to 5 % can be added. For married persons, each spouse is assessed on half of the couple's wealth.
For an expenditure-based resident, the rule works differently in a way that matters. Such a person is treated as not carrying on gainful activity, and the expenditure assessed by the tax authority counts as pension-type income and is multiplied by twenty. The wealth already used to set the expenditure is not counted twice. In practice the contribution is therefore often close to the ceiling. We do not state an individual figure: the compensation fund computes it, once the tax position is known.
Driving licence
If you hold an Italian driving licence, it must be exchanged within twelve months of taking up residence. After that period you are no longer permitted to drive in Switzerland, although the exchange remains possible. The licence must still be valid at the time of the exchange, so check its expiry date well before you move.
The political context, since advisers ask
Private bankers and family offices rightly ask whether the debate on immigration in Switzerland puts this route at risk. As of 1 November 2026, the free movement agreement is unchanged and in force. The initiative against a Switzerland of ten million inhabitants was rejected by voters on 14 June 2026.
The Bilaterals III package between Switzerland and the European Union, signed on 2 March 2026, is before Parliament. It is not in force, so nothing follows from it today, and we promise no effect, favourable or otherwise. The rules in this page are those applied now. The page was last verified on 1 November 2026, and it is revised when the law changes.
How we run the permit file
Ark Fiduciaire SA, in Geneva and Lausanne, builds the permit file alongside the tax file instead of treating them one after the other. Housing comes first, because it conditions both: the lease supports the permit application and the rent determines the expenditure base. The evidence of means is assembled once and used for both purposes. Where the case calls for it, the tax lawyers of PBM Avocats join the analysis, and the work is done on your documents, not on a questionnaire.
For the rest of the move we work with partners, on housing, removals, schools, health insurance, banking, the permit itself and the car, so that you have one point of contact. If you are a non-EU national, the first conversation is about whether and how the Swiss regime applies to you, before any tax planning. You can submit your situation through our quote request, and our questions and answers cover the wider move.