We priced 1,988 Swiss communes for 2026 on the Federal Tax Administration engine. The spread on a single CHF 100,000 salary is CHF 14,086 a year, the federal share never moves, and the communal multiplier everyone quotes only works inside one canton.
Nishant Modi
August 4, 202612 min read
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A single person earning CHF 100,000 in Switzerland pays CHF 5,197 in tax if they live in Baar, and CHF 19,283 if they live in Les Verrières. Same salary, same federal law, same year. A difference of CHF 14,086, decided by an address.
We priced 1,988 communes for the 2026 tax year using the Federal Tax Administration's own calculator and each commune’s published multiplier. Here is what the full picture looks like, including the two things that most rankings get wrong.
The spread, canton by canton
The eleven cheapest communes in Switzerland are all in the canton of Zug. Freienbach and Wollerau in Schwyz follow. Outside those two cantons, the cheapest addresses in the country are Rongellen in Graubünden at CHF 9,071, Hergiswil in Nidwalden at CHF 9,120 and Zumikon in Zürich at CHF 9,577, which is already nearly double Baar.
Total income and wealth tax for one tax year: single person, CHF 100,000 gross salary, CHF 50,000 in savings, no church tax, age 40, tax year 2026. The cheapest commune in each canton. Federal, cantonal, communal and flat head tax combined.
Read that chart carefully: it shows the best commune in each canton, not the average one.
At the other end, the thirteen most expensive communes in the country are all in Neuchâtel, led by Les Verrières at CHF 19,283. The first commune from any other canton is Schelten in Bern, in fourteenth place at CHF 18,510, with a communal multiplier of 220 per cent.
Your canton is not one price
The chart above understates what most people actually face, because almost nobody lives in their canton’s cheapest commune. Put the cheapest next to the canton median and a second pattern appears: some cantons are essentially flat, and in others the commune you choose matters more than the canton does.
Zug: cheapest CHF 5,197, median CHF 5,349 across 11 communes. A spread of CHF 152. Within Zug, the address is almost irrelevant.
Lucerne: cheapest CHF 9,679, median CHF 13,052 across 79 communes. A spread of CHF 3,373, which is larger than the gap between the best commune in Lucerne and the best in Zürich.
Aargau: cheapest CHF 9,753, median CHF 12,952 across 196 communes.
Graubünden: cheapest CHF 9,071, median CHF 12,696 across 100 communes.
Geneva: cheapest CHF 13,885, median CHF 15,212 across 45 communes. Expensive, but tightly clustered.
This is why a canton league table is a poor guide. A mid-table canton with a wide internal spread can beat a top-five canton if you land in the right commune, and a headline canton ranking hides an internal range that is frequently three or four thousand francs wide.
Where the money actually goes
Splitting the bill by recipient explains the whole geography in one move.
The same figure, broken into who receives it. Federal tax (CHF 1,701) is identical in every commune in the country. The communal column includes the flat head tax where the canton levies one.
The federal slice is CHF 1,701 in Baar, CHF 1,701 in Genthod, CHF 1,701 in Milvignes and CHF 1,701 in every other commune in Switzerland. Direct federal tax is set nationally and does not move an inch. Every franc of the CHF 14,086 spread is cantonal and communal.
It also shows that the cantonal layer usually dominates. In Genthod the canton takes CHF 10,208 and the commune CHF 1,976. In Baar the canton takes CHF 2,172. The commune you pick matters, but the canton you pick matters more, and a cheap commune in an expensive canton rarely catches up.
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The multiplier is not a price tag
Communes publish a multiplier, the Steuerfuss, and it is tempting to read it as a price. Across cantonal borders it is not, because each canton applies its multiplier to a completely different base rate.
The 2026 figures make this vivid:
Genthod, Geneva: multiplier 25 per cent. One of the lowest in the country. Total bill CHF 13,885, because the cantonal tax it multiplies is CHF 10,208.
Rongellen, Graubünden: multiplier 30 per cent. Total bill CHF 9,071.
Sarnen, Obwalden: multiplier 386 per cent. Total bill CHF 11,360, cheaper than Genthod despite a multiplier fifteen times higher.
Baar, Zug: multiplier 47.53 per cent. Total bill CHF 5,197, the lowest in Switzerland.
Within a single canton the multiplier does rank communes correctly, because the base is shared. The moment you compare across a cantonal border it becomes meaningless. Any ranking built on multipliers alone is sorting on the wrong number.
The flat charge that rarely appears in comparisons
Several cantons levy a personal or head tax, a flat amount per adult that has nothing to do with what you earn. It is small, but it is real and it varies by commune, and in some cantons by marital status and religious affiliation.
In 2026 it runs to CHF 70 in Uri, CHF 60 in Schaffhausen, CHF 50 in Lucerne, Nidwalden and Solothurn, CHF 25 in Geneva, CHF 24 in Zürich and CHF 20 in Ticino, while most cantons charge nothing at all. Because it cannot be derived from any published rate, we collect it commune by commune rather than estimating it, which is why it appears in the communal column of the chart above.
Families see a wider spread than single people
The same comparison for a married couple with two children aged six and nine on a household income of CHF 150,000 produces a much larger relative gap: CHF 2,884 in Baar against CHF 21,172 in Les Verrières. That is 1.9 per cent of gross income against 14.1 per cent, a factor of more than seven.
The reason is that cantonal child deductions, family splitting rules and married-couple tariffs differ far more between cantons than the basic income scales do. A household comparison and a single-person comparison can rank cantons in a genuinely different order, which is why the figures here are worth reproducing with your own household rather than read off a national league table.
The date that decides which commune taxes you
If you move between cantons, the canton where you are resident on 31 December taxes your entire year. Not pro rata, not from the moving date. The whole year.
The practical consequences are blunt. A move completed in late December applies to the year that is ending. A move completed in early January does not, and the year you have just finished is taxed entirely at the old address. For a move between two communes of the same canton, the canton sets its own rule, and while most follow the same principle, a few do not, so check the cantonal tax office rather than assuming.
What the tax figure does not tell you
This is the part a ranking cannot show. The lowest-tax communes in Switzerland sit in a small number of places, and those places have priced that advantage into their housing market. The tax saving and the rent premium tend to move together, and in the tightest municipalities the rent premium is the larger number.
Before treating any of these figures as a reason to do anything, put them next to the other lines they compete with: rent or mortgage, the commute in time and money, childcare tariffs, which are also communal and also vary widely, and the cost of the move itself. Tax is one line in a household budget. Our cost of living breakdown covers the lines it sits next to.
How these figures were produced, and what is missing
Every number here comes from the Federal Tax Administration’s own calculation engine, applied to each commune’s published multiplier for 2026, then checked back against the ESTV result for communes held out of the calibration. Twenty-five cantons reconcile to the franc.
Valais does not, and is excluded. Its communes set their own tax scales and family rebates rather than applying a multiplier to one cantonal scale, so a commune-level calculation cannot reproduce them: the observed error reached CHF 1,443. Publishing a Valais figure would have been easy and wrong, so the tool names the exclusion on the page instead. That leaves 1,988 of 2,110 communes priced.
The bottom line
Where you live in Switzerland changes your tax bill by a factor of three to seven, depending on your household. The federal share does not move at all, the cantonal share does most of the work, and the communal multiplier that everyone quotes only ranks communes correctly inside one canton.
These are published federal and cantonal figures, reproduced. They are general information, not advice on your own tax position.
Frequently asked questions
On a single person earning CHF 100,000 gross with CHF 50,000 in savings, the lowest total tax bill for 2026 is in Baar in the canton of Zug, at CHF 5,197 for the year. The eleven cheapest communes in the country are all in Zug; Freienbach and Wollerau in Schwyz come next. The ranking changes with income, wealth and family situation, so it is worth running your own figures.
For that same single person, CHF 5,197 in Baar against CHF 19,283 in Les Verrières in Neuchâtel: a difference of CHF 14,086 a year on identical income, or 5.2 per cent of gross against 19.3 per cent. For a married couple with two children on CHF 150,000 the gap is wider still, CHF 2,884 against CHF 21,172.
No, and this is the most common mistake. The multiplier is applied to a cantonal base rate that differs completely between cantons, so multipliers cannot be compared across cantonal borders. Genthod in Geneva has one of the lowest communal multipliers in Switzerland at 25 per cent, and still produces a bill of CHF 13,885 because the cantonal tax underneath it is CHF 10,208. Sarnen in Obwalden charges 386 per cent and comes out cheaper.
For a move between cantons, the canton where you are resident on 31 December taxes your entire year. Moving on 30 December to a cheaper canton therefore counts for the whole of that year, and moving away on 2 January does not. For a move between communes inside one canton, the canton sets the rule, and most but not all apply the same principle.
Valais communes set their own tax scales and family rebates rather than applying a multiplier to a single cantonal scale, so a canton-level calculation cannot reproduce a Valais commune accurately. Rather than publish a figure we cannot stand behind, we exclude the canton and say so. The other 25 cantons reconcile to the franc against the Federal Tax Administration.
That depends on far more than the tax line. The lowest-tax communes in Switzerland are concentrated in areas where housing costs are among the highest in the country, and a longer commute, different childcare fees or a higher rent can absorb the whole difference. The tax figure is one line item in a household budget, not a conclusion on its own.
About the author
Nishant Modi
Founder of hopli. Building personal finance tools for Swiss households.
