Property Tax in Switzerland in 2026: What Owners Pay Now, and What Changes on 1 January 2029

Ask whether Switzerland has a property tax and you will get two confident answers, and both are wrong. One says no, because there is no federal property tax. The other says yes, a heavy one, because Swiss homeowners famously pay tax on a rent they never receive. The truth sits between them, and in 2026 it is moving.

On 1 April 2026 the Federal Council decided that the abolition of the imputed rental value will take effect on 1 January 2029. On 27 August 2026 the mountain canton of Graubünden opened a consultation on a new special property tax on second homes to replace the revenue it will lose. Between those two dates, the shape of Swiss property taxation for the next decade became visible.

Here is what a homeowner in Switzerland pays today, what changes in 2029, and what the second-home tax means for people who own a chalet or flat they use themselves.

Three Different Taxes Under One Question

When people search for "property tax Switzerland", they are usually asking about three separate things that land on the same house.

The property tax in the narrow sense. Some cantons and municipalities levy a Liegenschaftssteuer (in French, impôt foncier). The Federal Tax Administration (ESTV) describes it as an object tax, triggered by the mere existence of a property and calculated on its gross value, without deducting debts. The Confederation does not levy it, and the federal tax harmonisation law contains no rules on it, according to the ESTV's 2025 overview of the tax.

The wealth tax. The ESTV's background dossier on the property tax notes that the property tax is levied in addition to the wealth tax, which already captures real estate. The difference matters: the wealth tax is levied on net wealth, so a mortgage reduces it, while the property tax ignores the mortgage entirely.

The income tax on the imputed rental value. Owners who live in their own home are taxed on a notional rent, the Eigenmietwert, as if they had let the property to themselves. In exchange they may deduct mortgage interest and maintenance costs. This is the part that ends in 2029.

Most of the public debate is about the third item. Most of the confusion comes from treating it as if it were the first.

Where a Property Tax Exists Today

The ESTV's canton-by-canton table for the 2025 tax period shows a country split roughly in half.

No property tax at all in Zurich, Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Obwalden, Nidwalden, Glarus, Zug, Solothurn, Basel-Landschaft, Schaffhausen, Appenzell Ausserrhoden and Aargau. For individuals, Basel-Stadt levies none either; its cantonal rate of 2 per mille applies to companies. The ESTV's dossier adds a caveat: several of these cantons know a minimum tax on real estate that can apply instead of the ordinary taxes where it is higher. It is a different instrument, but it exists.

A property tax for individuals in the rest of the country, almost always at rates expressed in per mille of the property's tax value. The ESTV table for 2025 lists, among others:

Neuchâtel levies its property tax on individuals only on investment properties, and Appenzell Innerrhoden allows its districts and school and church communities to levy up to 1 or 2 per mille.

The ESTV gives its own illustration of the arithmetic: at 0.5 per mille on a property with a tax value of CHF 500,000, the tax is CHF 250. At the Graubünden municipal maximum of 2 per mille, a chalet with a tax value of CHF 1,000,000 would carry CHF 2,000 a year. These are real costs, but by international standards they are modest. The heavier Swiss burden on property has always come through the wealth tax and the imputed rent, not through the property tax in the narrow sense. The Brief's overview of countries with no property tax places Switzerland in that wider context.

What the Federal Council Decided on 1 April 2026

The background is the vote of 28 September 2025. Swiss voters approved the federal decree on cantonal property taxes on second homes with 57.7 percent, according to the Federal Department of Finance. That decree was the condition for the federal law on the change of system in home-ownership taxation, passed by Parliament on 20 December 2024. With the vote, the abolition of the imputed rental value on both first and second homes was approved.

What remained open was the date. The Federal Council's press release of 1 April 2026 settled it. In our translation:

"At its meeting of 1 April 2026, the Federal Council decided to bring the reform of home-ownership taxation into force on 1 January 2029. This ends the taxation of the imputed rental value on owner-occupied residential property."

The Federal Council explained why it did not choose an earlier date. The cantonal finance directors had argued, by a majority, that the reform should not take effect before 2029, and the Federal Council wanted to give the cantons the chance to introduce the special second-home tax at the same time as the imputed rent disappears. It added that an even later date would not have been justifiable.

For owners, this means 2026, 2027 and 2028 are still taxed under the old system. The imputed rent is still income, and the deductions still apply, for three more tax years.

What Changes for Owners on 1 January 2029

The federal law is short, and its effects are wide. From 2029, according to the law and the Federal Council's summary:

No imputed rental value on self-used homes, whether a main residence or a second home.

No deduction for maintenance costs on self-used property, at federal, cantonal and municipal level. The deduction survives for property that is let or leased.

Mortgage interest becomes deductible only in proportion to rented property. The new rule compares the value of let or leased real estate with total assets and allows that share of private debt interest as a deduction. The ESTV's fact sheet on the new rule works through examples. An owner with a home worth CHF 800,000, a bank account of CHF 200,000 and a mortgage of CHF 500,000 at 2 percent pays CHF 10,000 in interest and can deduct nothing. The same applies to an owner of a self-used holiday flat. Someone who instead owns a let flat worth CHF 800,000 and the same bank account can deduct 80 percent of the interest, because 800,000 of 1,000,000 in assets is rented property. It does not matter, the ESTV notes, which property the debt is secured on.

A limited deduction for first-time buyers. Anyone who buys a home in Switzerland for the first time and lives in it permanently and exclusively may deduct mortgage interest of up to CHF 10,000 for a married couple and CHF 5,000 for others in the first tax year after the purchase. The maximum then falls by 10 percent of the starting amount each year, so it runs out after ten years. The law's transitional provision extends this to people who first bought such a home up to ten years before the reform takes effect, for the years that remain.

Energy and environmental deductions disappear from the federal income tax. Cantons may keep them for their own taxes, but only until climate neutrality is reached and at the latest until 2050. The deduction for work on listed buildings remains available federally.

One detail matters for foreign residents in particular. Switzerland's lump-sum taxation for wealthy foreigners is assessed on living expenses, with minimums of which one is tied to housing. The reform keeps that link: for a taxpayer with their own household, one of the minimum bases under the amended federal income tax law remains seven times the annual rent or the rental value set according to local conditions; the highest of the minimums applies. The imputed rent disappears as income, but a rental value survives as a yardstick for lump-sum taxpayers who own their home. The Brief's Switzerland country guide covers lump-sum taxation in more detail.

The New Tax on Second Homes

The constitutional amendment that voters approved in September 2025 adds a new paragraph 2bis to Article 127 of the Federal Constitution. The text of the federal decree reads, in our translation:

"In the case of property taxes on predominantly self-used second homes, the cantons may, within the limits of federal legislation, depart from the principles in paragraph 2, provided that the rental value of self-used second homes is not taxed by the Confederation and the cantons."

Paragraph 2 is where the constitution sets out the general principles of taxation that normally bind every canton. The new paragraph allows cantons to single out second homes that owners mainly use themselves, and to tax them more heavily than other property. It is an option, not an obligation.

Graubünden, a large holiday-home canton, has put numbers on it. According to the cantonal government's announcement of 27 August 2026:

• Abolishing the imputed rent on second homes is estimated to cost the canton about CHF 40.5 million a year and the municipalities about CHF 32.5 million a year.
• As compensation, the canton proposes a special cantonal property tax on predominantly self-used second homes, levied on the property's wealth tax value at 1.5 per mille.
• Municipalities, and the churches, would be allowed to introduce their own special tax on the same basis. Each would decide independently and would only need to set a rate.
• A new provision in the cantonal constitution is proposed for legal certainty, which requires a popular vote.
• The deductions for energy saving and for demolition costs ahead of a replacement building would be abolished at cantonal level, while the deduction for work on listed buildings would stay.
• The consultation runs until 27 November 2026. The government aims to bring the changes into force on 1 January 2029, together with the federal reform.

For a holiday flat with a tax value of CHF 1,000,000, the proposed cantonal rate alone would mean CHF 1,500 a year, before any municipal or church surcharge and on top of any existing municipal property tax. That is a proposal, not law, and consultation drafts change.

Bern moved earlier. On 13 November 2025 its government said it wants to give municipalities the possibility of an additional property tax on predominantly self-used second homes, which also requires a change to the cantonal constitution and therefore a popular vote. No rate was published.

Other cantons will follow their own paths, and nothing obliges any of them to act. Graubünden has published a concrete rate, which makes its draft a useful benchmark for owners elsewhere who want a sense of the order of magnitude.

Who Wins and Who Loses

The reform is often described as relief for homeowners. For many, it will be. But the outcome depends on three numbers: the level of the imputed rent, the size of the mortgage and the interest rate.

Owners with little or no mortgage generally gain. They lose the imputed rent as income and had little interest to deduct against it.

Owners with large mortgages lose the interest deduction, and with it an offset that could be large when rates were high.

Owners who spend heavily on maintenance lose the deduction for that spending, which until 2028 can reduce taxable income in the year the work is done.

Owners of self-used second homes lose the imputed rent on the second home, but in cantons that introduce the special tax they receive a new annual charge in its place, calculated on value and payable regardless of debt.

The Federal Department of Finance puts the overall effect in numbers: at a mortgage rate of about 1.5 percent, the reform would reduce revenue for the Confederation, cantons and municipalities by around CHF 1.8 billion a year. Above a mortgage rate of about 3 percent, it would raise revenue instead. In other words, the reform is a relief in a low-rate world and a burden in a high-rate one.

What Owners Can Sensibly Do Before 2029

None of this calls for panic, and none of it is a reason to buy or sell. It does change the timing of some decisions.

Plan maintenance with the calendar in mind. For self-used property, maintenance costs remain deductible through the 2028 tax year and not afterwards. Work that is due anyway in the next few years can be worth scheduling before the change. The deduction is only as valuable as your marginal tax rate, so run the numbers rather than bringing forward work you do not need.

Review the mortgage structure. Many Swiss owners have kept high mortgages partly because the interest was deductible. After 2028, that argument largely disappears for self-used property. How much debt to keep is a wider question of liquidity, wealth tax and investment returns, but the tax side of it changes.

First-time buyers should check the dates. The first-time buyer deduction, including the transitional rule for purchases in the ten years before 2029, depends on the year of acquisition and on the home being used permanently and exclusively as a residence.

Second-home owners should follow their canton, not the federal headline. Whether a special tax comes, and at what rate, is decided canton by canton and, in Graubünden and Bern, municipality by municipality. In Graubünden, the consultation is open until 27 November 2026.

Foreign buyers should read the whole picture. Buying Swiss property as a non-resident is restricted in its own right, as the Brief's piece on the hidden rules of Swiss real estate explains. The tax side now has a known timetable: the old system for three more years, a new one from 2029, and a second-home tax whose rate is still being written.

For owners who read the Brief's earlier piece on the abolition after the vote, the main open question has now been answered: the date is 1 January 2029. The remaining open question is local, and it is being answered in cantonal consultations right now. Decisions about property are long decisions, and the ten-year test is a sensible way to look at them.

Work with Sebastian

If you own, or plan to buy, a home or holiday property in Switzerland and want to understand how the 2029 change and the new second-home taxes affect your situation, book a consultation.