Buying a hotel in Switzerland

You buy a hotel in Switzerland in three steps, the first of which has nothing to do with the price: clarify your authorisation position under Lex Koller, then the cantonal tax regime at the location of the property, then the position under the Second Homes Act. The process itself takes six to twelve months and ends with public notarisation under article 216 CO.

The federal element is stronger here than in Austria or Germany. Anyone working from a rule of thumb misses narrowly 26 times in 26 cantons.

And one question comes before all the others. It sounds like a formality and regularly decides months.

Whether you may buy at all is set out in two articles

The Federal Act on the Acquisition of Real Estate by Persons Abroad requires, in article 2 para 1 BewG, an authorisation from the competent cantonal authority for acquisitions by persons abroad as a matter of principle.

The exemption that matters for hotels sits in article 2 para 2 lit a BewG: no authorisation is required where the land serves as the permanent establishment of a trading, manufacturing or other trade conducted in a commercial manner. Article 3 BewV excludes the commercial letting of residential space from that, in so far as the space does not belong to a hotel or a hotel apartment building.

In practice that means an actively operated hotel business is regularly accessible to a foreign acquirer. A residential property with a hotel sign on the door is not.

The second question is whether you count as a person abroad at all. Article 5 para 1 BewG includes nationals of states outside the EU and EFTA without a right of residence, legal entities and companies with legal capacity whose seat is abroad, and, this being the case that gets overlooked, those with their seat in Switzerland in which persons abroad hold a dominant position.

What a dominant position is, article 6 para 1 BewG defines: it exists where a person abroad, by virtue of a financial participation, voting rights or for other reasons, alone or together with others can decisively influence the administration or the management. Article 6 para 2 presumes this where more than one third of the share capital or of the votes is held, among other cases.

One third. A Swiss acquisition company with a foreign minority shareholder can therefore fall under the act even though the commercial register shows a Swiss address. That shareholding structure belongs in the first week of the review, not in the legal due diligence.

At the border between hotel and housing the Federal Supreme Court is precise. In BGE 147 II 281 it held that staff apartments do not fall under the hotel permanent establishment exemption. Anyone buying a house with its own staff building may be buying two properties with two authorisation positions.

The procedure has an authority, a deadline and a land register block

Anyone subject to authorisation lands in a procedure that each canton organises for itself. Article 15 para 1 BewG obliges every canton to designate one or more authorisation authorities deciding on the duty to obtain authorisation, on the authorisation and on its revocation, and an appeal body.

The act names no statutory decision period for the main procedure. It names periods for the ancillary procedures, for instance 30 days for an appeal under article 20 para 3 BewG. How long an authorisation takes is therefore a question of the canton and of the workload of its authority, and for an exclusivity period that is an uncomfortable variable.

The quieter route sits in article 17 para 1 BewG. Acquirers whose duty to obtain authorisation cannot readily be ruled out must apply, at the latest after conclusion of the transaction, for the authorisation or for a ruling that they require none. That ruling is the instrument with which an international buyer makes his timetable calculable.

What happens where it is not used is set out in article 18 para 1 BewG. Where the land registrar cannot readily rule out the duty to obtain authorisation, he suspends the procedure and allows the acquirer a period of 30 days. If the acquirer fails to act in time or authorisation is refused, he rejects the application.

That is the point at which a formality turns into a problem. The purchase contract is notarised, the financing stands, and the land register is waiting for a document that does not yet exist.

The legal position is moreover in motion. On 15 April 2026 the Federal Office of Justice opened the consultation on an amendment to the BewG, together with a proposal implementing the Schmid motion. Envisaged are tighter rules on the acquisition of dwellings and, as relief for tourism regions, a rule under which cantons may provide that persons abroad who operate a hotel in Switzerland may buy apartments for their staff without authorisation; where those are no longer needed, they are to be sold on within two years. As at the date of this article the submissions are published and no dispatch is available. No forecast appears here for that reason.

The stock is large, the movement is small

HotellerieSuisse reports a stock of 4,356 businesses with 144,814 rooms and 293,326 beds for the end of 2025. It puts overnight stays for 2025 at 43,930,146; on 25 February 2026 the Federal Statistical Office reported around 43.9 million overnight stays and with them a fresh record.

Against that stands a very small transaction market. The Switzerland country overview in the Chambers Practice Guides names a volume of around 428 million EUR for 2025, a historic high, carried to roughly two thirds by institutional investors.

For a buyer that carries two statements. First: comparable transactions for an individual house effectively do not exist, and the price arises out of earnings and out of the number of interested parties at the given moment. Second: anyone waiting for a public offering is waiting in the wrong place.

In a tourism municipality of a few thousand inhabitants an owner cannot advertise without it being the talk of the village within days. The mountain railway, the ski school, the suppliers and the staff all hang on the same flow of guests. That is why a sale runs confidentially or it does not run at all, and why access for a buyer leads through advisers, operator groups and closed circles.

Entry into those circles is formalised. A confidentiality agreement for the documents and the fact of the sale, a non-circumvention agreement for the route. The database of Sarego Group works that way: manual release, only after a signed NDA and NCND, no entitlement to access. Anyone lodging a search profile with region, size, operating structure and financing status is the address that gets called at the next case.

One point about preparation applies specifically to Switzerland. Institutional capital dominates the buyer side, and it examines thoroughly. A private acquirer bidding against that group rarely wins on price and more often on speed, reliability and an authorisation position already clarified.

In 26 cantons there are 26 calculations

At federal level little is regulated in a property purchase that moves the price. What matters are the canton and the municipality, and the differences are large enough to influence a choice of location.

Property transfer tax is levied mostly by the cantons, in part by the municipalities, and it is structured inconsistently in legal terms. The publication of the Federal Tax Administration records that Schwyz levies no property transfer tax and that Zurich, Uri, Glarus, Zug and Schaffhausen know only a land register fee. In the levying cantons the rates lie predominantly between 10 and 33 per mille.

In detail, and this is the level that matters for acquisition costs: Bern charges 1.8 percent of the purchase price, with the acquirer liable. Lucerne levies 1.5 percent of the transfer value in principle, again on the acquirer. Vaud comes to 3.3 percent in total, 2.2 percent cantonal and up to 1.1 percent communal; the charge is owed by the acquirer and the contracting parties are jointly liable. Graubünden leaves the rate to the municipality, caps it at a maximum of 2 percent in cantonal law and likewise makes the acquirer liable. Valais grades its tariff: 1 percent from 50,001 to 500,000 francs, 1.3 percent up to 1,000,000 francs and 1.5 percent above that, plus a communal surcharge.

Worked example. At a purchase price of 20 million francs the property transfer tax costs up to 660,000 francs in Vaud, 360,000 in Bern, 400,000 in Graubünden at the full communal rate, 300,000 francs plus the communal share in Valais at the top band, and nothing in Schwyz. That has stopped being an acquisition cost item and become a location factor.

Notarisation comes on top. Under article 216 CO a contract for the sale of land requires public notarisation for its validity; without it the contract is void, and the competent person is a notary under cantonal law. The fee for it is cantonal too. Graubünden charges one per mille for the transfer of ownership, with a minimum of 100 and a maximum of 15,000 francs. Against the property transfer tax that is a small figure, and it is the only one in this calculation that can be reliably capped.

The second tax item mostly concerns the other side but changes your negotiation. The cantons implement the property gains tax under article 12 StHG in two systems: in the dualistic system only the private property gain is captured separately, while in the monistic system the tax captures all gains as an object tax, including those from business assets. For a hotel, which almost always sits in business assets, that difference decides which structure is tolerable for the seller, and with it whether he will discuss an asset deal or a share deal at all. The trade off in principle is set out in Asset deal or share deal, and the cantonal calculation belongs with the tax adviser at the location of the property.

What you take on with the business, and what you retrofit

The acquisition review of a Swiss hotel follows the same four strands as everywhere: commercial, legal, tax, technical. Three points are Swiss and belong on the table early.

The first is the staff. Where the employer transfers the business or a part of it, the employment relationship passes to the acquirer with all rights and obligations under article 333 para 1 CO, unless the employee refuses the transfer. Article 333 para 1bis CO obliges the acquirer to observe an applicable collective employment agreement for one year. Under article 333 para 3 CO the previous employer and the acquirer are jointly liable for claims that fell due before the transfer, and article 333a CO requires information and consultation before the transfer.

The employee's right of refusal is the point at which Swiss law differs from Austrian law, and in a seasonal business with a settled kitchen team it is no side issue. A buyer wanting to keep the team talks to the management level before closing, within whatever the seller releases.

The second point is fire safety. The requirements follow the fire safety regulations of the Association of Cantonal Fire Insurers; fire safety guideline 16-15 on escape and rescue routes treats accommodation businesses as a category of their own. For a house in the existing stock that means escape routes, smoke extraction and fire compartments are an item of their own in the investment programme, and that item is regularly quantified too late.

The third point is value added tax. The sale of land is exempt under article 21 para 2 no 20 MWSTG, an option under article 22 MWSTG is possible subject to conditions, and on the transfer of a business as a whole the notification procedure under article 38 MWSTG comes into consideration. The choice has consequences for input tax and belongs before notarisation.

In a tourism municipality you buy the alternative with it

There is one factor a buyer does not encounter in the city and must examine in the mountains without fail.

The Second Homes Act prohibits the construction of new second homes in principle in municipalities with a second home share above 20 percent. Converting a structured accommodation business into dwellings is permissible under article 8 para 4 ZWG only exceptionally, on the basis of an independent expert report whose requirements article 5 ZWV sets out.

The explanatory notes of the Federal Office for Spatial Development name three tests. The business must have been operated for at least 25 years. It must be shown that it cannot be continued economically, including as tourist managed dwellings. And the insufficient economic viability must not stem from culpable misconduct; as misconduct the notes expressly name having systematically withdrawn profits that should have gone into maintenance or renewal.

For the purchase price calculation the consequence is unambiguous. In such a municipality a conversion value is a hope until an expert report exists. Anyone writing it into the model pays today for an option an authority may later refuse him, and refuse on the basis of a predecessor's investment policy that he never influenced.

In financing, one rule applies that does not apply to you

On the interest environment there is a verifiable figure. The SNB policy rate stands at 0.00 percent, in force since 20 June 2025 and last confirmed on 18 June 2026.

On the equity question there is a rule that is frequently misquoted. The Swiss Bankers Association tightened its self regulation with effect from 1 January 2020 and requires a minimum equity share of 25 percent of the lending value instead of the previous 10 percent, along with a stricter amortisation duty; FINMA has recognised the revised self regulation as a supervisory minimum standard. That rule concerns residential investment properties. An accommodation business is not a residential investment property, and the 25 percent are therefore no applicable requirement for a hotel acquisition.

A verifiable ratio for hotel financings does not exist, and the most obvious source says so itself. The Swiss Society for Hotel Credit records that it makes no requirements as to particular percentage equity shares, while a project should not be financed entirely with debt. Anyone quoting you a figure is quoting experience.

The SGH is nonetheless the most interesting addressee for a buyer in this section. It grants low interest loans to accommodation businesses and can go beyond the lending limits applied by the banks. On 2 September 2026 the Federal Council adopted a supplementary dispatch on the complete revision of the federal act promoting the accommodation sector, with a stimulus programme for modernising accommodation businesses in mountain regions of 100 million francs over eight years.

In practice that means a financing that does not work with a bank alone can work with the SGH. That examination belongs in parallel with due diligence, because it changes the price you are able to bid.

The method is the same, the inputs are different

Methodologically the valuation of a Swiss hotel does not differ from that of an Austrian one. The starting point is the result the business earns sustainably, adjusted for one off effects, for a market level managing director's salary and for a reserve for furniture, fixtures and equipment, capitalised at a rate reflecting the risks. The calculation in detail is set out in What a hotel is worth.

The inputs are different, and they work against the buyer. Wages and construction costs sit above the alpine average, which makes every future renovation more expensive and raises the reserve for furniture in absolute terms. Check therefore whether the seller has sized that reserve against the Swiss cost level or against a percentage taken from a rule of thumb. The difference lands directly in the capitalised result. Ask as well about operating days: in the mountains their number is the figure on which an acquisition works or does not.

Worked example. A mountain business earns 2.0 million francs of operating result before rent and depreciation. After deducting a managing director's salary of 180,000 francs and a reserve for furniture of 5 percent on 8 million francs of turnover, meaning 400,000 francs, 1.42 million remain. At a capitalisation rate of 7.5 percent that gives around 18.9 million francs, at 9 percent around 15.8 million. Anyone assessing the length of the season differently from the seller is negotiating over those 3.1 million and over nothing else.

One point comes on top that a foreign buyer feels immediately. He finances in a currency other than the one the house earns in. Exchange rate assumptions therefore belong in every financial model, and they belong disclosed, because otherwise a seller reads them as a price reduction. The assessment before the offer belongs in a valuation and feasibility exercise.

On the operating structure what applies here is set out more fully in Buying a hotel in Austria: what matters is which role you can fill yourself after the handover. A Swiss particularity comes on top. In a valley of a few hundred inhabitants the number of people able to run a business of that size is small and largely known. Anyone buying into own operation should have answered that question before the letter of intent.

Six mistakes buyers in Switzerland repeat

The authorisation position is checked after the letter of intent. The most expensive mistake in the country. Four months of exclusivity with viewings and meetings, and at the end a procedure with an open outcome at a house whose sale intention has meanwhile become known locally.

The shareholding structure is treated as immaterial. One third of the votes suffices under article 6 BewG for the presumption of a dominant position. That is less than most acquisition vehicles suggest.

The rule of thumb from the neighbouring canton. It ends at the cantonal border, and it does so for the property transfer tax, for the property gains tax and for the notarial system alike.

The staff building is counted in but not examined. Under BGE 147 II 281 it follows a different rule from the hotel business.

The conversion value sits in the model. In a municipality under the Second Homes Act it cannot be applied without an expert report under article 8 para 4 ZWG.

The 25 percent from the banking self regulation are transferred to the hotel. They apply to residential investment properties. A hotel loan is sized individually, and the SGH can go further.

Six to twelve months, and the first month decides

The sequence resembles the Austrian one, with three Swiss insertions.

First profile, access and a confidentiality and non-circumvention agreement. Then the pre-check of your own authorisation position: nationality, residence, control structure, and where appropriate an application for a ruling under article 17 BewG. Then clarification of the cantonal tax regime, because it determines the structure, and in tourism municipalities the position under the Second Homes Act.

Only after that does the usual part begin: first assessment, indicative calculation in ranges, letter of intent with exclusivity, due diligence over six to twelve weeks, the financing including the SGH examination in parallel, then notarisation by the notary and registration in the land register.

Anyone who brings the three insertions forward ends up negotiating only about the price. Anyone who pushes them into due diligence negotiates under time pressure about things that cannot be negotiated.

In a market of this size the highest price rarely wins. The buyer wins whom the seller trusts to reach notarisation. You buy that confidence with preparation, and in Switzerland it costs more than elsewhere, because 26 legal systems allow no rule of thumb. Which of them counts for your plan we clarify before any further step, confidentially. How we support buyers is set out under investment advisory; the seller's view of the same market is in Selling a hotel in Switzerland.

Sources

This article reflects the position as at 23 September 2026. It is not tax, legal or investment advice. Every individual case needs review by a tax adviser, a lawyer or a notary at the location of the property.

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