Setting Up a Swiss Family Office: Governance and Scope
Helping hundreds of people move to Switzerland since 2012.
About the team behind this guide
Define the purpose before choosing the structure
A Swiss family office can be considered alongside a family’s move, a business sale or a change in generational responsibility. Start by listing the jobs it must perform: consolidated reporting, investment oversight, payments, administration, philanthropy or coordination of external advisers. Separate the family’s personal affairs from the operating business. Record which assets, entities, countries and family members fall within scope, and which decisions remain with existing teams.
Internal team, external providers or a hybrid model
Compare an internal team with outsourcing particular functions and combining the two. The useful question is whether the model matches the complexity, service expectations and time the family wants to commit. A single assets-under-management threshold cannot answer that. Request proposals against the same brief. Compare staffing, systems, custody, reporting, specialist advice and transition work. Show one-off setup expenses separately from recurring operating costs, and identify who supervises each provider.
Regulatory assessment comes before launch
FINMA requires authorisation for portfolio managers and trustees carrying out regulated professional activities. The assessment depends on what the office does, for whom it acts and its ownership and control arrangements. Ask Swiss regulatory counsel to document the applicable rules and any exclusion before services begin. Do not assume that calling an entity a single family office removes regulatory obligations. Reassess if it adds unrelated clients, changes control or expands its activities.
Company form and governance
Where a Swiss company is appropriate, assess the legal form with corporate counsel. A Swiss AG requires at least CHF 100,000 share capital; at incorporation at least 20% of each share’s nominal value and at least CHF 50,000 in total must be paid in. A GmbH requires CHF 20,000 fully paid in. Swiss-resident representation and the applicable governance, licensing and reporting duties must be arranged with qualified specialists. Set decision rights, signing limits, escalation procedures and access to records. Agree how investment decisions, custody, administration and independent oversight will be separated. Meeting frequency and reporting should fit the mandate and applicable requirements.
Choose the location around real operations
Compare the proposed workplace, recruitment needs, advisers and the family’s home location. Zurich, Zug, Schwyz, Geneva and other cantons may answer different needs; the office address and family residence need separate analysis. Map where management decisions and work will actually take place. Ask tax specialists to assess the proposed facts across all relevant jurisdictions before treating a particular domicile as a tax solution.
Connect the office with the family move
The office’s formation does not give family members a Swiss residence or work entitlement. Review each person’s intended activities, especially where expenditure-based taxation is being considered. Active management from Switzerland needs assessment. Prepare a responsibility map for corporate counsel, immigration and tax specialists, banks and the relocation coordinator. We connect that specialist work with housing, schools and arrival planning, under an agreed scope.
Ready to turn Switzerland into an executable plan?
Share the essentials privately, or start with the Swiss Arrival guide if you are still comparing options.