Two homes, one income
People posted to Switzerland for a few years often pay twice: the home back in their country keeps running, and a second one is added here. That is not a lifestyle choice — it is the consequence of a temporary professional situation, and Swiss tax law has a deduction built exactly for it.
It sits in the Expatriates Ordinance (ExpaV/Oexpa), an ordinance to the federal direct tax. It is short and precise. In practice it is still applied inconsistently — and the deduction fails on that more often than on the conditions themselves.
Who can claim it
The deduction is not open to everyone arriving from abroad. Art. 1 ExpaV requires three things:
- a management role or specific professional qualification as a specialist,
- an assignment by a foreign employer,
- an activity limited in time from the outset, to a maximum of five years.
If the fixed-term role turns into a permanent one, the deduction ends. Simply relocating to Switzerland and taking a job here does not qualify.
What "assignment" actually means
This is the term that most often decides whether someone falls within scope at all. Being posted means: your employment contract with the foreign employer continues during the assignment. You still work for the foreign employer, only temporarily in Switzerland.
Within a group there is an important extension: it also counts as an assignment if you receive a local employment contract with the Swiss group company — provided a re-employment agreement exists with the sending foreign group company. In the group scenario, that agreement is the document that matters. Without it, and with nothing but a local Swiss contract, there is usually no assignment.
The circle of people is narrower than many assume, too. Managers are generally members of the executive board or of management, or holders of equivalent functions — and the posted person must also hold a management position at the Swiss company. Specialists are people who, because of their particular professional qualification, are typically deployed internationally.
Which evidence you need
The deduction stands or falls on two things: proof of the home abroad, and proof of who carried the costs.
- Home abroad: keeping it must be shown with suitable documents — a lease, a residence confirmation or comparable evidence. What is required is not that you live there continuously, but that the home remains permanently available for your own use.
- Who paid: if the employer paid special professional expenses directly or reimbursed them to you, those amounts belong in the salary statement under figure 13.1.2. Benefits in kind count too — if the employer provides the apartment, it must be shown at market value.
- Employer lump sum: if the employer pays a lump sum rather than actual costs, it belongs under figure 2.3 marked as expatriate lump-sum expenses — and you can still claim the deduction.
- Ruling: where an approved expatriate ruling exists, it must be noted under figure 15 of the salary statement.
- Costs above the flat rate: if actual costs exceed CHF 1,500 per month, you must document them in full and attach a schedule of the actual expenses to your return.
Rented or owned home abroad?
Both work — the ordinance speaks of a home permanently available for your own use, not of a rented home. The difference lies in the evidence and in the side effects:
- Rented home: the lease is your evidence. What matters is that it was not sublet — anyone who sublets carries the cost of only one home and loses the deduction for that period.
- Owned home: proof through the title document or land register extract, plus confirmation that the property was not rented out. Often the Swiss assessment supplies that evidence itself: if the property abroad is recorded as owner-occupied and a rental value is imputed, the tax administration has confirmed that it is not rented out.
Important in both cases: the costs of the home abroad itself are not deductible — neither rent nor mortgage interest. They arise regardless of whether you work in Switzerland and therefore have no connection to the assignment. What is deductible is only the additional home in Switzerland.
Which costs are deductible — and which are not
The ordinance distinguishes two situations, and the distinction matters more than it looks:
- Residence still abroad: necessary travel between the foreign residence and Switzerland, plus reasonable Swiss housing costs (Art. 2 para. 1 ExpaV).
- Residence in Switzerland: relocation costs there and back, reasonable Swiss housing costs while keeping a home abroad permanently available for your own use, and — under narrow conditions — private schooling for foreign-language children (Art. 2 para. 2 ExpaV).
If you are assessed under the ordinary regime in Switzerland, you fall into the second group. For housing costs, Art. 2 para. 2 lit. b ExpaV is the relevant provision — not para. 1, which covers travel.
Not deductible under Art. 3 ExpaV are, among others, the cost of the home abroad itself, furnishing and utilities in Switzerland, and legal or tax advice.
A worked example
Take a manager posted to Switzerland by her foreign employer for three years. She rents an apartment here at CHF 5,300 gross per month — CHF 5,000 net rent plus CHF 300 for heating and hot water. She keeps her own apartment back home; it remains available to her at all times and is not rented out. She pays the Swiss rent herself and receives no reimbursement.
- Deductible: CHF 5,000 per month, so CHF 60,000 over a full year
- Not deductible: the CHF 300 of utilities — CHF 3,600 a year that do not belong in the return
- Alternative: the flat rate of CHF 1,500 per month, so CHF 18,000 — clearly worse here, but without any documentation effort
If the same person arrives or leaves mid-year, only the months with Swiss housing costs count — and the figure is then annualised for the tax rate. More on that below.
Does the employer need to have paid something?
This is the question that decides most cases in practice. The ordinance addresses it explicitly:
- Art. 2 para. 3 ExpaV: the deduction is allowed where you pay the costs yourself and the employer does not reimburse them — or reimburses a lump sum that is added to your taxable gross salary.
- Art. 2 para. 4 ExpaV: no deduction where the employer pays directly or reimburses you against receipts.
- Art. 2 para. 5 ExpaV: whatever the employer compensates must be certified on the salary statement.
Self-paid and unreimbursed is therefore not an exception, it is the very case the ordinance provides for. Requiring that an expatriation allowance must have been paid adds a condition — and that condition would have to follow from the law.
Effective costs or the flat rate?
Where a right to the housing deduction exists, Art. 4 para. 1 ExpaV lets you deduct a flat CHF 1,500 per month instead of the effective costs. Two points that often get missed:
- The flat rate is not an amount at the authority's discretion, it is an alternative deduction provided by the ordinance.
- It replaces the housing and relocation costs. You do not get both.
With high rents the flat rate is clearly worse. But it is a valuable fallback when documents are missing or the reasonableness of the rent is contested.
What if you arrive or leave mid-year?
Then tax liability covers only part of the period. You are taxed on what you earned during that time — but for the tax rate, income is annualised to twelve months. What many overlook: the same rule applies by analogy to deductions.
If your housing deduction is granted only against taxable income and not against the rate-determining income, part of its effect evaporates in the higher rate. It is worth claiming both explicitly.
And what about reasonableness?
The ordinance speaks of reasonable housing costs, not simply of what was paid. What is reasonable is judged by the circumstances when the lease was signed — not by what one might theoretically have found cheaper years later.
In tight markets that is a strong argument. According to the Federal Statistical Office vacancy count, the vacancy rate in the canton of Geneva stood at 0.46 percent on 1 June 2024, against 1.08 percent nationally; only two cantons were lower. Anyone looking for an apartment there has little to choose from — and that belongs in the reasoning.
Where it goes wrong in practice
The conditions are usually met. What costs people the deduction is almost always one of the same five points:
- Federal says yes, the canton says no. Both assessments arrive in the same envelope but can differ. We have seen cases where the same tax administration calculated the deduction itself for federal tax and removed it entirely for cantonal tax. Looking only at the bottom line, you would never notice.
- Gross rent claimed. Utilities and furnishing are excluded. Including them hands over the easiest ground for a reduction — and forces you to justify the rest as well.
- The wrong provision cited. Housing costs with residence in Switzerland run through Art. 2 para. 2 lit. b, not para. 1. The mix-up weakens an otherwise solid position.
- Rate determination forgotten. When you arrive or leave mid-year, the deduction has to reach the rate-determining income too. Otherwise it only works halfway.
- The home abroad is not documented. It must stay available for your own use throughout. Rent it out or sublet it in between and the condition falls away — and nobody will later ask whether it was only for a few months.
One practical tip that saves a lot of effort: before you start collecting documents, check what the tax administration has already recorded in your own file. If it has recorded the property abroad as owner-occupied and imputed a rental value on it, it has itself confirmed that the property is not rented out.
And in your canton?
The ExpaV applies directly to federal direct tax. For cantonal and communal tax the deduction runs through the cantonal provision on professional expenses — based on the same definition of income acquisition costs in the tax harmonisation act. In Geneva, for instance, Art. 29 para. 1 lit. c LIPP allows the other costs necessary to exercise your profession, and para. 2 expressly reserves proof of higher effective costs.
So the principles are the same everywhere — the handling is not. Some cantons publish their own guidance notes on special professional expenses of expatriates, others decide through the practice of their tax administration, and a few work with indicative amounts. We are therefore going through the cantons one by one: which rules apply, how the deduction is reviewed there, and where it pays to look twice. Those cantonal articles will follow here on our Insights.
Every case is different — the potential usually is not
Whether and how much you can deduct depends on your specific situation: how the assignment is set up, your employment contract, the canton, your housing situation at home, and who actually carried the costs. This article sets out the principles and a simplified example; it does not replace individual advice.
What does generalise: on temporary assignments, deductions are regularly left on the table — because they are never claimed, because the wrong provision is cited, or because a removal goes unchallenged. A second look is almost always worth it, and it is quickly done.
If you are on assignment in Geneva, see our page on tax advisory in Geneva — or read how tax at source and filing a return interact if you are still taxed at source.