Switzerland’s Company Register (2026 Update)
Several commercial portals charge up to €295 for Swiss company documents that are free from the official register. This guide tells you what data is available, where to get it, how to search the Swiss company register, and upcoming reforms.
What Is the Swiss Company Register?
The official central search portal is the Central Business Names Index, known as Zefix, operated by the Federal Office of Justice. It aggregates data from all 26 cantonal registers.
Basically, the cantons hold the underlying filings; Zefix surfaces them in one place.
A separate Transparency Register is expected to come into force around mid-2026 under the Legal Entities Transparency Act (LETRA). It will hold UBO data, but it won't be publicly accessible.
What Data Is Available?
The Kyckr team accessed Zefix on March 27, 2026. This is the data we were able to collect:
Basic (free, public): company name, UID, CH-ID, FCRO-ID, legal form, registered seat, canton, status, address, former names, branches, and purpose clause.
Officers: executives, directors, and authorised signatories, with the scope of their signing authority.
Auditors: the appointed statutory auditor, where one exists.
Ownership (GmbH/Sàrl only): the member list is filed with the cantonal register and is public. It shows the names and share amounts of shareholders. For AG (public limited company) structures, shareholder data is not disclosed.
Documents (free): the articles of association and the register extract are both available free of charge from the cantonal register. They contain shareholder data for GmbH/Sàrl entities.
SOGC publications (free): every register “mutation”, including officer changes, address changes, capital changes, mergers, and liquidations, published as PDFs in the language of filing.
Which Entities Must Register?
AG (Aktiengesellschaft): Swiss public limited company. Officers and capital are registered. Shareholders are not publicly disclosed.
GmbH (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung): Swiss limited liability company. The member list is filed and public. This is the main source of shareholder data in the Swiss register.
Partnerships (KmAG, SNC, SC): limited and general partnerships must register. Disclosure requirements vary by form.
Foreign branch offices: branches of foreign entities with a Swiss nexus must register in the relevant cantonal register.
Foundations and associations fall outside the LETRA Transparency Register but have separate registration obligations.
How to Search for Swiss Companies
No account is needed to search Zefix.
1. Go to the Website.
Go to www.zefix.ch. This is the official portal. Several commercial sites mimic its appearance and charge for documents that are free on the official register. Avoid them.
Select your language: English, German, French, or Italian.
2. Search for a Company.
Search by company name or SOGC publication reference. Advanced search covers UID, seat, canton, and legal form. You can include deleted entities, former names, and use phonetic search.
As you type, matching entities appear in a dropdown. Select one for the full profile.
3. Select Entity.
The profile shows name, address, legal form, seat, status, UID, CH-ID, FCRO-ID, auditors, purpose, former names, branches, and all SOGC “mutations”.
For documents (articles of association, register extract), follow the link from the Zefix profile to the cantonal register. Both are free.
Alternatively, Kyckr provides real-time access to the Swiss company registry and 299 other official registries worldwide, all in one place, via API or online portal.
Available Documents
Articles of association (free): filed at the cantonal level. Contains the company's purpose, capital structure, and, for GmbH/Sàrl entities, member information.
Register extract (free): the official summary of registered data. However, a certified extract – which is legally-binding – costs money.
SOGC mutation publications (free): all historical register changes, available as PDFs through Zefix.
On March 28, 2026, the Kyckr team found at least one commercial portal charging €295 for articles of association and €95 for a register extract. Both are free from the official cantonal register.
What About Canton Registries?
The canton registries provide more information but have different pricing plans and coverage. Here are three:
Zug’s Handelsregister: Only available in German. Statutes and foundation documents are available as a free download. Financial documents aren’t available. Many documents are public but must be viewed in-person.
Zurich’s Handelsregister: Only available in German. Publishes open data on deletions (including ex officio), which have been increasing since 2018. You can download “minutes, commercial register applications, articles of association, or public deeds” and uncertified extracts for free. Certified extracts are 50 francs, while certified statutes are 40 francs (not including postage).
Geneva’s Registre du Commerce: Available in French. You can download statutes and excerpts for free. Statutes and extracts cost 120 Swiss francs each, while extracts cost 80. For other company documents, you must physically visit the register’s offices and pay 50 Swiss francs.
APIs and Open Data
Zefix also refers to the federal RESTful API, available through Open Data Swiss. It covers the full company register and daily SOGC publications. It's free.
Access requires a registered account. Request one by emailing zefix@bj.admin.ch. There's no published restriction on who qualifies; developers, legal professionals, businesses, and researchers can all apply.
What Is SOGC?
The Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce (SOGC) – also known in German as SHAB and in French as FOSC – is where corporate changes are recorded and published in gazette form.
Why use it? SOGC shows a company’s changes over time. Using the Swiss translation parlance, it shows the real-time “mutations” of a legal entity. Moreover, unlike Zefix extracts, SOGC documents are legally binding.
Is the Swiss Company Registry Reliable?
1. Use of Notaries
To incorporate in Switzerland, individuals must use public notaries to verify their identity, unlike in Britain and the US. This ensures a basic layer of manual verification.
2. Lack of Verification
Unlike other major markets – Britain, Singapore, Australia – the Swiss company registries don’t cross-reference corporate submissions against national databases.
3. No Unique Identifiers for Natural Persons
The Swiss authorities don’t mandate the use of unique identifiers for natural persons – only legal entities, using the Unique Enterprise Identification Number (UEI). This makes it harder to verify individual identities.
The cantons of Switzerland aren’t the most active enforcers of compliance. This means that relying on Swiss company data solely to verify businesses with complex corporate structures isn’t enough.
Reforms (2026 Update)
Legal Entities Transparency Act (LETRA)
The Swiss Parliament adopted LETRA on 26 September 2025. Entry into force is expected around mid-2026. It creates a central Transparency Register holding UBO data: name, date of birth, nationality, residential address, and the nature and extent of control.
Access: Restricted to Swiss authorities (criminal prosecutors, tax authorities, SECO, MROS, intelligence services) and Swiss-regulated financial intermediaries. Public access was explicitly rejected. Foreign compliance teams with no Swiss presence have no direct right of access.
Switzerland has rejected the EU model of public UBO access, partly in response to the 2022 CJEU ruling that public beneficial ownership registers breach fundamental privacy rights.
Business Enterprise Register (BER) modernisation
The Federal Statistical Office is rebuilding the BER around a single platform, integrating the UID register, SBER, and BurWeb. New web and API portals are planned. The project runs into the late 2020s.
Commercial register IT modernisation
The Federal Audit Office has audited the digital transformation project for the commercial register and criticised the lack of concrete progress. The Federal Commercial Registry Office is working through its options. The timeline runs roughly to 2030.
Using Swiss Company Data at Scale
Zefix gives you free access to Swiss company data, but retrieval is manual, documents are held at the cantonal level, and the free API requires a registered account and technical integration.
Kyckr retrieves structured, source-attributed Swiss company profiles in a single API call – no cantonal navigation, separate document orders, or language switching. For compliance teams running Switzerland at scale, that difference matters.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Swiss commercial register free?
Yes. Searching Zefix and downloading documents from the official cantonal registers costs nothing. Some commercial portals charge for the same documents. They're not required; the official register provides them for free.
What is Zefix?
Zefix is the Central Business Names Index, the federal portal aggregating data from all 26 Swiss cantonal commercial registers. It's run by the Federal Office of Justice and is the official starting point for Swiss company searches.
What's the difference between Zefix and the cantonal registers?
Zefix is the central index. It shows company profiles and SOGC publications. The cantonal registers hold the underlying filings, including articles of association and the register extract. You reach them via a link on each Zefix profile.
Who can access the Swiss Transparency Register?
Once LETRA is in force (expected mid-2026), access will be limited to designated Swiss authorities and Swiss-regulated financial intermediaries. It won't be publicly accessible. Foreign compliance teams without a Swiss presence have no direct right of access.
What documents can I get from the Swiss commercial register?
The articles of association and the register extract are both free from the cantonal register. SOGC mutation publications are available as PDFs through Zefix. For AG structures, shareholder-level documents are not part of the public filing set.
Does Switzerland offer an API for the commercial register?
Yes. The Zefix RESTful API is available through Open Data Swiss and is free. You'll need a registered account, which you can request by emailing zefix@bj.admin.ch. Alternatively, Kyckr provides company registry data from 300+ official registries worldwide, via API or online portal – everything in one place.
How reliable is beneficial ownership data in Switzerland?
For GmbH/Sàrl entities, the member list is public and reflects registered shareholders. For AG structures, no shareholder data is disclosed publicly. Neither constitutes a verified UBO register. The incoming Transparency Register will hold UBO data, but its contents will be restricted to Swiss authorities and regulated intermediaries.