Selling Online in Switzerland — Legal Status, Consumer Rules and Channels

To sell online in Switzerland, you make two decisions before choosing a platform, an ad channel or a store name: whether you need to register your business, and where you will actually sell. The rules below are Swiss rules, not EU rules converted into francs — and on the point that matters most to customers, the right to send goods back, Swiss law works differently from EU law, not just with different numbers.

Logistics, customer service, website design and marketing have their own articles in this section, linked where they are useful. Here you settle the legal form and the sales channel, because everything else depends on them.

Registering a business to sell online in Switzerland

For a natural person selling on their own account, the Code of Obligations sets a clear threshold. Art. 931(1) CO: "A natural person who operates a business that in the most recent financial year achieved revenues of at least 100 000 francs must have their sole proprietorships entered in the commercial register" at the place of business; members of the liberal professions and farmers who do not operate a commercial business are exempt, and a sole proprietorship below the threshold may register voluntarily (Code of Obligations, Fedlex, English translation for information only, version of 1 January 2026, read 2026-10-02). The test looks back at the most recent financial year, so you can start selling as a sole proprietor without a commercial-register entry and register once your revenue reaches CHF 100,000. If you set up a company (GmbH/Sàrl or AG/SA) instead, it comes into existence only through registration, so the question does not arise. Separate permits for regulated activities apply whatever your turnover.

A second threshold, with the same number but a different legal basis, concerns VAT: under the VAT Act (MWSTG Art. 7(3)(b) and MWSTV Art. 4a), a mail-order company — domestic or foreign — that generates at least CHF 100,000 a year from small consignments is treated as making domestic supplies, taxable in Switzerland, and must register in the VAT register from the month after the threshold is reached (ESTV, read 2026-10-02). That is a VAT-registration trigger tied to mail-order turnover from low-value consignments, not the commercial-register rule above — the two use the same CHF 100,000 figure but answer different questions, and crossing one does not mean you have crossed the other. For businesses with taxable supplies in Switzerland more generally, VAT liability also starts at CHF 100,000 of annual turnover (MWSTG Art. 10); whether and when you register for VAT is worth settling with your fiduciary or the ESTV before launch.

Two other VAT mechanics matter if you're shipping goods into Switzerland or selling through a platform:

• Import de minimis. Consignments where the import tax due would be CHF 5 or less are exempt from import tax altogether (SR 641.204, Art. 1(d)).
• Platform taxation. Since 1 January 2025 (MWSTG Art. 20a), the operator of a platform is itself deemed the supplier for VAT purposes toward the buyer (ESTV) — if you sell through a marketplace, part of the VAT mechanics shifts to the platform rather than sitting entirely on you.

Consumer rules once you sell online in Switzerland

This is where Swiss law diverges sharply from the EU, not just in the numbers but in the mechanism itself. The official position, stated by the SECO-run KMU portal, is unambiguous: "In e-commerce, Swiss law does not provide for any withdrawal period or other right of return once the order has been placed." The seller can offer a return policy voluntarily, but has no legal obligation to do so (KMU portal, SECO, read 2026-10-02).

The Code of Obligations does include a revocation right (Art. 40a–40e, 14 days for contracts over CHF 100), but it's scoped to very specific sales situations — at the customer's workplace or home, on public transport, at a promotional excursion, or "by telephone or a comparable means of simultaneous verbal communication." Online shops are explicitly not covered. The one industry-level voluntary commitment worth knowing about: Handelsverband.swiss's Code of Ethics gives members a 14-day return commitment — but that binds only its members, not sellers generally, and it's a trade-association standard, not law.

Warranty works differently from "no returns at all," though. Under CO Art. 197 the seller is liable for defects, and Art. 210(1) sets a 2-year limitation period from delivery. Sellers can exclude or limit warranty in their terms (Art. 199 allows this unless the seller fraudulently concealed the defect), but Art. 210(4) voids any shortening of the limitation period below 2 years (or below 1 year for second-hand goods) where the goods are for personal or family use and the seller acts professionally — that's a limit on shortening the period, not a ban on excluding warranty altogether, and T&C exclusions still get reviewed under the UWG's Art. 8 bar on terms that create a "significant and unjustified imbalance" to the consumer's detriment.

If you advertise a reduction, the Price Indication Ordinance (PBV, SR 942.211) applies: under Art. 16, in the version in force since 1 January 2025, you may show a comparison price next to the price actually payable only if you actually charged it either immediately before the reduction — in which case it may be shown for at most half as long as it was charged, and no more than two months — or for at least 30 consecutive days.

Separately, UWG Art. 3(1)(s), in force since 2012, sets its own duties for anyone selling via e-commerce: give clear and complete identity and contact details, state the technical steps to conclude the contract, provide a way to correct input errors before confirming, and confirm the customer's order "without delay" electronically.

DAC7 doesn't apply here — what does

Switzerland is not an EU member state, so DAC7 — the EU rule under which platform operators report seller data to tax authorities — does not apply to Swiss platforms or Swiss sellers. Whether Switzerland has adopted an equivalent OECD reporting framework for digital platforms has not been confirmed as of this writing; don't take a Swiss DAC7-equivalent as a given until it's been checked directly.

What does apply instead is the platform-taxation mechanic described above (MWSTG Art. 20a, in force since 1 January 2025) — and it's a genuinely different kind of obligation. DAC7 is about a platform reporting what you sold to the tax authority; Swiss platform taxation is about VAT liability on the transaction itself. One is a data-reporting duty, the other a tax-collection mechanic, and Switzerland has the second without having the first.

Where to sell online in Switzerland

Swiss consumers bought CHF 15.8 billion of goods online in 2025, up 6% from CHF 14.9 billion the year before — domestic purchases grew 6%, foreign purchases 8% (after an 18% jump in 2024) — with Digitec Galaxus named the market's "big winner" by the same report (Handelsverband.swiss, with NIQ/GfK and Swiss Post, "Onlinehandelsmarkt Schweiz 2025"). 85.5% of individuals aged 16–74 bought something online in the last 12 months in 2025, up from 83.42% in 2023 (Eurostat isoc_ec_ib20, geo=CH, sourced from Switzerland's own Federal Statistical Office).

• Marketplace. Ricardo charges a success fee of 8–12% of the sale price, depending on product category, capped at CHF 290 (minimum CHF 0.10); listing is generally free except for vehicles priced at CHF 3,000 or more, and the fee model is the same for private and business sellers (Ricardo help centre, updated September 2026). Galaxus runs two partner models — a Merchant programme and a Supplier programme — with dropshipping possible only where logistics are proven in advance (Galaxus); Galaxus's own commission rate isn't publicly disclosed. How marketplace API integration and stock sync actually work, in general, is covered in marketplace integration.
• Your own store. Full control over customer data, margin and brand, without a marketplace's built-in traffic. Choosing a platform for your own store is covered in our platforms section.
• Social commerce. TikTok Shop — the seller programme — is not available to Swiss sellers: Switzerland is absent from both TikTok Shop's 13-market seller list and TikTok Shop Ads' 15/16-country list for its GMV Max product. Standard TikTok advertising, not tied to Shop as the sales mechanism, may still be usable, but TikTok doesn't publish a market-availability list for that specific distinction either — treat it as a described mechanism, not a confirmed one.
• Price comparison. Toppreise.ch operates as a Swiss price-comparison site, though no operator-disclosed figures on its reach or fee model were available to cite here.

Selling across the border, from Switzerland

Selling from Switzerland into the EU — or from the EU into Switzerland — runs on a different set of rules again: customs, Swiss VAT registration for foreign sellers, and the EU side's OSS/IOSS mechanics from a Swiss seller's point of view. That's a large enough topic to deserve its own treatment, covered fully in cross-border e-commerce.

Getting started — the order that matters

Before you pick a name, a logo or a specific platform, settle these in order:

1. Legal status. As a sole proprietor you can start without a commercial-register entry; registration becomes mandatory once revenue in the most recent financial year reaches CHF 100,000 (Art. 931 CO). Check the VAT thresholds separately — they use the same figure but a different law. If what you sell needs a licence or permit, you need it from the first sale, whatever your turnover.
2. Sales channel. Marketplace (Ricardo, Galaxus) first, or your own store from day one? Either way, remember that Swiss law gives you no statutory return obligation — your returns policy is a commercial decision you make deliberately, not a legal minimum you default into.
3. Cross-border reach. Selling only within Switzerland, or into the EU as well from the start? If the latter, see cross-border e-commerce before you set up VAT and shipping — reworking that later costs more than deciding it up front.
4. Launch budget. Platform, hosting, any marketplace integration and your first marketing spend — a separate costing exercise, not a legal decision. Calculate the cost of your store for a breakdown by cost item rather than a market average; a fuller breakdown of typical launch and running costs is in how much does an online store cost.

Promoting your first sale

Marketing an online store is a large topic of its own in this section, not one paragraph here. Before spending anything on advertising, work out where your customers actually look for products — in marketplace and store search, on Google or on social platforms — and decide how you'll measure every channel on the same basis rather than comparing numbers that mean different things in different tools. Only then choose specific tactics: a product feed for Google, a catalogue for Meta, a price comparison listing or an SMS campaign to repeat customers. The full map of ecommerce marketing channels is in our ecommerce marketing section.