My situation: non-EU, on a B visa, paying Quellensteuer. My husband will join me and will be my dependent, at least initially. I keep reading that people who don't have paid employment have to pay into 1st pillar pension funds, but how is that handled for foreigners? Will my husband have to declare to some office? Will they contact him? The logistics of this are unclear to me.
Also, what numbers are we talking about here? I haven't budgeted with this in mind...

Did you already find more information about this? I'd be also interested in getting some clarity to this issue. The only piece of information I managed to find myself is this short excerpt from taxation.ch:

For the first 6 years of living here, my wife didn't work and we made no payments for her Pillar 1. Nor did anyone (HR, Financial Advisors etc.) advise us that we needed to

As with NotAllThere, my wife didn't have to pay into any 1st pillar until she went freelance, and even then her payments are low (based on estimated earnings).

My guess is that this applies to people/couples with no income at all from a job. As you have an income and you are a married couple, I don't think the rule quoted by The Finn is valid in this case.

i.e. it applies to no-income families.

Ok, thank you for sharing this information. I'm moving to Switzerland in May and will be in a similar situation (except that I'm from EU).

I am not an expert on this, but having done some research I have found the following:

The 1. Pillar is an obligatory old age pension and unemplyment insurance for all people employed in Switzerland.

- For employees this is deducted at source by your employer
- For the self employed there ar special rules and procedures
- For married dependents they are deemed to be covered if their spouse pays more than double the minimum (2*CHF460)
- For the unemployed these payments will be deducted from unemployment benefits

The only thing I am unsure about is: For single unemployed newcomers to Switzerland with no entitlement to unemployment benefit who currently have an L pass and are using this to seek employment during 1 year, it is not clear to me if or how they have to pay the AHV contributions during this first year. They are entitled to use the RAV job seeking facilities and even attend courses financed by the RAV and the RAV will want to see evidence of payment. I will soon find out.

So far as I understand it is not compulsory to pay but when you retire the amount of your pension is calculated based on the number of years paid.
The minimum payment to qualify for a year is circa 460/470 CHF