Hi all,

I have searched through EF and found lots of information about leaving Switzerland, but so far not an easy check-list of all the "To Do's". I have documented my checklist (which is growing by the day), and would love everyone to add to it if they have additional information - hopefully we can be the "one stop shop" checklist for everyone leaving the country.

A few disclaimers first - This does not cover anything to do with children / mortgages. Also, I am not attempting to answer all the questions (plenty of other threads do that), simply trying to create a summary list of things to do/check/investigate etc

Good luck with your move!

Cheers,
Ashlee


Authorities
- De-register with your local authority, and get letter of de-registration
- Check entitlements for pension refund
- Check entitlements for church tax refund
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Bills & Accounts
- Cancel health insurance
- Cancel home insurance (check refund entitlement)
- Cancel mobile phone
- Cancel internet and cable
- Check Billag - refund or transfer to new tenant?
- Cancel utilities and organised final meter read
- Check with bank re: bank account (can I keep it open, for how long, procedure to close etc)
- Complete final tax return
- Organise for Swiss Post to redirect mail
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House / flat
- Organise profesional cleaner (obtain quotes)
- Organise dishwasher service (part of lease conditions)
- Send formal, registered letter to landlord to terminate lease
- Investigate bond - when & how it gets returned
- Change address with utilities, Swisscom, mobile phone, banks
- Cancel direct debit for rent
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General
- Organise travel insurance for when Swiss Health Insurance is cancelled
- Organise insurance for belongings in transit
- Investigate shipping / moving companies VS self-drive
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Please feel free to add to this list if you know of other things requiring attention before leaving this beautiful country.

I am doing a sabbatical from July on and will leave Switzerland for some time.
I am in the middle of the organization and what is a challenge for me is to keep in mind all the cancellation periods.
For the mobile, fix-phone provider it is usually two months!!

If only I had read your post an hour ago >< Thank you very much ashridgeway!

Wanted to give a thumbs up, but guess the post is too old. Thank you for the list... of course can be used for leaving the city and moving to another part of Switzerland too I just also wanted to mention that some landlords require a minimum of 3 months termination notice.

Regarding the de-registration letter, this allows you to cancel services (telephone, electricity, billag etc) without charge. However you must have completed your tax form for the financial year or they won't issue the letter.

Not true, or at least not true everywhere. We left Vaud last October, and weren't expected to fill in the 2011 tax form until early 2012, same as usual. This was for B permits on withholding tax, so perhaps it's different if you don't have tax withheld.

The cancellation bit is right for utilities - these can be cancelled on the spot with the magic letter. Health insurance can only be cancelled in complete months, so if you leave mid-month then you pay until the end.

The tax claim can be filed shortly after your leave as per Bottmingen, BL gemeinde.
Swiss Post redirect, does it work for abroad addresses?

Yes, in the absence of a permanent address in the US before we moved, I set ours up to send all our post to my parents in the UK. Vaguely think it may have cost slightly more than an internal redirect, but the whole thing was still only around 40 CHFs for a year.

Could it be that the price varies per the country you have moved to, or always 40 CHF?

Sorry, just checked this for you and the price for 2012 is way higher! It's now 90 or 132 CHFs for any foreign country, depending on whether you arrange this over the Internet or at a post office/ by phone.

http://www.swisspost.ch/fr/post-auft...ngswechsel.pdf (French, sorry, can't do German but the price table is pretty clear).

Even Swiss need money nowadays! This proves to be a perfect economical crisis!!

Even the fee for change of address is way higher it was CHF 15 I thought in 2010.

And now it is 40 CHF for inland, min. 90 CHF or abroad, I suppose. I have had found somewhere the other day, but memory needs some fix.

So glad I found this thread! Trying to cancel my Orange account early due to moving out of Switzerland.Have de-registration letter and work contract--just got off phone with Orange and they want to charge me 800 CHF for breaking my contract! We checked before we signed up about this very issue and were told by the store employee that as long as we had paper work for the move we would NOT be charged. Am I missing something here? My understanding is that we should not be charged for this...

Check what is written in the contract that should mention the charges, if any.

I expect the Orange guy meant you wouldn't have to pay the remainder of the airtime contract, penalties, that sort of thing - you'd still have to pay the balance on the handset itself though, otherwise everyone would get an iPhone a month before they left and 'buy' it for 40 CHFs or so!

Hi, I paid 35 CHF for two persons for a redirect within Switzerland. Abroad was more expensive as expected. Important tip: do it through internet to save money, but it takes couple days to get the authorisation code via post.

Thank you for the heads up on 2 months notice. I am leaving at the end of October and was going to wait until September to tell them. Probably saved me some cash

It is at least 2 months ahead, allow enough time to send the notice by registered mail ( allow at least another week ). I have sent it in 3 months ahead without problems.

Translated into EN:

gym memberships need a month notice in most cases.