Hello, the last thread I saw on this was from 2015.

Has anyone actually rec'd their refund? We are due a substantial refund and are set to go back to the US in a few months.

Thank you.

Are you on a C permit? Since I have a C Permit they keep the money and use this for next year´s payments. With a B I always got it back on my bank account.

Do you mean the return of any tax payed in excess of the amount determined by your final declaration?

I get this every year. No problem. Some years they take longer than others.

If you did your taxes online you can also log into the tax portal and see the status of your tax declaration. Otherwise phone them. I've always found them to be very cooperative.

Thank you both. I am on a B permit.

I will see about the online portal, thanks a bunch

Why do you think you will get a refund, if you do a tax return you may owe more money.

Me too; sometimes takes a very long time but the interest rate received is higher than the banks.

This is my 2nd year in CH. I have yet to receive any refund (that is if I will get one - I still have not heard anything) from year 1. I heard from my accountant that it can take 1-2 years to hear back from the Swiss government as to whether you'll receive a refund.

I'm owed for 4 years refunds now. You all may have to wait a bit yet!

Much of depends on in which canton you file. I've lived here six years; each year I have a refund due because of substantial deductions. When I lived in Neuchatel, the tax refund credited to my account in about 6 months. I moved to Lausanne (Vaud) and my refund took nearly three years. Canton Vaud is famously slow and inefficient, and you have to ride their asses weekly to get any type of response.

Probably because they have done the return correctly and had it calculated and shows thay have significantly overpaid whcih is easy to happen

I can only speak for myself here an not for the OP, by I generally overpay by about 2K above the recommended sum. This assures I am on the safe side and getting something back is always better than having to pay extra.

Of course with interest now having dropped to 0% in Zürich, that is no longer as attractive a proposition as it once was, so I may reconsider.

I filed last year for the first time and it took about three months to get the money back. They actually give the option to receive it on a foreign bank account as well. My tax advisor did the return for 2015 and he will do so for 2016. As I am moving out of Switzerland, he will send me all the documentation and I will just get the tax authorities to send it to my non-Swiss account.

I'm yet to receive my CHF 3900 back from 2013 tax return.

Anyone that tells me "oh but you get better interest rate than the banks" gets an automatic kick in the balls from me, specially in this negative interest rate environment.

Anyone can earn more then what the banks pay as interest. Plus it is your money not the damn tax departments who think they can be slack and slow just because they are above everyone else.

Swiss tax authorities are so damn slow what it takes them years to process is done in weeks in other countries and I am convinced it is because they are using the slow process to invest the tax revenues they owe in other countries

I overpaid one year, paying the amount based on the year before (working) for an entire year I didn't work.


Still waiting to get that back---a few years now, I kinda assume it's not coming back.

I´m confused. If you get the final letter on your taxation for that year and it shows a balance in your favour, I have always just phoned the tax authorities and asked them to transfer this (if they hadn´t done that automatically). Yes, it took them sometimes ages to get to that final confirmation but normally I got the funds back within 4 weeks after that.