Well UK does similar, but you have to be aged 75 to get a free TV licence.

Read my post again. Its not true what was written in the article

The new company charges everyone the same amount (per Household), only the people who are exempt (they pay nothing), around 366 sfr per year.
This means around 200 sfr per year more, when you got only a pc/mobile for example.

Other exemptions cover households where at least one person is receiving extra pension (AHV/AVS) or disability insurance (IV/AI) support from their local commune. Diplomats are also exempt.

You mean The Local is wrong!

This swissinfo thing is wrong

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/serafe_...-fee-/44490210


"Who is also exempt from the fee?
Households with people who receive old-age pension" Wrong

Oops! Wrong website.

Happy New Serafe/year !!!

I moved to Switzerland few months ago, in 2018. I didn`t register ( yet ) to Billag.
What do I need to do for this year ? Should I wait for the Serafe to contact me / send me the new type of bill ? Or register with them ?

No need to do anything, just wait.

Serafe gets the addresses directly from the registry of residents (Einwohnerkontrolle) which you had to register with within 14 days after your arrival. The invoice for 365 CHF should be sent sometime this month.

For those arriving during the year:
Serafe gets updated data every month. So depending on how fast they are, your invoice should be expected perhaps a couple months or so after you've registered with your commune.

Considering Billag billed us all until 31.12.2018, no matter when we usually pay the bills (which used to be June for me), Serafe should be darn busy this month. Hehehe.

It's a new company so their software is bound to contain more errors than time-tested stuff. I wonder why they don't phase in and bill roughly 1/12 per month, essentially like Billag did. The workload would be much more balanced to boot.

I think hardly anybody pays by Einzahlungsschein at the post office any more. So need to worry about some billing or handling bottleneck there. And in business it's all about working capital, so the sooner you get people to pay, the more working capital you have in hand. A succesful Inkasso company would get the punters to pay up as early as possible while themselves handing the money over to SRF & friends as late as possible.

Not had a bill yet, but guess will only be a matter of time.

Effectively, that's exactly what Serafe is doing -- eventually. Every household will be billed in January 2019 for a portion of the year, with another invoice coming later in the year for most (11/12) of all households. See "Staggered invoicing" here.

Attached Thumbnails

 

I wonder how they decide who gets billed in which month?

It's the Serafe-Lottery.

Serafe's website says that they randomly assign households to one of twelve groups. The first group is invoiced annually in January, the second in February, etc.

If you're in Group 1, you'll receive a bill for CHF 365 in January 2019 to cover 2019. Your next bill will arrive in January 2020, to cover the fee to the end of 2020.

If you're in Group 2, you'll receive a bill for CHF 365/12 in January 2019 to cover the fee for January 2019. Then you'll receive a bill in February, for the fee to the end of January 2020. Your next bill will arrive in February 2020, for the fee up to the end of January 2021.

If you're in Group 3, you'll receive a bill for CHF (365/12)*2 in January 2019 to cover the fee for January and February 2019. Then you'll receive a bill in March, for the fee to the end of February 2020. Your next bill will arrive in March 2020, for the fee up to the end of February 2021.

And so on...

Note, you can opt to pay the fee quarterly, without additional charge if you do it electronically. If you ask for a hard copy invoice, you'll pay an extra CHF 2.00 per quarter.

Looks like im in Group 1 (got bill today). But the bill is a "Teilrechnung" which covers Jan-Sep. 2019 for 273.75.-

So you're in Group 10, then. You'll be billed annually in October.

Every household in Switzerland will receive a bill in January 2019, most for a Teilrechnung, as explained above.

The opt-out loophole will not be closed until 2023.

But the way I understand it, you need to receive the bill first and then apply for the opt out.