Hi all,

This might be relatively complicated. I'm a EU citizen living in Switzerland with a B permit. I have a B permit for 5 years because I am self-employed (as a freelance translator) with a variable workload percentage. However, I have recently got a funded PhD student and I'm employed at 60% on a yearly basis. As of now, I'm getting more involved in my PhD and basically now it earns me the majority of my income. I could definitely live off my PhD salary alone without my self-employed revenue.
Question is: if I decided to cease my self-employed activity altogether, would I risk losing my B permit or have it changed to a 1-year renewable B permit?

Now, I understand that as a EU citizen with a B permit I'm allowed to change my job as long as I can financially maintain myself. The question comes from the fact that the office gave me a 5 years permit precisely because of my self-employed activity which is equivalent to a permanent contract. If I were to close that activity, I'd be left with a 1-year contract which must be renewed every year for another 3 years. I'm pretty confident that they'll renew my PhD salary every year, but, formally speaking, they are in fact 1-year contracts and wouldn't justify a 5 years B permit.
So, could I cease my activity and keep my 5 years B permit?

I hope this is clear enough. Thank you in advance!