{"id":2204,"date":"2016-01-15T11:19:56","date_gmt":"2016-01-15T10:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/?p=2204"},"modified":"2016-01-08T17:21:58","modified_gmt":"2016-01-08T16:21:58","slug":"can-a-foreign-company-set-up-a-branch-office-in-switzerland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/can-a-foreign-company-set-up-a-branch-office-in-switzerland\/","title":{"rendered":"Can a foreign company set up a branch office in Switzerland?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>A<strong> foreign company can set up a branch office in Switzerland. The branch office is subject to Swiss law and must be recorded in the commercial register in its Swiss location.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.startups.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Tastatur-mit-Paragraph.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A branch office is a commercially independent business of a parent company. It is legally dependent on the head office and therefore does not have a legal personality. The branch has limited commercial independence: It must carry out the same type of commercial activity as the parent company and form a commercial whole with it (cf. Forstmoser\/Meier-Hayoz, Schweizerisches Gesellschaftsrecht &#8211; Swiss Civil Law, pg. 741). Example: A German retailer, based in Munich, would like to sell their products in Switzerland too, and sets up locations in St. Gallen, Frauenfeld and Schaffhausen for this purpose.<\/p>\n<p>The branch office is not a subsidiary. The latter is a legally independent company, which has a legal personality, but is commercially dependent on the parent company.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Set-up by a foreign company<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A foreign company can set up a branch office in Switzerland. This is then subject to Swiss law (Art. 160 Para. 1 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.admin.ch\/opc\/de\/classified-compilation\/19870312\/index.html\">IPRG<\/a>). In particular, external legal relationships are governed by Swiss law (e.g. the question of powers of representation) (Art. 160 Para. 2 IPRG). The branch office must be entered in the commercial register in its Swiss location (Art. 935 Para 2 OR).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Representation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To establish a branch, an authorised person resident in Switzerland must be appointed and registered in the commercial register. (Art. 935 Para. 2 OR, cf. <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/vertretung-von-zweigniederlassungen-auslaendischer-firmen\/\">blog entry<\/a>). This authorised person does not have to have Swiss citizenship.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Taxes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Because of their commercial affiliation, branch offices are subject to limited tax obligation in Switzerland (Art. 51 Para. 1 section. b <a href=\"https:\/\/www.admin.ch\/opc\/de\/classified-compilation\/19900329\/index.html\">DBG<\/a>). However, the profit made by the branch office in Switzerland is subject to profit tax (Art. 52 Para. 2 DBG).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A foreign company can set up a branch office in Switzerland. The branch office is subject to Swiss law and must be recorded in the commercial register in its Swiss location.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[501,8],"tags":[512,513,514],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"views":7654,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p54Pb1-zy","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2205,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204\/revisions\/2205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}