Hi John,

Both forming a company and registering individually, at the register of commerce, are very easy although the former requires a little capital (CHF 20k).

The 2 main obstacles are firstly that as a non EU national youll need the approval of the OCP to get a permit and then (if you want to register as an individual rather than forming a company) you'll have to convince the AVS people that you have more than 3 clients (otherwise its considered disguised employment)

It may be easier to have yourself hired-out through a payroll managment company. They take care of the permit and invoicing issues.

Phillip

John,

The general rule is that if you work more than 8 days in Switzerland, you should in principle ask for a working or residence permit.

If you do not have an EU citizenship and if you want to apply for a working permit as a self-employed person, the conditions are not easy to satisfy, because you will have to show that your project has an economic interest for the local economy.

As Philipp suggested, another solution would be to apply for a working permit as an employee of a company. In such case, for non-Europeans, the employeer would in principle only obtain the working permit if it searched for a similar employee in Switzerland and in the EU and if it did not find anyone (this must be evidenced). Therefore, in both cases, the chances of success are not guaranteed and it would be recommended to be assisted by a consultant or lawyer.

Per