What should I check in the contract before signing?

What to check in the contract — and what applies if it is silent

The second column is the real value: the law fills every gap, usually in your favour. A missing clause is therefore not the risk — a clause that departs from the default is. As of 7 September 2026.

Two lists, and what they do to your contract

Swiss employment law sits in Articles 319 to 362 of the Code of Obligations, and the last two articles of that block do something statutes rarely do: they enumerate. Art. 361 CO opens with the sentence that no agreement, standard employment contract or collective employment contract may derogate from the provisions that follow, in either direction, and then names 26 of them. Art. 362 CO repeats the construction for the employee’s benefit only, and names 60.

Both close with the same consequence, and it is unusually blunt for a legal text: any such agreement or clause “is void”. Not challengeable, not terminable — void, with the statutory rule taking its place. This is why a Swiss employment contract can be two pages long and still be complete.

Read as a whole, the 86 entries say what Swiss law considers worth protecting. Termination accounts for 23 of them, salary and expenses for 18, personality rights, time off, holidays and leave for another 18, the special contracts such as apprenticeship and commercial travel for 15, occupational benefits and inventions for 6, and the prohibition of competition together with the no-waiver rule for 6. The most heavily protected moment of a Swiss job is its ending.

Fedlex publishes the Code of Obligations in English as well. That version is a courtesy translation with no legal force — where a word matters, the German, French and Italian texts are the ones that decide, and this page quotes the English rendering only to make the structure readable.

Protection is granted paragraph by paragraph

The single most useful thing to know before reading a Swiss contract is that the two lists are written at paragraph level. Entries look like “Article 324a: paragraphs 1 and 3” or “Article 335c: paragraph 3”. Counting them out gives 46 partial entries against 40 whole-article ones.

Art. 335c CO shows what that asymmetry buys an employer. The only part of it on the list is paragraph 3, which extends a notice period by untaken days of leave for the other parent. The notice periods themselves live in paragraphs 1 and 2 and may be changed by written agreement — so a contract that sets three months in both directions from day one is doing something the statute expressly permits.

Holiday shows the other side of the same drafting. Art. 329a CO — at least four weeks a year, five for employees under 20 — is listed as “paragraphs 1 and 3”, because its paragraph 2 was repealed in 1984 and the list still names around the gap. Holiday pay itself sits in Art. 329d para. 1 and is on the Art. 362 list, so a contract may only improve on it. But paragraphs 2 and 3 of that same article — the rule that holiday “may not be replaced by monetary payments or other benefits” during the employment relationship — are on the Art. 361 list instead, which means neither side may agree to cash it out, not even if you ask.

When you check a clause, then, look up the article, and then look up the paragraph. Most of the clauses that surprise people later sit in a paragraph the lists deliberately left open.

Where the paper really decides

Of the 91 articles in force between Art. 319 and Art. 343 CO, 65 appear somewhere in the two lists. The remaining 26 are the ones to read closely, because there the contract has the last word.

Salary is the clearest case. Art. 322 CO, which fixes the employer’s duty to pay the salary agreed, customary, or set by a standard or collective employment contract, is on neither list — the law names the sources of a wage, not an amount. Special remuneration under Art. 322d CO, which is where a thirteenth month, a bonus or a gratification lives, exists only in so far as it has been agreed. If the contract is silent, an annual salary divides by twelve.

Two more in this group decide how easily either side can leave: the probation period in Art. 335b CO and the notice periods in Art. 335c paras. 1 and 2 CO. A third, Art. 330b CO, obliges the employer to inform you in writing about the names of the parties, the start date, your function, the salary and any supplements, and the weekly working hours, within a month of the start of an employment relationship entered into for an indefinite period or for more than a month.

Your own duties belong here too. The duty of care and loyalty in Art. 321a CO is not on either list, and contracts routinely spell it out at greater length than the statute does — including bans on secondary employment. That wording is the one that will be applied.

Clauses that exist only if they are written down

A short group of provisions require written form for a departure from the default. These are the clauses to hunt for before signing, because nothing said in a room can create or defuse them.

They are: the prohibition of competition, which requires a written undertaking by an employee with capacity to act (Art. 340 para. 1 CO); any probation period other than the statutory month (Art. 335b para. 2); a change to the notice periods (Art. 335c para. 2); a different arrangement for salary during incapacity, valid only if at least equivalent for the employee (Art. 324a para. 4); and the removal of the overtime supplement, which under Art. 321c para. 3 CO applies “unless otherwise agreed in writing”, in a standard or in a collective employment contract.

Two rarer ones matter to anyone doing technical or creative work. Under Art. 332 para. 2 CO the employer may reserve, by written agreement, the right to acquire inventions and designs you produce in the course of your work but outside your contractual duties — a clause frequently drafted far more broadly than the statute allows. And under Art. 330 para. 2 CO any security you hand over must be returned at the end of the employment relationship at the latest, unless a written agreement defers the date.

These clauses are usually one sentence long, tucked between longer paragraphs about confidentiality and IT use. Length is not a guide to consequence here.

The prohibition of competition is the clause that outlives the job

Almost everything in an employment contract stops when the employment does. A prohibition of competition starts then, which is why it deserves more of your evening than any other clause.

It is binding only where the employment relationship gave you insight into the clientele or into manufacturing and trade secrets, and where using that knowledge could cause the employer substantial harm (Art. 340 para. 2 CO). That is a question about the job you are taking, not about how firmly the clause is drafted.

Art. 340a CO requires the prohibition to be appropriately restricted as to place, time and scope, so as not to unfairly compromise the employee’s economic future; it may exceed three years only in special circumstances, and a court may cut back an excessive one at its discretion, giving due regard to any consideration paid by the employer.

One detail is worth finding in the text. If a contractual penalty is agreed and nothing else is said, Art. 340b para. 2 CO lets you free yourself from the prohibition by paying it. Only where it is “expressly so agreed in writing” may the employer additionally insist that the breach be rectified — that is, that you actually leave the new job. Paragraphs 1 and 2 are on the Art. 361 list; paragraph 3 is not. And under Art. 340c CO the prohibition lapses if the employer terminates without your having given good cause.

The layer that is not in the document

Two instruments can override your contract without appearing in it. The first is the collective employment contract. Its provisions on the formation, content and termination of individual employment relationships bind the participating employers and employees directly (Art. 357 para. 1 CO), and under paragraph 2 a contradicting individual agreement is void and replaced by the collective provision — while agreements more favourable to the employee remain valid.

The second is the standard employment contract. An ordinary one under Art. 359 CO applies only “unless otherwise agreed” (Art. 360 para. 1), so a contract can displace it. A standard employment contract setting minimum wages under Art. 360a CO cannot be displaced: Art. 360d para. 2 CO forbids derogating from it to the employee’s detriment.

That protection is written to catch exactly the people who are easiest to underpay. Art. 360d para. 1 CO extends it to employees who work only temporarily within the geographical scope of such a contract and to employees whose services have been loaned out — cross-border commuters and temp placements included.

Above all of it sits Art. 358 CO: mandatory federal and cantonal law takes precedence over the collective employment contract. The reading order is therefore mandatory law, then the collective or standard contract, then your own — and only what survives all three is genuinely negotiable.

If you are arriving from outside Switzerland

A Swiss contract is short by international standards and uses terms that do not translate cleanly. Workload is a Pensum expressed as a percentage rather than in weekly hours; pay is Lohn; time off is Ferien. Language requirements appear as CEFR levels. None of this is decoration — the weekly working time is one of the five items Art. 330b CO requires in writing, and a percentage without an hours figure leaves it open.

Two expectations imported from elsewhere cause the most trouble. The thirteenth month is not a statutory entitlement: it is special remuneration under Art. 322d CO and exists only if agreed, so a headline annual figure means something different depending on whether the contract mentions it. And a probation period applies whether or not anyone raises it, because Art. 335b para. 1 CO makes the first month probationary by default.

If you need a permit, the contract is usually the document your employer files with it, so the start date in it is not only your start date. Where a start is written as “by agreement”, that is the point most likely to move, and moving it later is harder than moving it now.

If your German, French or Italian is not yet strong enough to read a contract closely, ask for the text before the meeting rather than at it. Swiss law imposes no requirement that the contract be in a language you speak, and there is no cooling-off period after signing.

Before you sign

A workable order: first the points where only the paper counts — salary, Pensum, special remuneration, probation, notice, competition, inventions. Then whether a collective employment contract covers this employer. Then everything else, which is on one of the two lists anyway.

What does not help is agreeing to give something up. Under Art. 341 para. 1 CO an employee may not waive claims arising from mandatory statutory provisions or from the binding provisions of a collective employment contract, during the employment relationship and for one month after it ends.

Two questions are entirely normal to ask in writing before signing: which collective employment contract, if any, applies to this position; and whether the contract contains a prohibition of competition and how it is limited as to place, time and scope. Both answers change how the rest of the document reads.

If a clause stays unclear, the places to take it are your union if you belong to one, the legal advice service of your professional association, or the cantonal conciliation authority for employment disputes. This page explains what the articles say; which of them apply to your situation is a question about your case.