How much is Swiss unemployment benefit?

The daily allowance: 70% or 80%

Under AVIG art. 22. Insured earnings are the average salary of the last six (or twelve) months, capped at the AVIG maximum. Your fund calculates the individual case — this table says which row applies to you. As of 7 September 2026.

The ceiling is the part people find out too late

For anyone earning below the cap, the arithmetic is straightforward: 70 or 80 percent of the average salary, and that is the answer. Above the cap, the percentage becomes misleading. Art. 23 para. 1 AVIG declares the maximum insured earnings identical to the maximum in compulsory accident insurance, and Art. 22 para. 1 UVV sets that at CHF 148’200 a year. Divided by twelve, that is CHF 12’350 a month, and everything above it is simply not insured.

So in the 70 percent band the benefit stops at roughly CHF 8’645 gross in an average month, no matter how far above the cap the previous salary was. Someone who earned CHF 15’000 is replaced at about 57.6 percent of their actual pay; at CHF 18’000 it is around 48 percent; at CHF 25’000 it is about 34.6 percent. Swiss unemployment insurance is deliberately not proportional at the top.

Expressed as daily figures, the cap works out at insured daily earnings of roughly CHF 569 — CHF 12’350 divided by 21.7. Eighty percent of that is about CHF 455 a day, seventy percent about CHF 398. Those two numbers are the practical ceiling of the whole system.

Why the month has 21.7 days

Unemployment benefit is paid as a daily allowance, and five daily allowances are paid per week, Monday to Friday (Art. 21 AVIG). Daily earnings are found by dividing monthly earnings by 21.7 (Art. 40a AVIV). That figure is the annual average number of working days in a month, not a rounding convention.

The practical consequence is that a real month has between 20 and 23 working days depending on the calendar, so the amount transferred moves up and down while the entitlement itself never changes. A month with 20 working days pays roughly eight percent less than the 21.7-day average, and one with 23 about six percent more, on identical insured earnings and an identical rate.

If two statements differ and a cut is suspected, the first thing to compare is the number of daily allowances billed, and only then the rate. Most apparent reductions are the calendar rather than a decision.

Where the switch between 70 and 80 percent actually sits

The statute does not phrase the switch as a salary. Art. 22 para. 2 let. b AVIG puts it as a daily allowance: the lower rate applies only to insured persons whose full daily allowance would exceed CHF 140. Converted back to a month through the statutory divisor, that daily figure corresponds to insured earnings of CHF 3’797 — the number SECO publishes in its guide for insured persons and on arbeit.swiss.

The other two routes into the 80 percent band do not depend on the amount at all. Maintenance obligations towards children under 25 qualify regardless of earnings, and so does a disability pension corresponding to a degree of disability of at least 40 percent. All three conditions in Art. 22 para. 2 AVIG must fail together before the rate drops.

There is also a supplement that is easy to miss. On top of the allowance, insured persons receive an amount corresponding to the daily equivalent of the statutory child and education allowances they would be entitled to in employment — but only where those allowances are not being paid to them during unemployment and no employed person can claim them for the same child (Art. 22 para. 1 AVIG).

Waiting days are an excess, not a processing delay

Entitlement starts after a waiting period of five days of controlled unemployment. For people without maintenance obligations towards children under 25 it lengthens with income: ten days on insured earnings between CHF 60’001 and CHF 90’000, fifteen days between CHF 90’001 and CHF 125’000, and twenty days above that (Art. 18 para. 1 AVIG).

At the other end it disappears. Insured persons with insured earnings of up to CHF 36’000 a year serve no general waiting period, and neither do those between CHF 36’001 and CHF 60’000 who have maintenance obligations towards children under 25 (Art. 6a paras. 2 and 3 AVIV). The general waiting period is served only once per benefit period.

The cost is calculable. On insured earnings of CHF 100’000 a year without maintenance obligations, fifteen waiting days are due; the daily allowance in the 70 percent band is around CHF 269, so the waiting period costs roughly CHF 4’030 that is never paid. Special waiting days can be added on top: one day after seasonal work, five days for most people exempt from the contribution period, and 120 days where that exemption rests on schooling, retraining or further education (Art. 6 AVIV).

From gross to bank account

Unemployment benefit counts as relevant salary under the federal old-age insurance act, so the fund deducts the employee's share of OASI, disability insurance and the loss-of-earnings scheme, and pays it over together with the employer's share it carries itself (Art. 22a paras. 1 and 2 AVIG).

Two further deductions follow. To maintain occupational pension cover against death and disability, the fund withholds an occupational pension contribution (Art. 22a para. 3 AVIG) — the wording covers death and disability only, not old age, so no retirement capital accrues while you draw benefit. And it withholds at most two thirds of the premium for compulsory non-occupational accident insurance (Art. 22a para. 4 AVIG). No premiums are levied for suspension days and waiting days.

What is not deducted is a new unemployment insurance contribution: the benefit does not insure itself. Foreign nationals subject to withholding tax have that tax deducted by the fund as well, and for everyone else the benefit is taxable income, because Art. 23 let. a of the federal direct tax act captures all income replacing income from gainful employment.

One more offset catches people who have drawn a pension early: old-age benefits from OASI and from occupational pension schemes are deducted from unemployment benefit (Art. 18c AVIG), including equivalent pensions from foreign compulsory or voluntary schemes.

How long, not only how much

The rate says little while the duration is open. Art. 27 AVIG grades the maximum number of daily allowances by contribution time and age: at most 200 for people up to the completed 25th year without maintenance obligations towards children, at most 260 with twelve contribution months, at most 400 with eighteen, and at most 520 with at least 22 contribution months combined with a completed 55th year or a disability pension of at least 40 percent.

Anyone becoming unemployed within the last four years before the reference age can receive up to 120 additional daily allowances (Art. 27 para. 3 AVIG). People exempt from the contribution period are entitled to at most 90.

For those exempt persons, and for people drawing benefit straight after vocational training, the fund does not work from a previous salary at all. It applies flat rates: CHF 153 a day with a tertiary qualification, CHF 127 with an upper-secondary qualification, CHF 102 for everyone else aged 20 or over and CHF 40 for those under 20 (Art. 41 para. 1 AVIV). Those rates are halved where the exemption rests on schooling, retraining or further education, the person is under 25, and there are no maintenance obligations towards children.

Who ends up near the switching line: what our own adverts show

For an insured person without children, which band applies depends purely on the level of insured earnings — and that level follows the workload of the last six or twelve months. A 60 percent post produces a 60 percent average salary and correspondingly lower insured earnings.

Our own stock of Swiss job adverts shows how unevenly that exposure is spread. In education, 34.9 percent of adverts offer less than a full workload; in care it is 19.7 percent, in retail 12.3 percent, and in commercial and HR roles 10.3 percent each. At the other end sit construction at 0.5 percent, IT at 1.8 percent, engineering at 2.0 percent and logistics at 2.5 percent.

That is close to a seventyfold spread. Coming out of a field where part-time is the norm makes it far more likely that you enter unemployment with insured earnings below the switching line — on the higher rate of 80 percent, but calculated on a smaller base. Coming out of construction or IT, you will almost never meet that line, and will meet the ceiling more often instead.

Both effects together explain why two people holding decisions that quote the same percentage receive entirely different amounts, and why the question cannot be answered without your own insured earnings. The binding figure appears on the decision issued by your unemployment fund; the RAV itself does not calculate it.