RAV courses and measures: when attendance is compulsory, who pays, and how to propose a better one

Courses and programmes the RAV assigns

RAV courses are labour-market measures and are binding in principle. You can refuse, but it costs suspension days — unless the course is genuinely unreasonable. As of 7 September 2026.

Assignment or suggestion — the distinction everything turns on

Article 17 paragraph 3 AVIG states the duty conditionally: the insured person must take part in labour market measures that improve their placement prospects when the competent office so instructs. Without an instruction there is no duty to attend. That is not a technicality; it is the line between a voluntary offer and exposure to a sanction.

SECO describes the process on arbeit.swiss in the same terms: the RAV decides in principle whether a measure is appropriate and sensible, taking account of your personal situation, your professional background and your chances on the labour market. The office is responsible for advising on measures, checking the participation conditions and referring you to suitable schemes. In an actual appointment, the recommendation and the referral usually arrive in the same sentence.

Which is why one blunt question at the end of the meeting is worth the awkwardness: is this an assignment? If it is, the measure counts as an instruction under Article 17 and any absence needs a valid excuse. If it is not, signing up is your decision. Ask for the answer to be minuted — the interview record is the file the cantonal office later relies on, and so will you.

What the office has to weigh before it assigns you anything

The obligation is not one-sided. Article 83 AVIV requires the cantonal office, when directing an insured person to attend a course, to give appropriate consideration to that person’s abilities and inclinations in addition to the state of the labour market. With your agreement it may also ask the public careers guidance service to clarify the case. That is the lever for any conversation about a different, better-fitting course — not a right to the course you fancy, but a duty on the office to justify the one it picked.

Article 81 paragraph 1 AVIV draws a second boundary: an instruction or approval may only be issued for a measure delivered to a programme fixed in advance and by qualified people. Paragraph 2 expressly excludes measures customary in a trade or a company for introducing new staff. Unstructured occupation without a programme is therefore not a measure you can be compelled into.

The purpose is defined in law as well, which makes it arguable. Under Article 59 paragraph 2 AVIG, measures are meant to improve placement prospects, develop professional qualifications in line with labour market needs, reduce the risk of long-term unemployment, or provide an opportunity to gain professional experience. If you want a different course, argue along those four aims rather than along your preferences — that is the language the decision is written in.

Who pays, and what else you can claim

Article 85a AVIV is blunt: the organiser of the measure may not collect course fees or contributions for teaching materials from participants. An invoice for an assigned course is therefore something to report, not to pay. Article 59c bis paragraph 3 AVIG says the same thing at statute level — participants are reimbursed the necessary expenses they can evidence.

The incidentals follow. Under Article 85 AVIV the cantonal office approves second-class public transport tickets or season passes within Switzerland as travel costs, and exceptionally the cost of a private vehicle where no public transport is available or using it cannot reasonably be expected. It also sets the contribution towards accommodation and meals at the course location. You submit the invoices to your unemployment fund together with a confirmation from the course management that the purchase was necessary.

Your income continues: Article 59b paragraph 1 AVIG pays daily allowances for the days you attend an education or employment measure on the basis of a decision by the competent office. For employment measures with an education component of no more than 40 per cent there is also a minimum daily allowance, set by Article 81b AVIV at 102 francs and reduced proportionally if the level of occupation is below 100 per cent.

What saying no costs

Article 30 paragraph 1 letter d AVIG lists four behaviours in one breath: not starting the measure without a valid excuse, breaking it off, compromising its delivery through your conduct, or making it impossible. All four lead to suspension of entitlement. The third is the one people underestimate — turning up and disrupting, or drifting in and out, is not legally better than staying away.

Suspension does not mean a reduced allowance; it means days without one, and under Article 30 paragraph 3 AVIG those days are deducted from your maximum number of daily allowances. You lose them twice over. The length depends on fault and cannot exceed 60 days per ground; Article 45 paragraph 3 AVIV grades it as 1–15 days for slight fault, 16–30 for medium and 31–60 for serious fault.

Two details drive the number. The suspension period starts on the first day after the act or omission (Art. 45 para. 1 let. b AVIV), not when the decision arrives. And repeated suspensions extend the period appropriately, counting suspensions from the last two years (para. 5). Working the other way, paragraph 4 shows a refused course does not automatically land in the top band: serious fault is defined there only as giving up suitable employment and refusing suitable work.

The valid excuse — and how to make it count

The law sanctions absence "without a valid excuse" but does not list what qualifies. That is a case-by-case assessment made by the cantonal office and, in a dispute, reviewed by the cantonal social insurance court. In practice the timing matters more than the reason. An obstacle reported and evidenced in advance is a fact on the file; the same obstacle explained afterwards is a justification, and it is read as one.

One priority does follow from the structure of the law. Article 17 paragraph 1 AVIG obliges you to do everything that can reasonably be expected to avoid or shorten unemployment, and Article 25 letter d AVIV names a job application as the compelling event that justifies postponing a counselling interview. Missing a course day for an interview is defensible when you say so first, and much weaker when you say so later.

Report illness, accident or caring duties to both the RAV and the course management immediately, and keep the evidence. Read the invitation carefully too: if the measure starts on a date when you are starting a job, the basis for the instruction falls away — but that is something to notify, not something to assume.

If you disagree with the assignment

The first move is not a legal remedy but a counter-proposal in the meeting: a different course serving the same aim that fits your profile better. Article 83 AVIV obliges the office to consider abilities and inclinations; a concrete, reasoned alternative forces it to actually make that assessment rather than assert it.

If that leads nowhere, ask for a written decision. Article 51 ATSG allows orders to be issued informally, but paragraph 2 gives the person concerned the right to demand a formal decision, and Article 49 paragraph 1 ATSG requires one as soon as the person concerned disagrees. Against a decision you can lodge an objection within 30 days with the authority that issued it (Art. 52 para. 1 ATSG); the objection procedure is free of charge (para. 3). Against the objection decision, an appeal lies to the cantonal social insurance court, again within 30 days (Art. 56 and 60 ATSG).

One detail decides the order in which you act: under Article 100 paragraph 4 AVIG, objections and appeals against decisions under Article 30 have no suspensive effect. The legal route does not stop the suspension from being executed in the meantime. Anyone contesting an assignment is usually better off attending and appealing in parallel than staying away and hoping to be proved right later.

Which course actually pays off in the Swiss market

Further training is a smaller gate in Swiss adverts than its reputation suggests — and far more often a promise than a demand. In the SwissJobs.app index, 10.8 per cent of adverts mention further training at all. In at least three out of four of those mentions it is the employer offering, funding or encouraging it; only about 5 per cent of the mentions — 0.5 per cent of all adverts — frame further training as something expected from the applicant. A certificate on its own rarely opens a door that was closed.

Formal qualifications appear more often, but they are not everywhere either: 8.3 per cent of adverts name a certificate, a diploma or a Swiss EFZ, and only 0.3 per cent a federal professional certificate or a higher professional examination. What is nearly always there is language. Of the adverts that state a language requirement — just under three quarters of the index — 27.6 per cent ask for two or more languages. In French-speaking Switzerland that share is 35.2 per cent, in the large German-speaking cities 26.4 per cent.

For anyone arriving from abroad this reorders the priorities. A measure that lifts a national language to working level, or closes a practical gap in your record, answers what the adverts actually ask for. A measure that produces one more certificate answers a requirement that appears in fewer than one advert in ten. Both are permissible — but only the first is easy to justify under Article 59 paragraph 2 AVIG, and that article is the standard your caseworker decides against.

Placements, programmes and the special cases

Not every measure is a course. Article 64a AVIG counts as employment measures temporary work in programmes run by non-profit institutions — which may not directly compete with the private sector — professional placements in companies and in public administration, and motivation semesters for young people without a vocational qualification. The duty to attend under Article 17 paragraph 3 AVIG applies to these exactly as it does to classroom courses.

There is a plain market reason why the insurance funds placements at all: the open placement market is thin. Only 0.9 per cent of adverts in the index are advertised as internships. Coming into a company through a measure is an entry route the advert window barely shows.

Two special cases are worth knowing. Insured people over 50 who meet the conditions of Article 59 paragraph 3 AVIG may attend education and employment measures until the end of their benefit period regardless of their entitlement to unemployment benefit (Art. 59 para. 3bis AVIG). And people who neither meet the contribution period nor are exempt from it can claim benefits for an education or employment measure for up to 260 days within a two-year window under Article 59d AVIG — an entry point often missed, because it does not depend on a daily allowance.