Ending an employment relationship in Switzerland

The letter is the least regulated part of the process

People arriving from an Anglo-American working culture tend to look for two things that Swiss law does not supply: a required format, and a customary two weeks. Neither exists here. Art. 335 para. 1 CO is a single sentence — an employment relationship for an unlimited period may be terminated by either party — and it says nothing about how that is to be expressed. Art. 11 para. 1 CO completes the picture: the validity of a contract is not subject to compliance with any particular form unless a particular form is prescribed by law.

SECO answers the form question in one word in its FAQ on private employment law: no, an oral resignation suffices, provided written form is not agreed in the individual contract, a collective employment contract (GAV/CCT) or a standard employment contract (NAV/CTT). The very next sentence is where the practice diverges from the theory: for reasons of proof, it recommends giving notice in writing by registered letter in every case.

So the first thing worth reading is not a template but the contract. Where written form has been reserved for a contract the law leaves free, Art. 16 para. 1 CO presumes that the parties do not wish to assume obligations until that requirement is satisfied. In sectors covered by a collective agreement, the agreement can add requirements of its own — and collective agreements are declared generally binding in several Swiss industries, so the question is not answered by the individual contract alone.

What the notice period actually does to the calendar

Art. 335c para. 1 CO is short and has a sting in its tail. One month in the first year of service, two months from the second to the ninth, three months thereafter — all such notice to expire at the end of a calendar month. The last clause is the one that surprises people used to notice running as a rolling count of days or weeks. A notice period here is not a stopwatch; it is a number of whole calendar months plus whatever is left of the current one.

SECO's own worked example makes the arithmetic concrete. An employee in the third year of service decides in mid-October to leave. The earliest possible end date is 31 December, and to reach it the resignation must be with the employer by the end of October. Missing that by a day does not cost a day: it costs a month, because the next available end date is 31 January.

Two refinements matter. First, the relevant year of service is the one running when notice is given, not when the period ends; SECO states this expressly for the transitions from the first year to the second and from the ninth to the tenth. Second, the statutory period is not untouchable. Art. 335c para. 2 CO permits variation by written agreement, standard or collective employment contract, but a period shorter than one month can be set only by collective agreement and only for the first year of service — and Art. 335a para. 1 CO requires that whatever is agreed applies equally to both sides.

Receipt is the event that counts

The second thing that decides a resignation happens outside the text. SECO's formulation is that notice becomes effective only once the other party has received it, and that the burden of proving that notice was given lies with the party giving it. For a letter, the decisive moment is delivery by the post, not the date stamped on the envelope.

For the ordinary case where nobody is home and the post leaves a collection slip, SECO cites a Federal Supreme Court decision: the notice counts as delivered on the day collection could be expected in good faith, normally the first day after the unsuccessful delivery attempt. Where the absence is one the employer knows about — holidays, a hospital stay — SECO describes a different treatment, and notes a second legal view under which delivery occurs only when the letter is actually collected, at the latest on expiry of the seven-day collection period. Its conclusion from that uncertainty is procedural rather than legal: send early enough that even the seven-day collection window still fits inside the deadline.

Hand delivery is dated by the handover itself, and SECO recommends obtaining a written acknowledgement of receipt, calling in witnesses if it is refused, and sending the letter by post as well. Oral notice is dated by the moment it is spoken, even if it is confirmed in writing afterwards. Read together, these rules explain why a written resignation is universal in a country whose law does not require one.

Why the letter says nothing about why

Art. 335 para. 2 CO is regularly misread as an obligation to justify a resignation. It says the opposite of what it is taken to say: the party giving notice must state their reasons in writing if the other party so requests. The duty is triggered by a request and is discharged afterwards; it is not a component of the notice, and notice given without reasons is not defective for that.

SECO frames this as freedom of termination — it lies within the free will of employer and employee to enter into an employment relationship and to end it again — with abusive termination under Art. 336 CO as the limit. It also records that the grounds in Art. 336 para. 1 letters a to e can be fulfilled by an employee's notice too, while noting that in practice they matter mainly for the employer's.

Where a party does want to rely on abusiveness, Art. 336b CO imposes two deadlines that are easy to miss: written objection to the party giving notice by the end of the notice period at the latest, and court proceedings within 180 days of the end of the employment relationship, failing which the claim is forfeited. Compensation is set by the court under Art. 336a CO and may not exceed six months' salary.

Probation, fixed-term contracts and the one bar on resigning

During probation Art. 335c does not apply at all. Art. 335b para. 1 CO allows either party to terminate at any time on seven days' notice, the probation period being the first month of the relationship. SECO adds the three details that decide real cases: they are calendar days rather than working days, the period may end on any day rather than at the end of a working week, and the notice must reach the other party while probation is still running, even though the seven days may run out after it ends. Probation can be excluded or extended to a maximum of three months by written agreement, standard or collective employment contract (Art. 335b para. 2 CO).

A fixed-term relationship needs no notice whatsoever. Art. 334 para. 1 CO provides that it ends without notice, and para. 2 that a fixed-term relationship tacitly continued beyond its agreed duration is deemed open-ended. SECO adds the limit on chains of successive fixed-term contracts: they are inadmissible where they are strung together without objective reasons in order to circumvent statutory protection.

There is one situation in which the law bars the employee rather than the employer. Under Art. 336d para. 1 CO, after probation an employee may not give notice while required to deputise for a superior — or for the employer — who is prevented from working by Swiss compulsory military, civil protection or civilian service. The protection periods of Art. 336c CO work only against the employer's notice; SECO states that an employee who resigns cannot invoke them.

What the resignation sets in motion elsewhere

The reference letter is not tied to the resignation. Art. 330a para. 1 CO gives the employee a right to request, at any time, a reference concerning the nature and duration of the employment relationship and the quality of their work and conduct; para. 2 provides for the shorter version limited to nature and duration, on express request. Nothing about that right depends on who gave notice.

Holidays are the most-contested part of a notice period. SECO distinguishes by who resigned: where the employee gave notice, taking the remaining holiday in kind is regarded as reasonable under the case law; where the employer gave notice, looking for a new position takes priority, and the outcome turns on the ratio between the length of the notice period and the number of outstanding holiday days. SECO states that the case law yields no fixed ratio.

When the relationship ends, Art. 339 para. 1 CO makes all claims arising from it fall due. A non-competition clause is not automatically extinguished by resigning: Art. 340c para. 2 CO extinguishes it where the employer gave notice without good cause given by the employee, or where the employee terminated for good cause attributable to the employer. And Art. 341 para. 1 CO prevents the employee from waiving claims arising from mandatory statutory provisions during the relationship and for one month after it ends — the provision against which termination agreements are measured.

What three months of notice look like against the market

The statutory periods are long compared with the shelf life of a job advert. Across the live adverts in our own index, half have been online for 20 days or less; 41.1 per cent are older than 30 days and 16.4 per cent older than 90. Someone in their tenth year of service, serving three months, is therefore looking at a market whose visible stock largely turns over between the day notice is given and the last day of work.

The contract form of those adverts also shows which part of the statute is usually in play. 90.9 per cent of live adverts state a contract form, and 97.1 per cent of those carry no time limit — full-time or part-time, with no end date. Roughly one per cent each is advertised as temporary, as an internship or as time-limited contract work. The resignation this question is about therefore almost always ends an open-ended relationship governed by Art. 335 CO rather than a fixed-term one under Art. 334 CO.

One consequence is worth stating as a fact rather than as advice: the earliest start date an application can honestly quote is a function of the year of service, not of enthusiasm. In the first year it is the end of the coming month plus one; from the tenth it is three months out. That is the same figure an interviewer is asking for when they ask when you could start.

Does a resignation or dismissal need a reason?

No. Neither you nor the employer must give a reason for an ordinary termination — but either must supply one in writing if the other side asks. As of 7 September 2026.

Two sentences, and the step between them

Art. 335 CO is one of the shortest provisions in Swiss employment contract law, and its two sentences do different jobs. The first: an employment relationship for an unlimited period may be terminated by either party. No motive appears in it. The second: the party giving notice must state their reasons in writing if the other party so requests. Between the two sits a step that most letter templates skip over — the request. Without it, the duty to explain never arises at all.

What the second sentence leaves out is as telling as what it says. It sets no deadline for making the request. It prescribes no form for the request itself. It says nothing about how detailed the written reasons have to be, and it ties them to no date in the termination process. Where the statutory text is silent, this answer is silent too: figures that appear neither in the wording nor in SECO's own guidance do not appear here.

SECO places the two sentences side by side deliberately. In its FAQ on private employment law, the reference to Art. 335 para. 2 CO follows immediately after the answer that a termination need not be in writing and that an oral one suffices unless written form has been agreed in the contract or provided for in a collective or standard employment contract. The order matters: the declaration may be informal, while the reasons, once requested, are expressly written.

What the law does not attach to a missing reason

An unexplained resignation is not a defective one. Neither Art. 335 CO nor the provisions on notice periods make a stated motive a condition of the declaration taking effect. It takes effect, as SECO puts it, once the other party has received it, and the end date follows from the periods in Art. 335c para. 1 CO — one month in the first year of service, two months from the second to and including the ninth, three months thereafter, in each case to the end of a month. A reason changes neither of those things.

Nor does the statute turn the duty to explain into a lever with its own penalty. Art. 335 para. 2 CO states an obligation without, in the same breath, ordering a consequence for breaching it. Anyone who wants to know how a court would weigh a refused or evasive explanation in a particular case will not find the answer in the statutory text or in SECO's FAQ — and therefore will not find it on this page either.

What the law does date precisely is the route a contested termination takes. Art. 336b para. 1 CO requires a written objection to the party giving notice no later than the end of the notice period; para. 2 forfeits the claim unless an action is brought within 180 days of the end of the employment relationship. Those are the only deadlines the statute sets around the question of why — and they concern the challenge, not the explanation.

In a summary dismissal the reason is the whole substance

Art. 337 para. 1 CO repeats the formula of Art. 335 para. 2 CO almost word for word: both employer and employee may terminate with immediate effect at any time for good cause, and the party doing so must give their reasons in writing at the other party's request. The duty to explain is identical. The difference lies one level down: for ordinary notice the reason is irrelevant to whether the declaration stands, whereas for immediate termination it is the condition of its existence.

What counts as good cause is described in para. 2 by a general clause — in particular any circumstance which renders the continuation of the employment relationship in good faith unconscionable for the party giving notice. Para. 3 leaves that assessment to the court's discretion and draws one explicit limit: under no circumstances may the court hold that good cause is constituted by an employee being prevented from working through no fault of their own.

For the question on this page that produces a clean split. Someone giving ordinary notice owes a reason only on request and risks nothing in terms of validity by not volunteering one. Someone terminating with immediate effect rests the termination on a reason whose weight a court will judge if it is disputed. The same phrase — reasons in writing on request — carries very different consequences in the two places.

Where the reason turns into money: unlawful termination

The reason becomes legally decisive where it falls under one of the situations listed in Art. 336 CO. Para. 1 names five motives that make a termination unlawful: an attribute pertaining to the person of the other party; the exercise of a constitutional right; the sole aim of preventing claims under the employment relationship from accruing; the assertion of such claims in good faith; and the performance of Swiss compulsory military, civil defence or alternative civilian service. For the first two the statute adds a caveat, for instance where the attribute relates to the employment relationship.

Para. 2 adds three grounds that concern employer-side notice only: membership or non-membership of an employees' organisation and lawful trade union activity; the running mandate of an elected employee representative, where the employer cannot cite just cause; and mass redundancies carried out without the consultation required by Art. 335f CO. SECO adds a point that matters directly for resignations: the grounds in para. 1 let. a to e can also be made out where the employee gives notice, though in practice they carry weight only in employer-side terminations.

The consequence under Art. 336a CO is compensation, determined by the court in light of all the circumstances and capped at six months' salary; where the consultation duty in a mass redundancy was breached, at two months. This is precisely where written reasons under Art. 335 para. 2 CO acquire practical weight: they are the one document in which the terminating party records, in its own words, what it is relying on. The statute does not draw that connection expressly; it simply places the provisions next to one another.

The body that really does ask why: unemployment insurance

An employer is entitled to a reason only if it asks for one. The unemployment insurance examines it as a matter of law. Art. 30 para. 1 let. a of the Unemployment Insurance Act provides that the insured person's entitlement is to be suspended where they are unemployed through their own fault. Under para. 3 the length of the suspension is measured by the degree of fault, is capped at 60 days per ground, and counts against the maximum number of daily allowances.

What counts as own fault is spelled out in Art. 44 para. 1 of the Unemployment Insurance Ordinance. Letter a covers conduct, in particular a breach of contractual obligations, that gave the employer a reason to terminate. Letter b covers the case at issue here: having resigned without first being assured of another job, unless it could not reasonably be expected of the person that they keep their old position. That final clause is the one place in the whole framework where the reasons behind a resignation are expressly taken into account.

The scale sits in Art. 45 of the ordinance: 1 to 15 days for slight fault, 16 to 30 for fault of medium gravity, 31 to 60 for grave fault. Para. 4 classes it as grave fault where the insured person, without valid reason, abandons suitable employment without being assured of a new one. Arbeit.swiss puts the position in a single sentence: if you hand in your notice without having a new job lined up, or are dismissed through your own fault, your right to benefits may be temporarily suspended. How the competent fund grades an individual case is something neither the act nor the ordinance settles in advance.

In the public sector the rule is inverted

The Code of Obligations governs private employment contracts. Employment with the Confederation is governed by the Federal Personnel Act, and there the opposite of the private-law principle applies: under Art. 10 para. 3, the employer may give ordinary notice on an open-ended contract only where there are objectively sufficient reasons. The act lists examples — breach of important statutory or contractual obligations; shortcomings in performance or conduct; insufficient aptitude, capacity or willingness to do the agreed work; unwillingness to do other reasonable work; serious economic or operational imperatives where no other reasonable work can be offered; and the lapse of a condition of employment.

Form is not a recommendation there either. Art. 13 provides that extension, limitation in time and termination of the employment relationship, as well as any amendment to the contract, require written form to be valid. Art. 12 para. 1 caps the ordinary notice period after the probation period at six months, with the implementing provisions setting the actual length. Someone employed by the Confederation is therefore reading a different statute from Art. 335 CO, with different answers.

Neither regime applies automatically to cantons and communes: they have their own staff law, and it varies from canton to canton. SECO prefaces its entire FAQ with the same caveat — the answers do not apply, or apply only in part, to public-law employment relationships, in particular in the administration or in state-owned undertakings. Anyone employed by an administration, a hospital, a school or a state-linked undertaking checks the applicable staff law first and the Code of Obligations second.

What survives of the reason in your application file

The route from a reason for leaving to the next application runs through the reference letter, and there the statute names three subjects. Under Art. 330a para. 1 CO the employee may at any time request a reference concerning the nature and the duration of the employment relationship, the quality of their work and their conduct. The reason for leaving is not on that list. Para. 2 adds a right, at the employee's express request, to a reference limited to the nature and duration of the relationship — the shortest form the law recognises.

Swiss employment contract law therefore separates two questions that everyday conversation runs together: why somebody left, and what they did. The first is answered, if at all, by written reasons under Art. 335 para. 2 CO, which stay between the contracting parties. The second is answered by the reference, which travels. No statutory note about the reason for termination is prescribed for an application file.

How wide the market is that a resignation opens onto can be read off our own listings, and it is more fragmented than most people assume. Of the employers with live vacancies, 45.4 per cent show exactly one open advert, and together those employers account for only 7.0 per cent of all postings. At the other end, the top one per cent of employers accounts for 31.1 per cent of live adverts and the ten largest for 21.5 per cent on their own. The reason someone owes, or does not owe, their outgoing employer concerns one counterparty in a field of several thousand.

Seven days, counted from the day the notice arrives

Art. 335b para. 1 CO is a single sentence: during the probation period, either party may terminate the contract at any time by giving seven days' notice; the probation period is considered to be the first month of an employment relationship. «At any time» is meant literally — there is no end-of-month expiry date of the kind Art. 335c CO imposes for the period afterwards. SECO puts it the same way: the notice may end on any day and is not limited to the end of the working week, unless the contract provides otherwise.

Those seven days are calendar days, not working days. SECO says so explicitly, and in practice it is a difference of two or three days: notice that arrives on a Thursday ends the employment relationship the following Thursday, not the week after that.

The point on which most cases actually turn is receipt. What matters is not when the letter was written or posted, but when it reaches the other party — and that moment has to fall inside the probation period. Conversely, the seven days may run out after probation has ended; SECO states both halves of that rule in the same answer. Someone who receives notice on the last day of probation has had a probation-period termination, even though the job ends a week later.

How long probation lasts, and when it gets longer

Without an agreement the probation period is short: the first month of an open-ended employment relationship (Art. 335b para. 1 CO). Para. 2 allows a different arrangement by written individual agreement, standard employment contract or collective employment contract, but sets a hard ceiling of three months. SECO adds two things the statute does not spell out: if a longer probation period is agreed, only three months count, and the probation period must be of equal length for employer and employee.

For fixed-term relationships, SECO notes that the law provides for no probation period at all — the parties are free to agree one. Apprenticeship contracts follow their own rule: Art. 344a para. 3 CO allows one to three months, exceptionally up to six with the approval of the cantonal authority, and three months where the contract is silent.

The provision that matters most in practice is para. 3, and it works in the opposite direction to what many people expect. Where the probation period is effectively shortened by illness, accident or the performance of a non-voluntary legal obligation, it is extended accordingly. Falling ill during probation therefore does not protect the job — it pushes the end of the probation period back. SECO adds that this extension can run beyond the three-month maximum.

The protection that is missing during probation

Art. 336c CO is the provision behind almost every question about probation-period dismissal. It opens with a clause that qualifies everything after it: «After the probation period has expired, the employer may not terminate the employment relationship». Then comes the list — compulsory Swiss military, civil defence or alternative civilian service, plus the four weeks before and after where the service lasts more than eleven days; incapacity for work through illness or accident that is not the employee's fault, for 30 days in the first year of service, 90 days from the second to the fifth and 180 days from the sixth; pregnancy and the sixteen weeks after childbirth; the leave situations under Art. 329f, 329g and 329i CO.

All of them sit behind the same condition. SECO repeats it twice on the same page: such a protection period exists «only after the probation period has expired», and for the further grounds «provided that the probation period has ended». An employee signed off sick during probation who receives notice in that time cannot rely on Art. 336c CO: the notice is not void, and the notice period is not interrupted.

Whether salary or insurance benefits are owed during an incapacity for work is a separate question, answered by Art. 324a CO. There the duty to continue paying salary carries its own condition: it applies provided the employment relationship has lasted, or was concluded for, longer than three months. Those are two alternatives rather than one — the wording puts the agreed duration beside the actual one.

The protection that stays

The duty to give reasons is unchanged. Art. 335 para. 2 CO requires the party giving notice to state the reasons in writing if the other party so requests. The article draws no distinction between probation and the time afterwards, and here too the reasons are an obligation triggered by a request, not a component of the notice itself.

The unlawful-termination grounds in Art. 336 CO likewise carry no reservation in favour of the probation period — and that is a difference in the statutory text itself, because Art. 336c CO writes its restriction out and Art. 336 CO does not. SECO treats Art. 336 CO as the limit on freedom of termination and lists the grounds: notice given because of a personal attribute of the other party; because that party exercised a constitutional right; solely in order to frustrate claims arising from the employment relationship; because the other party asserted claims in good faith — the retaliatory dismissal; because of Swiss compulsory service; because of membership of an employees' organisation.

The procedure, however, is the ordinary one, and that is what makes it tight during probation. Art. 336b CO requires a written objection to the party giving notice, no later than the end of the notice period, and then a claim brought before the courts within 180 days of the end of the employment relationship, failing which it prescribes. With a seven-day notice period, the first of those two deadlines is one week long. The compensation itself is set by the court under Art. 336a CO and may not exceed six months' salary.

Pay, holiday and the reference

When the employment relationship ends, all claims arising from it fall due (Art. 339 para. 1 CO). After a few weeks in a job, that mainly means salary up to the last day and compensation for accrued holiday. Art. 329a para. 3 CO says the obvious thing about the holiday entitlement: where the year of service is incomplete, holiday is fixed in proportion to the duration of the employment relationship in that year — on a four-week annual entitlement and one month worked, that is a twelfth.

The right to a reference does not depend on a minimum length of service. Art. 330a para. 1 CO gives the right to request, at any time, a reference covering the nature and duration of the employment relationship and the quality of the work and conduct; para. 2 provides, at the employee's express request, the version limited to nature and duration — after a very short job, that is the form with the least to argue about. arbeit.swiss gives the same advice in its own words: ask the employer for a reference or at least a confirmation of employment for the period worked, and notes that the employer is obliged to write it benevolently and truthfully.

One provision falls squarely inside this window and is rarely mentioned. Art. 330b CO obliges the employer, where the relationship is open-ended or concluded for more than one month, to inform the employee in writing no later than one month after it starts about the parties, the start date, the employee's function, the salary and the weekly working hours. That deadline coincides with the statutory probation period.

Unemployment insurance asks about contributions, not about probation

For entitlement to unemployment benefit it makes no difference that the job ended during probation. Art. 8 AVIG lists the conditions: fully or partly unemployed, a loss of work that can be taken into account, resident in Switzerland, compulsory schooling completed and the reference age not yet reached, the contribution period satisfied or exemption from it, fit for placement, and compliant with the control requirements. The fifth is the one that decides most cases. Art. 13 AVIG requires at least twelve months of contributory employment within the framework period, and Art. 9 AVIG sets that framework period at two years, counted back from the first day on which all the conditions are met.

A single month on probation does not reach those twelve — but the jobs held in the preceding two years count towards them. Someone who was employed for years before starting the new job will normally have the contribution period; someone who arrived from education or from abroad may not. On top of that comes the waiting period in Art. 18 AVIG: five days of controlled unemployment as a rule, and longer, in graduated steps by insured earnings, for people with no maintenance obligations towards children under 25.

The duty to look for work starts immediately. Art. 17 AVIG requires the insured person to do everything that can reasonably be expected to avoid unemployment, and arbeit.swiss turns that into a plain rule for open-ended contracts: the search starts as soon as you know the contract is ending — the oral announcement, or the moment the letter arrives. With seven days' notice, that is the same week. Insufficient job-search efforts before registering with the RAV lead, according to arbeit.swiss, to a reduction in daily allowances, and under Art. 30 para. 1 let. a AVIG entitlement is suspended for anyone who is unemployed through their own fault. How many applications are expected depends on the personal situation and on cantonal rules — arbeit.swiss refers that question to your own RAV.

What seven days look like on the job market

The seven days of Art. 335b CO are the shortest notice period Swiss employment contract law knows, and they happen to match the period over which the visible job market noticeably renews itself. In our own stock of active adverts, 19.4 per cent appeared in the seven days to 20 August 2026 — roughly a fifth of what is open today was not advertised a week earlier.

By occupational field the range runs from 16.9 per cent in construction and the trades to 28.5 per cent in IT. Commercial and administrative roles reach 22.9 per cent, hospitality 21.4 per cent, healthcare and nursing and retail 20.6 per cent each. Someone dismissed during probation therefore sees, on their last working day, somewhere between a sixth and a good quarter of adverts that did not exist on the day the notice arrived.

Seen from the employer side, the same week looks like this: 29.6 per cent of the employers with any active advert in our stock put up at least one new one during those seven days. That is a fact about the market rather than a recommendation — but it describes how short the notice period is measured against the rhythm at which vacancies are posted.

Statutory notice periods by years of service

Applies after probation and always to the end of a month, CO art. 335c. A contract or collective agreement may differ but must be equal for both sides — a shorter period for the employee alone is void. As of 7 September 2026.

The order you have to check in

First: are you still on probation? Then Art. 335b para. 1 applies — seven days, at any time, with no end-of-month requirement. Second: is your contract fixed-term? Then it ends without notice under Art. 334 para. 1, and a notice period exists only if the parties expressly agreed the contract could be terminated early. Third: are you employed by a staffing firm and placed with a client company? Then the Code of Obligations is not your act at all; the Employment Services Act is.

Fourth: does a collective agreement cover your employer, or does your individual contract name a period? Either takes precedence over Art. 335c para. 1, within the limits set out below. Only fifth, if none of the four applies, do you reach the ladder of one, two and three months. SECO sets it out in exactly that order in its FAQ on termination, and attaches the reservation in the same breath: these periods may be varied by written agreement, standard employment contract or collective agreement.

Most English-language explanations of Swiss notice periods start at step five and stop there. That is why so many people walk into a conversation holding a number from the statute when a different number governs them.

How far the contract may go, and where the floor is

Dispositive does not mean unlimited. Art. 335c para. 2 sets a hard floor: the period may be reduced below one month only by a collective employment contract, and even then only for the first year of service. An individual contract cannot do it; nor can a standard employment contract. Upwards, the parties are free.

The second limit is in Art. 335a para. 1 and is regularly missed: no different notice periods may be set for employer and employee, and where an agreement says otherwise, the longer period applies to both. A clause giving your employer a shorter period than you is not a clause that works in their favour — it is one that turns into its opposite. Para. 2 allows a single exception: where the employer has terminated for economic reasons, or has announced an intention to, shorter periods may be agreed for the employee.

The third limit is Art. 362 itself. It does not protect the length of the period. It protects two mechanisms that can extend it.

What a collective agreement does to the ladder

The national collective agreement for the hospitality industry — the L-GAV, the largest agreement in Switzerland declared universally binding — publishes article by article online. Its Art. 6 reads: after the probation period, the employment relationship may be terminated at one month's notice in the first to fifth year of employment, and at two months' notice from the sixth year, in each case expiring at the end of a month.

Set that against Art. 335c para. 1. In the second year of employment the statute gives two months and the agreement gives one. In the twelfth the statute gives three and the agreement gives two. Both are lawful, because Art. 335c para. 1 is on neither mandatory list and the one-month floor of para. 2 is respected. Someone working in a Swiss hotel or restaurant who has memorised the statutory ladder has the wrong number in both directions.

The same article covers two points the statute does not. Notice must reach the other party at the latest on the day before the notice period starts running. And for fixed-term contracts, the possibility of terminating early must be agreed in writing; otherwise they cannot be terminated at all. There is also a seasonal rule: where no end date was agreed in writing, the last working day must be announced at least fourteen days in advance.

This agreement exists in German, French and Italian. There is no English version, and that is the general condition rather than an exception — collective agreements in Switzerland are negotiated and published in the national languages.

Agency work: the shortest notice in Swiss federal law

If a staffing firm employs you and places you with a client, your notice period is in the Employment Services Act, not in the Code of Obligations. Art. 19 para. 4 covers open-ended assignments for the first six months: at least two days' notice during the first three months of uninterrupted employment, and at least seven days from the fourth to the sixth month inclusive.

Two days is the shortest notice period Swiss federal law names for any employment relationship — shorter than the seven days of probation. The paragraph stops after the sixth month; from the seventh, the ladder in Art. 335c applies again. And 'at least' means the contract may set longer periods, not shorter ones.

Art. 19 para. 2 letter c requires the contract with the staffing firm to state either the duration of the assignment or the notice period. Where it does not, para. 3 steps in: the working conditions customary for the locality and the occupation apply, or the statutory rules, unless more favourable conditions were agreed orally. Fedlex publishes this act in German, French and Italian only — there is no English realisation, so the rule that governs notice periods for agency workers cannot be read in English on the official site at all.

Fixed term, apprenticeship, public sector

For a fixed-term contract the notice period is the wrong question. Art. 334 para. 1 says a fixed-term relationship ends without notice. Para. 2 covers the situation many people actually find themselves in: where it is tacitly continued after the agreed term, it is deemed to be open-ended — and from that moment Art. 335c governs. Para. 3 covers the rare case: after ten years, a relationship contracted for a longer duration may be terminated at six months' notice expiring at the end of a month. That paragraph is in the Art. 361 list and may not be varied by anyone.

Once probation is over, an apprenticeship has no ordinary notice period whatsoever, which catches most people out. Art. 346 para. 1 allows termination at any time during probation at seven days' notice. For the time after it, the article offers only one route: para. 2 permits termination only for good cause within the meaning of Art. 337, and lists three such causes expressly. Art. 346 is also in the Art. 361 list, so neither side can contract around it.

And anyone employed by the Confederation, a canton or a commune is reading the wrong act to begin with. Art. 342 para. 1 letter a expressly reserves federal, cantonal and communal rules on public-law service relationships. What applies there differs from canton to canton, and no figure from the Code of Obligations answers the question.

The notice period that runs longer than your contract says

Two mechanisms can extend a period that is already running, and under Art. 362 neither may be varied to the employee's disadvantage. The first is Art. 336c. Where the employer gives notice after probation and one of the listed situations then arises — Swiss compulsory military, civil defence or alternative civilian service, illness or accident through no fault of the employee, pregnancy and the sixteen weeks after birth, carer's leave, the other parent's leave — para. 2 suspends the running of the notice period, which resumes only after the protected period ends.

For illness and accident, para. 1 letter b grades the protected period by seniority: 30 days in the first year of service, 90 days in the second to fifth, 180 days from the sixth. Para. 3 draws the consequence that matters most in a calendar: where the end of the resumed period does not coincide with the agreed end-point, it is extended to the next one. Notice given to expire at the end of March can end up terminating the relationship at the end of June.

The second mechanism is Art. 335c para. 3, the only paragraph of that article on the Art. 362 list. Where the employer terminates and the employee is still entitled to the other parent's leave under Art. 329g before the relationship ends, the notice period is extended by the days of leave not yet taken.

A third case sits where nobody looks for it. Art. 335g para. 4 provides that in a mass redundancy the relationship ends 30 days after notification of the intended redundancies to the cantonal labour office, unless the notice takes effect at a later date under the contractual or statutory rules.

Reading the Code of Obligations in English: one place it has drifted

Fedlex publishes the Code of Obligations in English and states on the same page that the translation has no legal force. That is easy to file away as boilerplate. Art. 335c para. 3 is a concrete reason not to.

The German, French and Italian texts all use the same term twice in that paragraph: Urlaub des andern Elternteils, congé de l'autre parent, congedo per l'altro genitore — the other parent's leave, in both halves of the sentence. The English text says 'parental leave' in the first half and then 'the number of days of paternity leave not yet taken' in the second. Those are not the same category of person, and the Swiss provision has been gender-neutral since the amendment in force from January 2024, which the English wording no longer reflects.

The practical reading is narrow and worth stating plainly: where an English rendering and the three official texts diverge, the official texts decide. If you are working out a date from the English version, check it against the German, French or Italian text of the same article on the same site — Fedlex publishes all of them side by side.

Where your number actually lives

The answer to 'what applies to me' ends up in three documents, none of which is a statute: your individual employment contract, the collective or standard agreement covering your sector, and — if a staffing firm employs you — the agency contract, which by Art. 19 para. 2 letter c must state the period expressly. The Code of Obligations supplies the value that applies when those are silent, and the limits that apply even when they are not.

One practical note for anyone hired in English into a Swiss company: an English offer letter does not make your contract an English-language instrument. The binding version is frequently the German or French one, and that is the copy the notice period has to be read from.

Void or only postponed: the date decides

Art. 336c para. 2 CO holds two rules in one sentence. The first: notice given during one of the protected periods is void. The second: if notice was given before such a period began and the notice period had not yet run out, it is interrupted and only continues once the protected period ends. Para. 3 then extends the continued period to the next end date, such as the end of a month.

For the person concerned those are two very different positions. In the first there is no notice at all, and the employment carries on unchanged. In the second there is valid notice that takes effect later. How an interrupted notice period is counted is covered in the answer on notice periods on this page; this one is about the first case.

The protected periods only protect against notice from the employer. SECO notes that an employee who resigns cannot rely on them, and that the same applies when the employment is ended by mutual agreement. They also only start after probation: Art. 336c opens with the words «After the probation period has expired».

Illness and pregnancy: two separate protected periods

For illness and accident, Art. 336c para. 1 let. b CO requires that the incapacity is not the employee's own fault; it may be total or partial. The length depends on years of service: 30 days in the first year, 90 days from the second to the fifth, and 180 days from the sixth. SECO counts from the first day of incapacity. The protection ends when the person is fit to work again, and at the latest when the maximum is used up.

According to SECO, periods of incapacity with different causes are not added together; each new cause starts its own protected period. The exception is a relapse of the same illness or the same accident, which does not start a new one. So an employee in their first year who is off sick for more than 30 days has no protection on that ground from day 31, even while the illness goes on.

Pregnancy has a letter of its own, let. c: the employer may not give notice «during the pregnancy of an employee and the sixteen weeks following birth». This period does not depend on years of service, and the text ties it to the pregnancy itself; it sets no condition that the employer knew about it. Further letters protect extended maternity leave, the other parent's leave and care leave.

What void means in practice: offering work, pay, fresh notice

Void notice does not need anyone to cancel it; it never had any effect. SECO describes the consequence: the employer has to give notice again when the employee returns to work or once the protected period has ended if it wants to end the employment validly. Voidness therefore gives no protection beyond the protected period. What it does is move the earliest date from which valid notice, with the normal notice period, can be given.

While the employment continues, Art. 324 CO applies: if the employer is in default in accepting the work, it remains liable to pay the salary and the employee does not have to make the time up. What the employee saves, earns elsewhere or deliberately fails to earn is set off. SECO adds that an employee who is fit again must offer their services, or they are in default themselves. After a garden-leave release this is in principle not needed, but where Art. 336c extends the employment for a long time, for example in pregnancy, SECO recommends offering one's services anyway so as not to lose the salary.

An employee who cannot work because of illness or pregnancy is paid not under Art. 324 but under the rules on continued pay. Art. 324a CO sets three weeks' salary in the first year of service and a reasonably longer period after that, with the same extent for pregnancy. A written agreement, a standard employment contract or a collective agreement (GAV) can provide a different arrangement that is at least equivalent, often a daily sickness allowance insurance.

Void is not abusive: two routes, two deadlines

An abusive dismissal under Art. 336 CO concerns the reason, not the timing. It remains valid and ends the employment; the law grants only compensation set by the court, capped at six months' salary (Art. 336a CO). To claim it, Art. 336b CO requires a written objection to the party giving notice no later than the end of the notice period, and a claim filed within 180 days after the employment ends, or the right lapses.

Void notice raises a different question: whether the employment still exists, and with it the salary. Claims arising from employment become time-barred after five years under Art. 128 no. 3 CO. Art. 336c is also on the list in Art. 362 CO of provisions that may not be varied to the employee's detriment, and under Art. 341 CO claims under such provisions cannot be waived during the employment or for one month after it ends.

The two can meet. Notice given after a protected period has ended is not void, but it may still be abusive or discriminatory because of its reason. That case is then governed by the deadlines in Art. 336b CO or by the Gender Equality Act.

When the pregnancy is the reason: the Gender Equality Act

Art. 3 of the Gender Equality Act (GlG) prohibits disadvantaging employees on the basis of sex, in particular by reference to a pregnancy, and para. 2 names dismissal explicitly. Where notice ends a private-law employment, Art. 5 para. 2 GlG gives a right to compensation only, and para. 4 caps it at six months' salary.

The difference from other disputes lies in the burden of proof. Under Art. 6 GlG, discrimination in a dismissal is presumed if the person concerned shows it to be credible. And Art. 10 GlG protects against notice that follows, without good reason, an internal complaint or a referral to the conciliation authority or the court, for as long as the proceedings last and for six months after.

Costs are treated differently too. Art. 113 para. 2 let. a and Art. 114 let. a of the Civil Procedure Code (ZPO) exempt disputes under the Gender Equality Act from court fees, without the value limit that applies to ordinary employment disputes, and Art. 243 para. 2 ZPO assigns them to the simplified procedure whatever the amount.

When the employer disputes that the notice is void

In a dispute, only the civil court decides whether notice is void, not SECO and not the employer. Under Art. 197 ZPO, court proceedings are preceded by an attempt at conciliation before a conciliation authority. How those authorities are organised is up to each canton, and it differs from one canton to the next.

The Civil Procedure Code keeps the threshold for employment disputes deliberately low. No party costs are awarded in conciliation (Art. 113 para. 1 ZPO), and up to an amount in dispute of CHF 30'000 there are no court fees either in conciliation or in the main proceedings (Art. 113 para. 2 let. d and Art. 114 let. c ZPO). Up to the same amount, the court establishes the facts of an employment dispute of its own motion (Art. 247 para. 2 ZPO). The cost of one's own lawyer is not covered by any of this.

Two rights in the CO help pin down the facts. Under Art. 335 para. 2 CO, the party giving notice must state its reasons in writing if the other party asks. And the date on which notice was given is, under Art. 336c para. 2 CO, the point that separates void from valid. An assessment of one's own case is available from legal advice centres, trade unions and law firms.

The unemployment fund when the salary is disputed

Unemployment insurance does not replace salary that is still owed. Art. 11 para. 3 AVIG states that a loss of work does not count where there is a claim to salary, or to compensation for early termination of the employment. If the employment continues because notice was void, there is in principle a salary claim against the employer.

For the case where exactly that is in dispute, there is Art. 29 AVIG. If the fund has justified doubts whether the employer owes salary or compensation for the period of lost work, or whether it will pay, the fund pays unemployment benefit. To the extent of the daily allowances paid, the claims against the employer pass to the fund, and in principle it may not waive pursuing them.

A dispute over whether notice was valid therefore need not mean no income until judgment. Whether Art. 29 AVIG is applied in a given case is for the competent unemployment fund to decide. The linked page explains how registration with the RAV (the regional employment office) works; the position after maternity leave has its own answer in this section.