Which Swiss work permit do I need?

Nationality first, then the job

The decisive fork is not your occupation but your passport. For nationals of EU and EFTA states the free movement agreement applies: access to the Swiss labour market is largely open, and the permit generally follows the employment contract rather than the other way round.

For third-country nationals access is considerably narrower. A quota system applies, and the employer has to apply for the permit and justify it — among other things by showing the role could not be filled by someone from Switzerland or the EU and EFTA area. Admission targets well-qualified professionals, specialists and managers in the first instance.

That yields the single most important practical rule for third-country nationals: the first step is not the visa but the job offer. Without an employer who files the application and carries the process, there is no route you could take on your own.

Anyone already living in Switzerland on a permit — as an accompanying spouse, say, or after studying here — is in a different legal position from someone searching from outside. So establish what your current card allows before drawing conclusions from general descriptions.

The permits at a glance

The short-stay permit, permit L, covers stays of less than a year. It is typical for fixed-term projects, seasonal work and short assignments, and is generally tied to a specific job.

The residence permit, permit B, is the usual card for regular employment. It is time-limited and renewed as long as the conditions hold. For most new arrivals with an employment contract this is the relevant permit.

The settlement permit, permit C, is open-ended and comes into consideration after several years of residence. It removes the tie to a particular job and is, in labour-market terms, the freest position short of citizenship.

The cross-border commuter permit, permit G, applies to people who work in Switzerland and live in a neighbouring country — a large part of the labour market in Geneva, Basel and Ticino runs this way. Permit Ci, finally, is the residence permit with gainful employment for certain family members, for instance in the orbit of international organisations.

Why adverts stay silent on this

This is the finding that most changes how you should search. We analysed the advert descriptions we hold for how often permits come up at all. The result: a permit, residence status or sponsorship is mentioned in roughly one advert in a thousand. Explicit references to the EU and EFTA area or to a cross-border permit are rarer still.

For comparison: roughly three in four adverts explicitly state a language requirement. The postings are perfectly willing to state requirements — they simply do not do so for residence status.

That is not an oversight but an assumption. The overwhelming majority of Swiss adverts address people who already live here and are already allowed to work. Permit status is taken as given and therefore goes unmentioned.

This has two consequences for you. First: silence is not an invitation. An advert with no permit note does not mean the employer would run a process. Second: you cannot filter. There is no usable search filter for sponsored roles in Switzerland, because the underlying detail does not exist in the postings.

What you have to do instead

Because the advert stays silent, you have to speak. Put your status on your CV in one line: location, permit, and whether the employer would have to apply for anything. Wording like "Based in Zurich, permit B, no sponsorship required" answers the question before it is asked.

That is exactly what hiring professionals recommend throughout, in posts on Swiss application documents — nationality and permit type belong in the file. The reason is the same: what you do not state gets assumed, and with a foreign name and no Swiss address the assumption rarely falls in your favour.

If you do need a permit, aim your search deliberately at employers who know these processes: international groups, universities and research institutes, pharma, the large banks and consulting firms. Small companies with no experience of the procedure often drop out simply because the effort is unknown to them.

And calibrate expectations to seniority. Admission of third-country nationals targets qualified specialist and leadership positions. That matches what we see in the adverts: roles that manage without a national language carry a senior or leadership title far more often than average.

Common misunderstandings

"I'll get a visa first and then look." For third-country nationals the order is reversed: first the job offer, then the employer's application to the cantonal authority, then the permit, and only after that the entry visa.

"I can search on the ground as a tourist and switch later." A stay without gainful purpose does not permit taking up work, and changing the purpose of stay is subject to conditions assessed cantonally.

"A permit B ties me to my employer." That varies with your starting position. Before changing jobs, check with the cantonal migration authority what your particular card allows — the advice is free and prevents expensive assumptions.

"As a cross-border commuter I have nothing to arrange." The commuter permit is a permit with conditions too, and social insurance and taxation follow their own rules depending on your country of residence.

Work permits by origin and residence

The common categories. Third-country nationals face quotas and the priority given to the domestic workforce — hiring is not the company’s decision alone. Cantonal migration offices decide the individual case. As of 7 September 2026.

First which body of law applies, then which card

Most guides start with the letters L, B, C and G. That is one level too late. What comes first is which law applies to you at all, and the statute says so itself: the Ausländer- und Integrationsgesetz (AIG, the Foreign Nationals and Integration Act) applies to nationals of EU member states, their family members and posted workers only in so far as the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons does not provide otherwise (Art. 2 para. 2 AIG).

That is not a technicality, it is the whole fork in the road. With an EU or EFTA passport you are inside an agreement that gives you an entitlement: the permit confirms a right you already hold, and the authority may require exactly two things to issue it — the identity document you entered on, and a declaration of engagement or employment certificate from the employer (Annex I Art. 6 para. 3 of the Agreement). Issuing it is free, or may cost no more than an identity card for a national (Annex I Art. 2 para. 3).

Without such a passport you are inside admission law, where the permit is a discretionary decision with conditions attached. Admission requires that it serves the overall economic interest, that an employer has filed an application, and that the conditions in Articles 20 to 25 are met (Art. 18 AIG). Those include the priority rule: it must be shown that no suitable workers already in Switzerland, and no nationals of states covered by a free-movement agreement, could be found (Art. 21 para. 1 AIG). And they include a personal threshold — permits for gainful employment may be granted only to managers, specialists and other qualified workers (Art. 23 para. 1 AIG).

So when a page tells you «Switzerland requires a work permit», it is true for both groups and means something completely different for each. For one it is a formality with two documents; for the other it is a procedure with a proof, a quota and a qualification bar. If you are reading from outside Switzerland, this is the single most useful distinction on the page: work out which of the two systems you are in before you compare any advice you find.

The length of the contract decides which permit comes out

With an EU or EFTA passport, almost everything after that hangs on one number: how long the contract runs. Anyone working in Switzerland for no more than three months in total per calendar year needs no short-stay permit at all (Art. 4 para. 4 VFP, the ordinance implementing the agreement). The notification procedure applies instead, and its deadline is short and routinely missed: for a job of up to three months the notification is due at the latest on the day before the work starts (Art. 9 para. 1bis VFP).

For a contract longer than three months but under a year you receive a permit valid for the duration of the contract — that is the Ausweis L (Annex I Art. 6 para. 2). From a year upwards you receive one valid for at least five years, automatically extended by at least five more — the Ausweis B (Annex I Art. 6 para. 1). The same provision carries a caveat worth knowing before you need it: at the first renewal the validity may be shortened if you have been involuntarily unemployed for more than twelve consecutive months, though never below one year.

Since 1 January 2026 there is an additional rule for temporary agency work: for an assignment longer than three months and shorter than a year through a staffing firm domiciled in Switzerland, EU and EFTA nationals receive a short-stay permit for the duration of the assignment at the host company (Art. 4 para. 5 VFP). This matters more here than it would elsewhere, because temporary assignments are a normal route into the Swiss market rather than a fringe case.

Under admission law the same thresholds carry different consequences. The short-stay permit is granted for stays of up to one year and can be extended to two (Art. 32 AIG); the residence permit covers stays of more than a year and is time-limited and renewable (Art. 33 AIG). The settlement permit (Ausweis C) is open-ended and comes, as a rule, after ten years, the last five of them continuously on a residence permit — or already after five years where the person is well integrated and can communicate in the national language spoken locally (Art. 34 paras. 2 and 4 AIG).

What if you do not have a job yet?

This is the sequence people most often have backwards, and the answer is the opposite depending on the passport. With an EU or EFTA passport you may search first and sign later: a job search of up to three months needs no permit. If the search runs longer, you receive a short-stay permit valid for three months in the calendar year, provided you have the financial means to support yourself, and it can be extended up to one year if you can prove your search efforts and there is a genuine prospect of employment (Art. 18 VFP).

The agreement itself goes a step further. Someone who has ended an employment relationship of less than a year may stay for a reasonable period of up to six months in order to look at suitable vacancies, and while doing so is entitled to the same help from the employment offices as a national — though they may be excluded from social assistance for that period (Annex I Art. 2 para. 1).

Without an EU or EFTA passport that route does not exist, because the employer's application is itself a condition of admission (Art. 18 let. b AIG). The statute does carry one explicit exception, and it is the one worth knowing if you studied here: graduates of a Swiss university may be admitted in derogation from the priority rule where their work is of high scientific or economic interest, and they are admitted for six months after graduation in order to find such work (Art. 21 para. 3 AIG).

None of this changes what goes into your dossier. It changes the order of operations — with an entitlement you search like anyone else; without one, you search specifically among employers willing to run an admission procedure at all.

The permit decides what you can change later

This is the part almost every overview leaves out, and the part that matters most once you are here. A holder of a residence permit admitted for employment may work anywhere in Switzerland and may change jobs without any further authorisation (Art. 38 para. 2 AIG). A holder of a short-stay permit may likewise work anywhere in Switzerland, but a change of employer can only be authorised where compelling reasons exist (Art. 38 para. 1 AIG) — the same restriction already appears in Art. 32 para. 3. With a settlement permit the question disappears (Art. 38 para. 4).

Moving house has its own rule. A holder of a short-stay or residence permit who wants to move to another canton must apply in advance for that canton's authorisation. Residence permit holders have an entitlement to the change of canton provided they are not unemployed and no ground for revocation exists (Art. 37 paras. 1 and 2 AIG). A temporary stay in another canton needs nothing at all (Art. 37 para. 4).

Under the free-movement agreement the same point is written as a right rather than a permission: employed persons have the right to occupational and geographical mobility throughout the host state's territory, and occupational mobility expressly covers changing employer, job or profession and moving from employed to self-employed work (Annex I Art. 8). The EU/EFTA short-stay and residence permits are valid for the whole of Switzerland (Art. 4 para. 2 VFP).

One practical exception applies to cross-border commuters: they must notify a change of job to the authority responsible for the place of work, and the notification is due before the new job starts (Art. 9 para. 3 VFP). That is a notification rather than an authorisation — but one whose deadline falls before your first day.

Why the Ausweis G is two different things

Carrying the same letter does not mean being under the same rules, and for the cross-border permit the gap is wide enough to make internet answers useless when nobody says which group they describe.

Under the free-movement agreement, a cross-border commuter is a national of a contracting party resident in one party's territory who works in the other's and returns home as a rule daily, or at least once a week. Then comes the sentence that surprises people: cross-border commuters do not need a residence permit at all. The authority in the state of employment may issue them a special certificate valid for at least five years, and that certificate is valid for the entire territory of the issuing state (Annex I Art. 7). Swiss domestic law repeats it: the EU/EFTA cross-border permit is valid for the whole of Switzerland (Art. 4 para. 3 VFP).

From a third country the same letter looks different. It is granted for work within a border zone, weekly return to the residence abroad is mandatory, the permit is time-limited, and only after five years of uninterrupted employment does an entitlement to renewal arise (Art. 35 AIG).

So the question «can I commute to Zurich if I live near Basel?» has two answers, and which one applies again depends on the passport — not on where you live and not on the employer.

How scarce non-EU permits are — and how unevenly they are shared out

The quotas are not a vague notion. They are a table in the admission ordinance (VZAE), broken down canton by canton. The current version entered into force on 1 January 2026 and applies for the 2026 calendar year.

For residence permits, Zurich holds 249 units, Bern 144, Vaud 113, Geneva 93, Aargau 80, St. Gallen 70, Ticino 59, Lucerne 58, Basel-Stadt 45 — and Appenzell Innerrhoden 2. For short-stay permits the figures are 399 for Zurich, 231 for Bern, 181 for Vaud, 149 for Geneva, 94 for Ticino and 3 for Appenzell Innerrhoden. Alongside these the Confederation holds a reserve used to balance needs between cantons and released on request (Art. 20 paras. 2 and 3 VZAE).

Those numbers explain behaviour that looks arbitrary from outside. A canton whose share is largely used up by autumn assesses the same application differently than it would in January, and the Confederation may raise a cantonal ceiling where the needs justify it (Art. 20 para. 3 AIG). The canton of the workplace is therefore a real variable in a third-country application, not just an address on the contract.

Two further points, because both cause confusion. Nationals of the United Kingdom have had their own separate quotas since free movement ceased to apply to them (Art. 19b and 20b VZAE). And a permit is not counted against the quota where the person gives up the authorised employment or leaves Switzerland again within 90 days of taking it up (Art. 21 VZAE).

Where a Swiss application actually asks

For the search itself, the practical question is not which letter you hold but when somebody asks you about it. So rather than analysing advert texts, we looked at the destination pages: the employer's careers page or application form that our listings send you to in order to apply. The sample was stratified by the language of the advert — roughly 380 reachable pages across 235 different domains, with every match read by hand.

The result: about 95 per cent of those pages say nothing about residence status. Just under 3 per cent state it as a requirement in the running text — phrasings such as «Swiss national, EU national, or holder of a valid Swiss work permit». And only around one and a half per cent ask it as a field you must complete before you can submit.

That small group is the most revealing part, because it shows what answer is expected. One Swiss form in the French-speaking part offered a dropdown of Swiss nationality, permit C, B, L, F, G, Ci — or «no permit». A German-language one asked simply whether you hold a Swiss work permit, yes or no. On internationally deployed application systems a different question appeared, imported from the United States, asking whether you require visa sponsorship — a term Swiss procedure does not use, since it is the employer who files with a cantonal authority rather than sponsoring anyone.

The consequence for a search from abroad is sober. Because almost every page is silent, you cannot filter for «jobs with a permit», and silence is not a signal that the employer would run a procedure. The small group that does say something is valuable in both directions: among them we also found advance refusals, including an explicit statement that no work permits could be obtained for non-EU/EFTA nationals for that role. Unpleasant to read, and it saves you an application.

What this page does not answer

It does not tell you which permit you will get. The statutes set out conditions, not outcomes: priority is a proof the employer has to produce, the quotas are capped canton by canton, and the personal conditions are assessed case by case. Anyone already living here on a permit — after a family reunification, after studying, on an Ausweis Ci — is in a different legal position from someone searching from abroad.

Jurisdiction sits at the intended place of work: anyone who wants to work in Switzerland needs a permit regardless of how long they stay, and applies for it at the authority responsible for the intended place of work; for employed work the employer files the application (Art. 11 AIG). The cantonal migration office will tell you what your particular permit allows, and the State Secretariat for Migration maintains the overview pages for each permit category.

For the application itself the practical conclusion is the one at the top of this page: because the destination pages almost never ask, answer it unprompted in your dossier — where you live, which permit you hold, and whether the employer would have to apply for anything.

Why the internet gives you both answers

Search this question in English and you will find "you are tied to the employer who sponsored you" next to "you can move freely". Both are written by people describing a real permit — just not the same one, and often not a Swiss one.

The first thing to unlearn is the word sponsorship. Swiss law has no sponsored visa attached to an employer in the American sense. For non-EU nationals the employer files the application and the admission decision is made once, with a labour-market test and cantonal quotas; but once the residence permit exists, the entitlement sits with the person. Art. 38 para. 2 AIG says holders of a residence permit admitted to self-employed or salaried activity may exercise it throughout Switzerland and may change job without a further permit. The admission process is not repeated for the next employer.

For EU and EFTA nationals the mechanism is different and the result is broader. Annex I Art. 8 of the Free Movement Agreement gives employed persons the right to occupational and geographical mobility across the whole territory of the host state, and then defines it: occupational mobility covers a change of employer, of job, of profession, and the move from employed to self-employed work; geographical mobility covers changing the place of work and the place of residence. Swiss domestic law follows: EU/EFTA short-stay and residence permits are valid for the whole of Switzerland (Art. 4 para. 2 VFP).

The difference between the two routes shows up at exactly one point — self-employment. For an EU/EFTA national it is part of the mobility right. Under the admission regime it is a separate decision: a residence-permit holder may be authorised to move to self-employed activity if the conditions of Art. 19 let. a and b are met (Art. 38 para. 3 AIG). "May be authorised" is not "may simply do".

The sentence a cantonal directive adds to the statute

The Zurich migration office publishes a directive on residence with gainful employment for third-country nationals, dated 15 December 2021 and in force since 1 January 2022. Its section 4.3.1 restates Art. 38 para. 2 AIG with a qualifier the statute only implies: holders of a residence permit whose permit has not been expressly tied by the cantonal labour office, as a condition, to one specific position may change job without a further permit.

That subordinate clause is the practical answer. A residence permit is granted for a specific purpose of stay and may be linked to further conditions (Art. 33 para. 2 AIG) — and one such condition can be that the permit applies to a named job with a named employer. Failing to comply with a condition attached to the decision is a ground for revocation (Art. 62 para. 1 let. d AIG). So the reliable answer to "can I move?" is not a statute reference but your own permit decision, in writing.

The same directive shows what the L permit costs procedurally: a change of job is authorised only within the same industry and occupation and only where continued work with the previous employer is impossible or unreasonable; the cantonal office for economy and labour examines the request, and the migration office issues the change-of-job permit after a positive decision. Two authorities, two steps — a review that simply does not happen on a B.

The statute explains why. Where there is no entitlement to exercise gainful employment, a labour-market pre-decision by the competent cantonal authority is required for admission, for a change of job and for a move to self-employment (Art. 40 para. 2 AIG). Where Art. 38 para. 2 applies, that pre-decision is no longer needed for the change.

"B permit" is a card, not a situation

The letter says nothing about why you are here, and for job changes that is the whole question. The freedom in Art. 38 para. 2 AIG belongs to people admitted for gainful employment. Arrive by another route and your rule sits elsewhere.

Family reunification is, if anything, clearer: spouses and children of Swiss nationals and of holders of a settlement or residence permit may exercise self-employed or salaried activity throughout Switzerland (Art. 46 AIG). No employer link, no industry restriction.

A permit issued for education or training runs the other way. Admission is for the studies (Art. 27 AIG); a secondary job may be authorised at the earliest six months after the training begins, weekly working time outside the holidays may not exceed 15 hours, and an employer application is required (Art. 38 VZAE). Changing jobs there is a fresh application, not a notification.

There is also a B EU/EFTA without gainful employment. SEM states that nationals of all EU/EFTA states who are not in gainful employment are entitled to a B permit if they can prove sufficient financial means and adequate health and accident insurance. Taking a job on that basis changes the purpose of stay — and a change of purpose is something the cantonal authority is told about.

The gap between two jobs is the risky part, not the move itself

A clean handover from one contract to the next raises nothing. What is regulated in detail — and this surprises most people — is the situation where the old job ends before the new one starts.

The agreement protects first: a valid residence permit may not be withdrawn from an employed person solely because they are no longer in employment, whether because of temporary incapacity for work due to illness or accident, or because of involuntary unemployment duly confirmed by the competent employment office (Annex I Art. 6 para. 6 FZA).

Domestic law then puts a clock behind it. Art. 61a AIG governs the extinction of the right of residence of EU and EFTA nationals. On a short-stay permit it ends six months after the involuntary termination of employment. On a residence permit it ends six months after an involuntary termination that occurs before the end of the first twelve months of residence. Where the termination comes after those first twelve months, the right ends six months after the employment ends — and if unemployment benefit is still being paid at that point, six months after those payments end (para. 4). There is no entitlement to social assistance in that period (para. 3). The article does not apply where the employment ended because of temporary incapacity through illness, accident or invalidity, or to people who can invoke a right to remain (para. 5).

Two details are worth reading twice. The article speaks throughout of involuntary termination — resigning in order to take a better job is not the case it regulates. And the twelve-month threshold is why the same resignation behaves differently in your first year than in your third.

There is also a data flow almost nobody mentions. The bodies administering unemployment insurance report to the cantonal migration authority, without being asked, the surname, first names, date of birth, nationality and address of EU/EFTA nationals who register with an employment office for placement during their first year of residence, whose claim to unemployment benefit is denied, who are declared unfit for placement, or for whom payment of benefit ends (Art. 82c VZAE). It does not apply to holders of a settlement permit. Registering with the RAV is therefore not invisible to migration authorities — which does not change the fact that registering is the correct step under insurance law.

On the admission side the equivalent lever is renewal. A residence permit is time-limited and is extended if no grounds for revocation under Art. 62 para. 1 AIG exist (Art. 33 para. 3 AIG); EU/EFTA permits may be revoked or not renewed if the conditions for issuing them are no longer met (Art. 23 para. 1 VFP). SEM describes the practice in its own words: the permit is renewed for five years, but first-time renewal can be limited to one year if the holder has been involuntarily unemployed for more than twelve consecutive months.

What your canton still wants from you

Needing no authorisation is not the same as telling nobody. Reporting duties are organised cantonally, and this is exactly where the advice you get from colleagues starts to contradict itself.

Geneva is explicit on its page about changing employer: holders of a B permit of a durable nature do not need to report changes of job. The same page lists who does — the G cross-border permit, a third-country L, the B for recognised refugees along with S and F, the N permit and the Ci permit. For a third-country L, the canton sets out a timetable worth knowing before you sign anything: the new employer files the request six to eight weeks before the intended start, and may not let the person work before the cantonal office confirms.

Ticino attaches its own deadlines to the same permit category. On its page for renewing or amending a B permit, the cantonal authority requires the renewal request 14 days before expiry, notification of changes to registered data — including the purpose of stay — within 14 days, and notification of the start of any gainful activity at the latest on the day before it starts. Missing those deadlines can attract a fine. Since 3 August 2026 permit applications there run through a mandatory digital procedure.

This is not a contradiction between cantons. Federal law requires registration with the authority at your place of residence before the permit-free period ends or before you take up gainful employment (Art. 12 para. 1 AIG); how a canton organises that report is its own business. The practical rule of thumb: "do I have to report this?" has a cantonal answer, "do I need permission for this?" has a federal one.

Moving canton inverts the relationship. A holder of a short-stay or residence permit who wants to move their residence to another canton must apply in advance for that canton's authorisation; a residence-permit holder has a right to the change of canton if they are not unemployed and no grounds for revocation under Art. 62 para. 1 exist (Art. 37 paras. 1 and 2 AIG). A temporary stay in another canton needs no authorisation at all (para. 4). Which produces an uncomfortably concrete sequence: the new job is free, the move to it is not, and the right to change canton assumes you are not unemployed at the moment it is decided.

How often the next job is even in the same canton

Since the canton is the unfree part, it is worth knowing how cantonal the Swiss job market actually is. We analysed the Swiss adverts we hold: for roughly two thirds, a canton can be resolved from the location text. On that basis, 77.5 per cent of employers advertise in a single canton only, 11.8 per cent in two, 4.7 per cent in three, 1.6 per cent in four, and 4.3 per cent in five or more.

The advert side looks different from the employer side: 56.6 per cent of the adverts with a resolvable canton come from employers that advertise in more than one. In other words, most of the openings come from the minority of employers that recruit across cantonal lines. For someone on a B permit that is the number that matters — an internal move or a second posting from the same company lands in another canton more often than the employer distribution suggests, which puts it in the procedure of Art. 37 AIG rather than the freedom of Art. 38 para. 2.

A second finding concerns the fact that decides which permit you get at all: the length of the contract. Only 1.9 per cent of our adverts state in the title or summary whether the position is fixed-term or open-ended — 0.9 per cent name a fixed term, 1.0 per cent an open-ended contract. That matters because SEM ties the B EU/EFTA to exactly this: the permit is issued to EU/EFTA citizens holding a contract of employment of at least twelve months or of unlimited duration. The single fact your permit depends on is almost never in the advert. It comes up in the interview, or in the contract.

Temporary work: a rule that only applies to people entitled to change

There is one corner of the market where the change-of-job question arises at the door rather than later. The Recruitment Act provides that a hirer-out of services may only employ foreign nationals in Switzerland who are admitted to gainful employment and entitled to change jobs (Art. 21 para. 1 AVG). Exceptions are possible where particular economic interests justify them (para. 2).

That provision welds together two things usually treated separately: being entitled to change jobs is not a career question here, it is a condition of being taken on by the agency at all. Anyone free to move under Art. 38 para. 2 AIG meets it; anyone whose permit is tied to a named position does not automatically.

In our own holdings, about 7.6 per cent of adverts carry the name of a staffing or recruitment firm rather than the workplace itself — and that is a floor, because intermediaries are only identifiable from the company name and a single platform supplies most of that share. It is not a market estimate; as an order of magnitude it shows this is not a niche.

For EU and EFTA nationals the federal rules add a specific case: for temporary work through a hirer-out established in Switzerland lasting more than three months and less than a year, an EU/EFTA short-stay permit is issued for the duration of the assignment (Art. 4 para. 5 VFP). If you currently hold a B and take such an assignment, the question of which permit you hold at the end of it belongs to the cantonal authority, not to the agency.

What this page does not answer

It does not tell you what is written on your own permit decision — and that is what governs. Whether a condition ties the permit to one position, which purpose of stay is recorded, and whether a renewal is due decide the answer more than any article does.

It also does not tell you how a canton handles a borderline case. The competent bodies are the cantonal migration authority where you live and, where a labour-market review is needed, the cantonal labour-market authority; SEM publishes the overview by permit category. Binding information comes from them, with your permit in hand, before you sign a contract rather than after.

And it is not legal advice. Every provision cited here can be read in its current version through the sources at the foot of this page; the cantonal statements come from the cantons of Zurich, Geneva and Ticino, read on 31 August 2026.