Swiss commercial register (Handelsregister) explained

How to search the Swiss commercial register for free

Zefix (zefix.ch), the Central Business Name Index operated by the Federal Office of Justice, is the official starting point for any Swiss company search. It indexes every entity entered in the 26 cantonal registers and accepts searches by current name, former name or UID. A result shows the legal form, seat, status (active, in liquidation, deleted) and links straight through to the authoritative cantonal entry and the entity's SOGC publication history. Zefix also runs a mobile app and a free REST API, which compliance teams use for automated counterparty checks. Public access is a statutory right under Art. 936 CO: no account, no fee, no justification.

What the cantonal commercial registers hold

The cantonal commercial register offices keep the authoritative file that Zefix merely points to: the full entry, the supporting documents (public deeds, articles of association, signature attestations) and the complete entry history. Certified extracts and copies of filed documents are ordered from the register of the canton where the company has its seat, and most offices deliver them online within a day or two. Federal oversight sits with the Federal Commercial Registry Office (EHRA), part of the Federal Office of Justice, which reviews and approves every cantonal entry before publication.

What shab.ch (SOGC) publishes

The Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce (SOGC, known as SHAB in German and FOSC in French) publishes every commercial-register entry, amendment and deletion at shab.ch on each working day, managed by SECO. It also carries bankruptcy openings, debt-enforcement notices and calls to creditors, which makes its searchable archive the primary source for reconstructing a company's history. The archive is free. Several commercial portals resell the same documents at a mark-up; nothing they offer is unavailable from Zefix, shab.ch or the cantonal registers directly.

What a Swiss commercial register extract contains

A commercial register extract (Handelsregisterauszug) presents an entity's legally binding facts in a standardised set of fields. The table below explains each field as it appears on an extract issued in June 2026.

An uncertified extract is adequate for most private purposes. Foreign authorities and banks normally require a certified extract, signed by the registrar, and often an apostille on top: the cantonal chancellery authenticates the registrar's signature under the 1961 Hague Convention.

How to find who owns a Swiss company

Whether the register reveals ownership depends on the legal form, the single most common reason a compliance or KYC search stalls. For a GmbH, the register is the answer: every member is listed by name with the nominal value of their quota, and changes of member are filed there too, so a Zefix lookup shows GmbH ownership directly. For an AG, it is not: the register shows only directors and signatories, never shareholders. AG ownership sits in the company's internal share register and, from 25 per cent upward, in its beneficial-owner register (Art. 697j CO), both open to banks and authorities under anti-money-laundering rules, but not to the public. The federal beneficial-owner register adopted on 26 September 2025 will centralise that data for authorities and financial intermediaries, still not for open public search.

Who must register in the Swiss commercial register

Registration is mandatory for every Swiss company with legal personality and for larger sole proprietorships, under Art. 931 CO. For the AG (Art. 643 CO) and the GmbH (Art. 779 CO) the entry is constitutive: the company does not exist until it is registered. The same applies to cooperatives, and foundations must be entered as well. Since 1 January 2016 this includes family and church foundations. General and limited partnerships (Kollektiv- and Kommanditgesellschaften) are obliged to register, as are Swiss branches of foreign companies.

A sole proprietorship must register once it runs a commercial operation with annual revenue of at least CHF 100,000, a threshold set in Art. 931 CO as revised on 1 January 2021. Where one owner runs several businesses, their revenues are aggregated for the test. Our other company formation guides cover the choice between these legal forms in detail.

When registration is not required

Sole proprietors below the turnover threshold, simple partnerships and most associations stay outside the commercial register lawfully: three groups, each for a different reason. A sole proprietorship below CHF 100,000 annual revenue may register voluntarily but need not; many freelancers never do. A simple partnership (einfache Gesellschaft, Art. 530 ff. CO) cannot be registered at all, because it has no name capacity and no personality, which is one reason joint ventures often incorporate instead. And most associations (Vereine) are exempt: an association must register only if it conducts a commercial enterprise, is subject to an ordinary audit or, since 1 January 2023, mainly collects or distributes assets abroad (Art. 61 para. 2 CC).

Staying unregistered has a price. An unregistered business has no Switzerland-wide name protection, cannot be looked up by banks or counterparties, and is pursued for debts by way of seizure rather than the bankruptcy regime that applies to registered entities (Art. 39 DEBA). For a business seeking commercial credit, voluntary entry is often the sensible step before the threshold forces it.

How registration works when you form a company

For an AG or GmbH, registration is the final step of incorporation and runs through four stages. First, a notary records the incorporation in a public deed, together with the articles of association and confirmation that the capital is paid into a blocked account. Second, the founders file the signed application with the cantonal register office, with signatures certified; filing can be made electronically, including via EasyGov. Third, the registrar examines the application (Art. 937 CO) and the EHRA approves the entry. Fourth, the entry is published in the SOGC. The company acquires legal personality on registration, and the blocked capital is released to it.

Complete applications are entered within about a week in most cantons; Zug is usually among the fastest at one to two working days. The drafting and notarial stage beforehand, not the register, sets the overall timetable. In the entity-management filings we run, the same holds for later changes: a signatory or address update is entered within days, while a foreign director's certified and apostilled documents are what set the real timeline. Our Swiss company formation service manages the sequence from name check to the published entry, and our step-by-step formation guide describes each document the registrar expects.

Swiss commercial register fees in 2026

Since 1 January 2021, register fees follow a single federal schedule, the Ordinance on Commercial Register Fees (GebV-HReg, SR 221.411.1), which replaced cantonal tariffs and abolished the old surcharge based on share capital. Fees fell by roughly a third in that reform. The figures below are the standard guideline amounts cantonal offices publish, as of June 2026.

For filings of unusual scope or urgency (a contribution in kind, for instance) the office may add up to 50 per cent of the ordinary fee (Art. 3 para. 2 GebV-HReg). Notarial fees are separate and remain cantonal: a straightforward AG or GmbH incorporation commonly costs CHF 300 to 1,500 at the notary, with the higher figures in cantons that fix notarial tariffs by statute.

How changes and deletions are filed

Every change to a registered fact (address, purpose, capital, board members, signatories, auditor) must be filed with the cantonal register office without delay by the entity's governing body. Changes that touch the articles of association, such as a new name, purpose or capital, first require a public deed. The duty is enforced: a registrar who learns of an unfiled fact summons the entity, and anyone who fails to comply with the registration duty can be fined up to CHF 5,000 (Art. 940 CO). Defects in a company's required organisation, such as a missing board or auditor, go to the court (Art. 939 CO).

Deletion happens on application once liquidation is complete, or ex officio where the register office finds an entity without business activity and without realisable assets (Art. 934 CO) after a public call in the SOGC. Nothing disappears, though: the gazette archive preserves every prior entry, which is how buyers verify the register history of shelf companies: former names, purpose changes and past officers all remain traceable.

Legal effects of a register entry: the publicity principle

A commercial register entry takes legal effect against third parties through its publication in the SOGC (Art. 936a CO). From that point the publicity principle of Art. 936b CO cuts both ways. Positively, no one can plead ignorance of a published fact: a counterparty is deemed to know who the registered signatories are. Negatively, a fact that should have been registered but was not cannot be invoked against a third party unless the entity proves the third party actually knew it. Good-faith reliance on a published entry is protected even where the entry turns out to be wrong.

The practical rule for anyone contracting with a Swiss company follows directly: pull the current extract before signing. A board member removed internally but still published can continue to bind the company towards parties acting in good faith, and an unpublished restriction on signing authority is, for third parties, no restriction at all.