Living and Working in Switzerland: A Survival Handbook [Paperback]

The latest version of this book is mandatory for all who are looking to move to Switzerland as an expatriate. While your newfound Swiss friends may be full of essential advice about how things work in your new country, they are usually unfamiliar with issues related to foreigners, such as residence permits (as you would expect - how many Americans are familiar with the bureaucracy surrounding a green card?) Regulations change quickly, especially as Switzerland is in the midst of adjusting to many new immigrants after opening up their borders in a historically unprecedented way to the Schengen Area, so up to date versions of this book are legitimately required.

After living in Switzerland myself for 5 wonderful years, here is some additional advice that I wish I had before:

1. If you need a credit card, look at the Migros' M-CARD. It is free, unlike the 100-250 CHF annual fee (!) for a simple credit card from most banks.

2. There are entire industries in Switzerland dedicated to living off expats and corporate relocations. Some of these are remarkable services, but some of their practices are less than transparent.

2a. Language schools vary widely in what they charge, but in the end, the quality comes down to the teacher. Almost all of the schools have both great and mediocre teachers. I never found any correlation between what the class cost and the quality of the teacher. I strongly recommend picking up an old edition of a university French or German textbook from half.com for $1-2 before coming to Switzerland - it will always present the information in a different way and will help reinforce what you learned in class.

2b. Realize when a relocation agency helps you find an apartment, they receive a commission - not just for finding the apartment for you (which is reasonable), but often >>for each month's rent as long as you stay in the apartment<<. This is not explictly stated in the rental contract or in the breakdown of your month's rent.

Be especially aware of this when you have set your heart on a place and the agency says they will arrange it for you, and then come back with a minutely inflated monthly rent apologizing for their mistake of misquoting the first time. (I can't tell you how many times I have seen this.)

I recommend if you use a relocation agency plan on staying in your new place only temporarily until you find another for the longer-term.

3. When renting, >>join the renter's union<<. There are aspects of the rental market in Switzerland that are highly predatory, especially towards expatriates. You can find all the information from the government on the 'www.ch.ch' website if you search for "Tenancy law / Tenancy agreement".

Make sure a representative is with you when you check into the apartment. Take pictures of everything. When you check out, prepare for the grilling of your life, especially as an expat. During the final inspection all the years built up of friendly service will disappear and you are faced with their attempts at getting whatever they can from you, even for things which were not explicitly mentioned in their move out instructions. When you are in the midst of moving or on your way out of the country, this is the last thing you want to deal with. This is why it is especially important to show you have representation when they realize you are about to leave the country that day, do not have time to negotiate, and would have a hard time legally challenging the charges when outside the country. This is one of the most common complaints of expatriates in Switzerland.

I was recommended that if you have a larger place and therefore more at stake, it is even worthwhile to bring a local lawyer in so the rental agency knows that you cannot be browbeaten or taken advantage of just because you are not from/leaving Switzerland.

4. Swiss accountants are not cheap (500-600 CHF/year) but I saved at least that amount with their friendly calls to the tax authorities, as every year the local tax office miscalculated my taxes. (Especially if you live in the relatively higher taxed areas of Geneva or Basel-Stadt, make sure to look into maximizing your third pillar investments for the tax break.)

Also make sure you also have an American accountant who is familiar with the tax practices for all expatriates residing in any country, such as declaring the presence of all your overseas accounts every year (FBAR), a direct result of the UBS bank scandal.

Switzerland is a phenomenal country and full of beauty and surprises. Just be aware in advance of the predatory practices towards foreigners, as they are less obvious than in other countries because they are often hidden within legitimate charges.

If you are already living in Switzerland, this book makes good sense. If you're not, this book is lacking on why you might or might not want to move there -- because, yes, a wealth of information is contained, but you'll have to dig it out and connect your own dots.

Should this book aim to connect those dots -- help in a decision-making process -- it would need to be expanded to explicitly list the DIFFERENCES between life in the US vs. life in Switzerland vs. life in, say, France or Britain, even in tabular form. This would help a person like me who is considering where to angle to live in the future.

For example, Switzerland seems to have a health care system like that of the US state of Massachusetts, in which it's required that you buy health care insurance, or have your employer buy it for you. This is different than in other EU or commonwealth countries; you might like this or hate it. More examples: your yearly Swiss income tax includes a wealth (net worth, even non-income producing stuff) tax; speeding tickets are proportional to your salary. (This means that the authorities, with whom you registered as soon as you moved into a town and explained your intentions, know your salary.) All of this you might like, or not.

In summary, the book says in its title exactly what it is, and does a good job of that! However, my whiny wish is that the book would take me conceptually from where I am right now to why I would want, or not want, to live in Switzerland.

I was looking for information on childcare, and it was impossible to find. If you look in the index, there's a listing for "children", under the Odds and Ends chapter, one paragraph about laws governing the conduct of children in public places. That's it, nothing about childcare.

As I was looking for info about something else, I found some applicable information about childcare. But it was in the Accomodation chapter, with all the housing information!