More and more wealthy foreigners are holding golden visas
Robbie Williams is arguably the most famous foreigner to be granted a Golden Visa to stay in the Bernese Oberland.
Since 2008, Switzerland has been seeking to attract wealthy foreigners by allowing them to purchase residence permits. Anyone willing to pay sufficient taxes in a canton can afford the right to live here, even if they don't meet the legal requirements. This is thanks to a loophole in the foreigners' law known as "golden visas." According to the Tages-Anzeiger, 496 people held such a visa in 2024. This figure is up 22% from 2023.
And it is the canton of Geneva that welcomes the most foreigners with a golden visa (117), ahead of Valais (61), Ticino (56), Vaud (45) and Zug (41). Bern has 32 and Zurich only 12, indicates the Tagi, which refers to the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM).
For years, these permits were mainly granted to wealthy Russians, explains Tagi. They are still the leading recipients of these golden visas—and their numbers are increasing despite the war in Ukraine. But recently, the Chinese, Americans, and especially the British are "catching up."
The number of English people has tripled in recent years, the newspaper notes. The most famous case in Switzerland is that of singer Robbie Williams, who moved to a chalet in Gstaad with his wife and children in 2023. While it's unclear how much tax he pays, what is certain is that in the canton of Bern, you have to pay at least 500,000 francs in taxes per year to obtain a golden visa.
But there are more expensive options. In Zurich, the most "greedy" canton, you have to be prepared to pay 1 million francs in taxes to obtain a residence permit. Obwalden is the most "modest," with a tax limit of 250,000 francs.
According to Zurich business lawyer Enzo Caputo, golden visas are booming in Switzerland, but also around the world. "Wealthy people want options in times of economic uncertainty," he explains. He also expects many Americans to arrive in our country in the coming years. But these residence permit purchases are under increasing pressure in the EU. In Cyprus and Greece, they have been used to launder funds or evade taxes. As a result, the European Parliament recently declared that "golden visa" laws violated the "principles of sincere cooperation, fairness, and non-discrimination." And some countries that allowed the wealthy to additionally purchase their nationality have had to put an end to these practices.
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