Switzerland Company & Beneficial Ownership Directory
Company register search for 988,838 Switzerland companies, plus shareholder, officer and beneficial ownership records sourced directly from official government registries.
Switzerland company register data lives in ZEFIX (Federal Central Business Names Index), free via zefix.admin.ch, linked to LETA — the Federal Act on the Transparency of Legal Entities and the Identification of Beneficial Owners, adopted September 2025. It's explicitly non-public, with no legitimate-interest route, no journalist access, and no path to general public access, at a 25% ownership or voting-rights threshold. Listed companies and their majority subsidiaries, pension institutions, and foundations sit outside the filing requirement, and GmbH shareholders — unlike AG shareholders — are already visible through cantonal commercial-register extracts. ZEFIX verifies entity existence, directors, and capital directly; the LETA register records only the declared UBO at the end of the chain, so mapping the intermediate corporate structure above a Swiss entity still requires resolution through external, cross-border sources.
Switzerland beneficial ownership guideTop Companies in Switzerland
Live from the register. Every row opens the full record — officers, shareholders and resolved group structure.
Data Coverage
Record counts by data layer for Switzerland, as of the last reconciliation.
Analysis
What this data actually tells you about Switzerland
Switzerland has never had a beneficial-ownership register at all — that changes on 1 October 2026, when the Federal Act on the Transparency of Legal Entities and the Identification of Beneficial Owners takes effect, creating the country’s first-ever centralised electronic register, run by the Federal Office of Justice. Even then, the register will not be publicly accessible: access is restricted to competent authorities and AML-obliged entities, a deliberate design choice reflecting Switzerland’s traditional emphasis on financial privacy. The commercial register itself is a different story entirely — Zefix, the federal index of all 26 cantonal Handelsregister offices, is free and fully open to search by anyone, anywhere.
Switzerland’s commercial register covered over 1.35 million registered entities as of April 2026, roughly split between 547,000 sole proprietorships and 537,000 corporations, kept across 26 cantonal register offices under federal supervision. The underlying business population is dominated by the smallest enterprises: SMEs (under 250 employees) were 99.7% of all Swiss companies, with micro enterprises (under 10 employees) alone making up almost 90%, small enterprises 8.4%, and medium enterprises 1.5%. Foreign-controlled multinationals punch well above their numeric weight: in 2024, foreign multinationals accounted for slightly over half of the 2.14 million jobs at enterprise-group-controlled businesses in Switzerland, while generating almost two-thirds of the turnover those enterprise groups produced.
Switzerland company base, broken down
Charts render from live counts. Where coverage is partial, the excluded population is stated on the chart.
Company size, by disclosed headcount
By number of employees on file. Entities with no disclosed headcount are not counted in any band.
Enterprises by size category
Share of Swiss enterprises by employee size class, provisional figures. SMEs (under 250 employees) were 99.7% of all Swiss companies overall, employing roughly two-thirds of the workforce measured in full-time equivalents. Source: Swiss Federal Statistical Office (BFS/FSO), Facts and figures on SMEs.
Who uses Switzerland ownership data
The three checks this page's data is most often run for.
KYB onboarding
Verifying a Switzerland counterparty means confirming the beneficial owner behind the entity and evidencing where that answer came from, not just pulling the registered name.
AML and sanctions screening
Sanctions exposure often sits above the operating company, in a holding layer registered elsewhere. Screening the local entity alone will not surface it; screening the resolved ownership chain will.
Supplier and credit risk
Only 273 Switzerland entities have digitized accounts on file, so group membership is often a better solvency signal than a standalone balance sheet.
Get complete shareholder and officer records, ultimate beneficial owner resolution, and ongoing ownership monitoring for Switzerland companies — via API or a bulk data feed.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Switzerland companies are in Zavia's database?
Zavia holds 988,838 company records for Switzerland, of which 645,895 (65%) are currently active on the register.
Who owns companies in Switzerland, and is that information public?
Switzerland company register data lives in ZEFIX (Federal Central Business Names Index), free via zefix.admin.ch, linked to LETA — the Federal Act on the Transparency of Legal Entities and the Identification of Beneficial Owners, adopted September 2025. It's explicitly non-public, with no legitimate-interest route, no journalist access, and no path to general public access, at a 25% ownership or voting-rights threshold. Listed companies and their majority subsidiaries, pension institutions, and foundations sit outside the filing requirement, and GmbH shareholders — unlike AG shareholders — are already visible through cantonal commercial-register extracts. ZEFIX verifies entity existence, directors, and capital directly; the LETA register records only the declared UBO at the end of the chain, so mapping the intermediate corporate structure above a Swiss entity still requires resolution through external, cross-border sources.
Can I see a Switzerland company's shareholders and corporate structure on Zavia?
Yes. Zavia holds 113,401 shareholder records for Switzerland companies, with 120,780 ultimate parent relationships resolved for group-structure and ownership-chain mapping.
Can I find the directors of a Switzerland company on Zavia?
Yes. Zavia holds 761,658 officer and director records for Switzerland companies, sourced directly from the same official register as the company's own filing.
Can I look up a Switzerland company's VAT number on Zavia?
Yes. Zavia holds 280 VAT records for Switzerland companies, linked to the same registered entity as its company profile.
Can I access financial statements for Switzerland companies on Zavia?
Yes. Zavia holds 273 digitized financial reports for Switzerland companies, available through Zavia's enriched company data for verified users.
What document shows who owns shares in a Switzerland company?
Share ownership in Switzerland is held as the Aktienbuch (share register), maintained under Article 686 of the Swiss Code of Obligations rather than filed as a public register.
Does Zavia offer an API for Switzerland company data?
Yes. Zavia's API connects directly to official government ownership registries across 195 countries and territories, including Switzerland, so company registration, shareholder, UBO, officer, and group-structure records can be queried programmatically instead of browsed one page at a time.
Is there a guide to verifying beneficial ownership in Switzerland?
Zavia's Switzerland beneficial ownership guide covers the register, the UBO threshold, and how to verify a company's ownership chain in more depth than this directory page.