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New here? This is the short version: what to read, in what order, and what I would actually use. Everything below I have either tested with my own money or verified against the provider’s own pricing.
Get started with these 4 steps
Know where your money goes
Before investing anything, get a Swiss budget that survives contact with real life. Start with the budget plan guide, then how I cut mine.
Open a pillar 3a and actually invest it
The best tax deal most people in Switzerland get. Paying in is only half of it: left as cash it loses value. Compare every provider here.
Then invest outside your pension
Once the 3a is running, a broker or a robo-advisor. Brokers compared if you want to choose your own, robo-advisors if you would rather not.
Stop overpaying tax
Deductions most people miss, and what a tax return actually involves. Swiss taxes explained.
Top recommendations
The short list. These are the platforms I hold my own money on and have been using for years, not a ranking assembled from press releases. The full reasoning behind each one is in the comparison pages.
Pillar 3a
A 0.00% management fee, so you pay only the roughly 0.12% charged inside the ETFs. The lowest total cost of any Swiss 3a I have found, and uninvested cash earns 0.35%.
Reader offer: CHF 100 fee credit with code INVEHERO
Flat 0.39% with the fund costs already inside it. No transaction, custody or currency fees, and the foreign withholding tax reclaim is handled for you. The one I would set up for someone who wants it done properly and then forgotten.
Reader offer: CHF 25 fee credit with code HEROBB Also valid if you are already a finpension customer opening another product. Enter it within 24 hours and pay in at least CHF 1,000 in the first year.Also worth knowing: VIAC is excellent and gives you the most control over the strategy, but I have no arrangement with them. See all providers compared.
Investing platforms
Cheap access to global markets from Switzerland, and the one I use for individual positions. Worth reading the fee section carefully, because the headline pricing is not the whole story.
The one I use when I do not want to pick anything myself. A portfolio of ETFs and index funds built to your risk profile, rebalanced for you, at 0.25% to 0.50% depending on how much you hold. Same provider as my pillar 3a pick above, which keeps everything in one place.
Reader offer: CHF 100 fee credit with code INVEHEROBanking and cards
A Swiss account with no monthly fee and sensible foreign spending, which is what most people actually need from a bank.
Reader offer: CHF 10 bonus with code investingheroTwo cards, no annual fee, cashback on spending. Useful if you want a card that pays something back without a fee eating the benefit.
Reader offer: CHF 40 bonus with code FC4DTD7HRWhat I will not recommend
CFDs. Contracts for difference are marketed hard to Swiss beginners and are the wrong tool for almost everyone. I do not recommend them and I earn nothing from them.
Insurance-linked pillar 3a. Bundling life or disability cover into your pension pays the seller a large commission, locks you in for decades and is expensive to exit. If you want the cover, buy it separately. This one cost me personally.
Anything I have not used or verified. If a provider is not here, it usually means I have not opened an account with them or could not confirm their pricing at source.
Looking for a personal finance course?
There is a lot here for free, and for most people that is enough. But if you want it in order, with the workings shown and the decisions made step by step rather than article by article, I am building a course.
It is everything I wish someone had handed me when I arrived in Switzerland. Coming in 2027, and you can put your name down here to hear first and get a discount on the launch price.
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How this site makes money
Some of the links above earn me a commission when you open and fund an account. It costs you nothing, it never decides the ranking, and where there is no arrangement the page says so. The full explanation, along with the rules I work to, is on the about page.
Last reviewed: August 2026. Recommendations here are checked against the provider’s own pricing twice a year, and this page changes when the answer changes. Educational content, not financial advice.
