Your Swiss employment contract: probation, notice, holiday and overtime
Editorially checked byTobias KernFounder · 6 September 2026A Swiss employment contract combines legal defaults with terms the contract or collective agreement may change. Read it in layers: first the probation and ending rules, then paid holiday and working time, and finally salary terms such as a 13th payment.
Turn this Guide into your checklist
- Mark probation, notice, holiday and weekly hours in the contract
- Confirm the applicable collective or standard employment agreement
- Record how contractual overtime and statutory excess hours are handled
- Calculate annual contractual pay including any 13th salary
In this guide
Start with the contract, then check what sits behind it
Swiss private employment law applies to the job regardless of whether you sleep in France or Germany. The Code of Obligations supplies defaults, the Employment Act adds working-time limits, and a collective employment agreement—GAV in German, CCT in French—may add or replace terms for a sector.
Mark the contract's start date, fixed or open-ended status, weekly hours, salary components, probation, notice, holiday and overtime clauses. Then ask HR which collective or standard agreement applies. A signed clause is not the whole answer when mandatory law or an applicable agreement sets a stronger minimum.
Probation changes how quickly notice can take effect
For an open-ended contract, the statutory default is a one-month probation period. A written agreement or applicable agreement can remove it or extend it to at most three months. During probation, the statutory notice is seven calendar days unless a permitted term changes it.
After probation, the default notice is one month in the first year of service, two months from the second through ninth year, and three months from the tenth year, normally to month-end. Example: if notice reaches the other party on 20 March during the third year and the default applies, two full months lead to 31 May—not 20 May. Contract and collective-agreement terms can change the result, so check the exact clause.
Holiday is a minimum in weeks, not a bonus
The federal minimum is four weeks of paid holiday per year, rising to five weeks until age 20. A part-time worker receives the same number of weeks; the number of workdays inside a week follows the work pattern.
The employer considers your wishes but may move dates for operational reasons. Record approved leave and the remaining balance. During employment, holiday is primarily time for rest rather than an amount routinely exchanged for cash.
Contract overtime and statutory excess hours are not the same
Überstunden—contractual overtime—means hours above your agreed weekly schedule but still below the statutory maximum. Überzeit—statutory excess hours—starts above the legal weekly maximum, usually 45 hours for industrial, office, technical and certain retail staff and 50 hours for other workers.
Example: with a 40-hour contract and a 45-hour legal maximum, hour 41 is contractual overtime; hour 46 is statutory excess time. Compensation rules and permitted written variations differ, so record the hours in the correct category before discussing pay or time off.
A 13th salary exists only when a rule creates it
Swiss federal law does not create a general right to a 13th monthly salary. The right comes from your individual contract, an applicable collective agreement or another binding employment rule. Read whether it is a fixed salary component or a discretionary bonus, when it is paid and how a partial year is handled.
A simple check makes the annual figure visible. Example: CHF 6,000 paid 13 times is CHF 78,000 a year; CHF 6,500 paid 12 times is also CHF 78,000. Compare annual contractual pay before treating one monthly figure as larger. Your next action is to annotate every clause that differs from the statutory default and ask HR which agreement authorises it.
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