The Swiss Commercial Register (Handelsregister): Search, Extracts and Entries

What the Swiss commercial register is

Switzerland has no single national companies house. The commercial register is federated: each canton runs its own register office, and the Federal Commercial Registry Office (part of the Federal Office of Justice) exercises high supervision and approves every entry. The legal framework is set out in art. 927–943 of the Code of Obligations (revised commercial register law, in force since 2021) and the Commercial Register Ordinance (ORC/HRegV).

The register serves two purposes. It identifies every business — legal form, seat, purpose, capital and the people entitled to act for it — and it creates legal certainty: registered facts are deemed known to third parties once published, and no one can rely on ignorance of them (the principle of publicity). This is why a Swiss counterparty, a bank or a foreign authority will always start by checking the register.

Who must be registered in Switzerland

• Companies limited by shares (AG/SA), limited liability companies (GmbH/Sàrl), cooperatives: registration is constitutive — the entity acquires legal personality only upon entry in the register (art. 643 and art. 779 CO).
• Sole proprietorships: registration becomes mandatory once annual turnover reaches CHF 100,000 (art. 931 CO); below that threshold it is voluntary. A sole trader absent from the register is therefore not necessarily irregular.
• General and limited partnerships, branches of Swiss or foreign companies: registration is mandatory.
• Associations: only if they run a commercial enterprise or are subject to audit; foundations are registered with limited exceptions.

What information is public in the swiss company register

For each registered entity, the register discloses:

• the company name (and former names) and the UID number in the format CHE-XXX.XXX.XXX;
• the legal form, the registered office and the domicile address;
• the purpose of the company and, for capital companies, the share capital;
• the members of the board of directors or managing officers, the auditors, and every person authorised to represent the company, with their signature rights (individual signature, or joint signature at two);
• the entity’s history: every amendment, linked to its publication in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce (SOGC).

Shareholders of an AG/SA are not published: ownership is recorded privately in the company’s share register. What the public sees is who runs and signs for the company — not who owns it.

How to search the register free of charge — Zefix and the cantonal portals

The official entry point for a Swiss company search is Zefix (Central Business Name Index, zefix.ch), the confederation’s free portal aggregating all 26 cantonal registers. Search by company name or UID number; each result links to the full cantonal record and the SOGC publications. Zefix also offers a mobile app and a public REST API used by compliance teams for automated entity searches.

1. Open zefix.ch and enter the company name or CHE number.
2. Open the entity’s record: status (active, in liquidation, deleted), seat, legal form and governing bodies.
3. Follow the link to the cantonal register for the complete, up-to-date extract.

The commercial register extract (Handelsregisterauszug)

The extract is the register’s standard output — the document banks, notaries and foreign authorities ask for. Three forms exist:

• Uncertified extract: downloadable free of charge as a PDF via Zefix or the cantonal portal. Sufficient for most KYC checks and internal due diligence.
• Certified extract: issued by the cantonal register office with stamp and signature (official fee of roughly CHF 50 under the federal fee schedule). Required for court proceedings, notarial deeds and most foreign filings.
• Certified extract with apostille: for use abroad, the cantonal chancellery adds an apostille under the Hague Convention.

Typical use cases: opening a bank account, proving who may sign a contract, registering a subsidiary abroad, responding to a compliance request. The extract shows the state of the register — it does not disclose shareholders or beneficial owners.

How an entry is made — from notary to legal effect

For a new AG/SA or GmbH/Sàrl the same sequence applies to the incorporation itself — the company exists as soon as it is entered in the register. If you are at that earlier stage, see our overview of Swiss SA/AG and Sàrl/GmbH formation.

Changes that must be filed: directors, address, purpose

Every registered fact must be kept current. The most frequent filings in practice are:

• appointing or removing a director or managing officer — resolution, acceptance/resignation declarations and updated signature rights (our step-by-step guide: appointing or removing a director in Switzerland);
• change of domicile address or transfer of seat to another canton;
• amendment of the purpose, the company name or the capital (public deed required);
• change of auditors, or opting out of the limited audit;
• dissolution and deletion at the end of a liquidation — the register entry “in liquidation” and the final deletion are both published (see our liquidator services for Swiss companies).

An outdated entry is not a formality: an ex-director who remains registered continues to appear as an authorised representative towards third parties, and late filings surface immediately at the bank or in an audit. Preparing and filing these requisitions is a core part of the corporate secretarial function.

The rule every foreign owner discovers here: resident representation

Art. 718 para. 4 CO requires that every Swiss company can be represented by at least one person domiciled in Switzerland — a member of the board or a managing officer/director with individual signature, or two with joint signature. The register office refuses the entry of a company (or of a board change) that would leave this requirement unmet.

For foreign-owned companies this is usually the binding constraint in any register filing: replace your only Swiss-resident board member without a successor and the change cannot be registered. This is precisely the gap a resident director mandate fills — a domiciled director or managing officer who satisfies art. 718 para. 4 CO and signs the register filings.

Cantonal register offices and official fees

Entries are always made by the office of the canton of the company’s registered seat — for example Geneva, Zug, Lucerne or Zurich. Addresses and contact details of all 26 offices are listed by the federal authorities (and mirrored by directories such as regindex). Since the 2021 revision, fees are federal and identical in every canton, set by the fee schedule of the Commercial Register Ordinance: as a guide, the registration of a new company runs in the low hundreds of francs (sole proprietorship at the bottom of the range, AG/SA at the top), a simple amendment less, and a certified extract around CHF 50. The cantonal office invoices these official fees directly — any other “registry invoice” you receive is private solicitation.

Registers that are not public — and how they connect

The commercial register shows who runs the company; the internal and federal registers record who owns and ultimately controls it. Foreign owners deal with all three layers at once — typically through the company’s Swiss director or corporate secretary, who keeps each register accurate and files on time.