The guide
A guide to Swiss invoice requirements
A Swiss invoice must comply with the VAT Act, the Code of Obligations and, for payment, the SIX standards. This guide covers mandatory mentions, rates, the UID and the QR-bill, then explains how automatic checks avoid adjustments during a VAT inspection.
What must a Swiss VAT invoice contain?
VAT Act art. 26 para. 2 lists the requirements of a VAT invoice: the name and place of the supplier as used in business, with its VAT number; the name and place of the recipient; the date or period of the supply; the nature, subject and extent of the supply; the consideration; the applicable rate and the amount of tax due. If the consideration includes the tax, stating the rate is enough.
For till receipts up to CHF 400, the ordinance allows a simplified form without the recipient’s name. An incomplete invoice can cost your customer the input tax deduction and expose you to a correction. Numezis checks every mention before issuing and blocks the invoice while any requirement is missing.
Swiss VAT invoice requirements: which rate applies?
Since 1 January 2024 the Swiss rates are 8.1 % standard, 2.6 % reduced (food, books, newspapers, medicines) and 3.8 % for accommodation. The rate depends on the nature of the supply and on the date it was provided, not on the invoice date: a 2023 service invoiced in 2024 stays at 7.7 %.
Typical errors are an old rate left in a template, a mixed supply wrongly split, or a reduced rate applied to a service. Numezis resolves the rate through a deterministic capability that takes the supply and the period into account, validates the transaction, then checks the consistency of the return before preparing the eCH-0217 export.
The UID and VAT number on an invoice
Every Swiss company receives a business identification number, the UID, in the format CHE-123.456.789, under the UID Act. A company registered for VAT uses the same number followed by MWST, TVA or IVA. That number must appear on the invoice so the customer can deduct input tax.
A mistyped UID, a company name that does not match the register or a deregistered customer all create problems at inspection. Numezis checks the UID format, enriches customer and supplier records from Zefix, the Swiss commercial register, and flags any inconsistency before issuing. The invoice carries the right identity, without manual lookups.
When is a QR-bill compliant?
The QR-bill replaced payment slips in Switzerland. Under the SIX Swiss Payment Standards it can be issued only in CHF or EUR, with an IBAN or a QR-IBAN, structured addresses and, with a QR-IBAN, a 27-digit QR reference. The QR code must hold data consistent with the readable part of the payment slip.
An invoice in another currency, USD for example, cannot carry a QR-bill: you must invoice in CHF or EUR, or use another payment method. Numezis checks the currency, IBAN, reference and addresses before sending. Incoming payments are then matched automatically by their QR reference from camt.053 and camt.054 files.
Why check at write time instead of at year-end?
In many SMEs, invoicing errors are found at the quarterly close by the fiduciary, or worse during a tax inspection. By then the invoice has gone out, the customer has booked it, and fixing it takes a credit note, a new invoice and explanations.
Checking at write time reverses the logic: the error is stopped when it happens, with its reason, and the fix takes a minute. It is also what makes an AI agent usable in accounting. The agent can prepare dozens of invoices, yet each one passes the same deterministic checks. The rules live in the code, not in the prompt: a generic AI guesses, Numezis checks.