Published on 29/08/2026 · Sources last reviewed: 29/08/2026 · Our method

Which of these permits applies to you — and may you work on it?

A Moroccan family settling in the canton of Vaud will pay, over five years, between 1,435 and 2,185 francs in permit fees. The same family, Portuguese, will pay 220. Nobody cheated: both rates sit in the same federal ordinance, two paragraphs apart.

This article explains where that gap comes from, what each permit allows, and what really changes when you cross the Luxembourg border rather than the Swiss one.

Every figure and every rule below was read on 29 August 2026 in the official text, whose reference is given. Nothing is estimated, nothing rounded. Where we do not know, we say so.

1. Switzerland issues eight permits, not two

Public debate knows only B and G. The State Secretariat for Migration publishes eight — and four of them concern people who are also allowed to work, often without knowing it.

Source: SEM, «Residence» pages, read on 28.08.2026; the S permit page carries a modification dated 22.10.2025.

Two observations you will not find elsewhere.

The Ci permit is not marginal. It covers «exclusively spouses and children up to the age of 25» of officials of intergovernmental organisations and of members of foreign missions, and its validity is tied to the duration of the main holder’s function. Our own employer directory counts one hundred and fifty-three international organisations: a dense, qualified, present audience — and nobody explains to them that a Ci permit opens the labour market.

The F permit opens the whole of Switzerland. Many employers believe provisional admission is incompatible with hiring. It is not: the activity may be exercised anywhere in Switzerland and requires only a notification from the employer. A formality, not an authorisation to obtain.

2. In Luxembourg there is no «permit»

The word does not exist in the Luxembourg vocabulary, and the difference is not cosmetic.

• EU citizens — and Switzerland is treated as equivalent for this purpose: nothing to apply for. A registration declaration with the commune within three months, and the registration certificate is issued immediately. Its validity is unlimited.
• Third-country nationals: a temporary authorisation to stay, to be obtained before entering the territory — an application filed from within Luxembourg is declared inadmissible — and then, after entry, a residence permit.

Source: guichet.public.lu, «Staying in Luxembourg for more than 3 months» factsheets, read on 29.08.2026.

The practical consequence is clear: a European settling in Luxembourg waits for no decision. A European settling in Switzerland does receive a permit — free or nearly so, we will come to that — but a permit all the same.

3. The right to work: two procedures, not one

In Switzerland

EU/EFTA: the right to reside and to work flows from the agreement itself. The permit records it, it does not grant it (AFMP, annex I, art. 2(1)).

Third countries: admission is subject to quotas and to the overall economic interest. The employer files the application.

In Luxembourg

EU: nothing to apply for.

Third countries: the procedure has two stages, and the first belongs to the employer.

The employer must declare the vacancy to the ADEM. If, within three weeks, no suitable candidate from the local labour market is put forward, the employer asks the Director of the ADEM for a certificate authorising a contract with a third-country national.

That certificate, in the original, is one of the documents in the residence application. Without it the file does not move. The candidate can do nothing about it: the step belongs to the employer — and that is the first thing to tell someone applying from abroad.

And the Luxembourg permit first confines, then frees

The first salaried residence permit is valid for one year at most, for a single occupation and a single sector — both printed on the back, as an ISCO code.

From the first renewal, the permit runs up to three years and opens every sector and every occupation. That is a considerable shift, and it happens after one year. Unless the holder cannot prove they worked, or the renewal falls during a period of compensated unemployment: the permit is then renewed for one year.

Something Switzerland does not offer: the Luxembourg «family member» permit gives its holder access to education, training, the labour market and professional development. The spouse works without a separate procedure.

4. The C permit: the five-year question

It is the question that comes up most, and the answer consists of three distinct regimes.

The ordinary timetable: ten years

FNIA, art. 34(2)(a) — the settlement permit may be granted to a person who «has resided in Switzerland for at least ten years on the basis of a short stay or residence permit, of which the last five years without interruption on the basis of a residence permit», with no ground for revocation and provided they are integrated.

Art. 60 OASA puts a figure on what «integrated» means linguistically: oral level A2 in the national language spoken at the place of residence, written A1.

The early timetable: five years, in exchange for a language level

FNIA, art. 34(4) — a foreign national who meets the integration criteria «and is able to communicate well in the national language spoken at their place of residence may obtain a settlement permit after an uninterrupted stay of five years on a residence permit».

Art. 62 OASA quantifies the requirement: oral B1, written A1. And its paragraph 2 adds a condition few people anticipate: the examination «takes account of the degree of integration of family members over the age of twelve».

That is the direct answer to «is it the same procedure for a European and for a third-country national?» — for this route, yes, word for word: the same article, the same conditions, the same B1. Nationality changes nothing.

The third regime: settlement agreements

This is what opens the gap, and it appears neither in the FNIA nor in the AFMP.

«By virtue of settlement agreements and the principle of reciprocity, nationals of Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and of the EFTA states (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway) obtain a settlement permit after a lawful and uninterrupted stay of five years in Switzerland, provided the conditions for granting are met. No such agreements exist for the other EU member states.»

SEM, «C permit EU/EFTA» page, last modified 01.03.2021.

Read that last sentence twice. Poland, Romania, Croatia and Czechia are not on that list. Their nationals are Europeans, they enjoy free movement, they pay the European rate — and for the C permit they are on the ten-year track, exactly like the Moroccan family. Only the price separates them, not the wait.

It is the kind of detail no brochure highlights, and it decides a decade.

In Luxembourg, both arrive at five years

• EU citizen: after five years of lawful and uninterrupted residence, a permanent right of residence, recorded by a certificate.
• Third-country national: after five years of lawful and uninterrupted residence, an application for long-term resident status, on proof of stable resources without recourse to social assistance.

Luxembourg therefore gives both groups the same appointment. Switzerland gives one five years and the other ten — unless the B1 is passed.

5. What it costs, and why

The ceiling is federal, and it binds all twenty-six cantons

The Ordinance of 24 October 2007 on fees charged in application of the Foreign Nationals and Integration Act (SR 142.209), at its article 8, sets the maximum cantonal fees. As at 11.06.2024.

Amounts in francs. These are maximums: a canton may charge less, never more.

The European rate is not a Swiss favour, it is a treaty obligation

AFMP, annex I, art. 2(3) — the residence permit «shall be issued and renewed free of charge or against payment of a sum not exceeding the charges and taxes required for the issue of identity cards to nationals».

The 65 francs of art. 8(4) are not a gesture: they execute that clause. The same mechanism operates in Luxembourg, where the registration certificate of an EU citizen carries no fee in the state’s published list of documents — whereas every «third country» factsheet requires proof of an 80-euro transfer.

And the second treaty article does the rest of the work

AFMP, annex I, art. 6(1) — an employed person whose job lasts a year or more «shall receive a residence permit valid for at least five years […]. It shall be automatically extended for at least five years.»

A European therefore pays once for five years. A third-country national falls instead under art. 58(1) OASA:

«The initial residence permit is valid for one year; it may be extended by two years. Exceptions are possible in duly substantiated cases.»

Beware a stubborn misconception, professionals included: a third-country national’s B permit is not «renewed every year for five years». The text provides for a first year, then extensions of up to two years. Over five years that makes two extensions, not four. But the word «may» leaves the door open to an annual rhythm — a permit aligned on a one-year contract, for instance. That is why we publish a range rather than a falsely precise figure: the spread is not our imprecision, it is the ordinance’s.

⚠ There is no federal child rate for a third-country family

The reduced «under 18» rate in art. 8(4) targets AFMP/EFTA nationals. Paragraph 5 extends it to third-country family members of an AFMP/EFTA national. A family of which no member is European falls under neither.

At the federal ceiling, its three-year-old is billed as an adult.

6. The case: a Moroccan family and a Portuguese family, five years, same canton

Two adults, three children aged 17, 14 and 3. Canton of Vaud. B permit.

Swiss francs, at the federal ceiling. Vaud applies that ceiling: see below.

Six to ten times more, for the same family, in the same canton, on the same permit. The gap does not come from a scandalous unit rate — 95 against 65 is no chasm. It comes from two things:

1. the rhythm — five years on one side, one to two on the other;
2. the absence of a child rate — three children at full rate against three children at 30 francs.

And it does not stop at money. At the end of the five years the Portuguese family obtains settlement by treaty; the Moroccan family must demonstrate oral B1, or wait five more years.

The same household in Luxembourg

⚠ We do not settle the Luxembourg range, and here is why. The state publishes the renewal rhythm of the «salaried worker» permit (one year, then up to three) but not that of the «family member» permit: its factsheet says only that the first permit runs one year and is «renewable on request». Choosing a rhythm in the state’s place would be inventing. The lower bound assumes the family follows the worker’s rhythm; the upper bound, that it renews annually.

7. The twenty-six cantons

We began by establishing the federal ceiling, which bounds all twenty-six at once — then went and read the cantonal ordinances themselves. Just as well: the table is not flat.

Vaud applies the ceiling

Vaud regulation 142.11.1 of 14 August 2024 (in force since 01.09.2024), art. 5(1): «In the absence of a provision in the present regulation, the maximum rates laid down by the Fees Ordinance FNIA apply.»

In the canton of Vaud, the federal ceiling is the price. The regulation adds properly cantonal fees for what federal law does not cover: 117 francs for a refusal decision, 300 to 500 for a request for reconsideration, 20 for a residence certificate, 25 for a travel document.

Two provisions are worth knowing:

• art. 7 — the cantonal service «may, where the foreign national’s economic situation justifies it, reduce or waive the fees». It does not happen by itself.
• art. 8 — disbursements (fees of experts, medical advisers, translators, costs of enquiries abroad, postage) are charged in addition. A file requiring sworn translations costs more than the tariff.

Zurich charges less — and invents a rate the Confederation does not provide for

Ausländerrechtliche Gebührenordnung 142.21, s. 2.4: granting AIG (third countries) 95 francs, ledige Kinder unter 18 Jahren 40 francs; extension 75 francs, children 40 francs.

Federal law grants third-country families no child rate. Zurich grants one. For our family of five the effect is immediate:

Twenty-six per cent apart, between two cantons, on the same permit, for the same family. That is why a table of the twenty-six has a point, and why stopping at the ceiling would have produced an exact but blind comparison.

Zurich holds other surprises: the canton charges a refusal at the same rate as a grant (s. 1.2), states that each family member counts as an individual (s. 1.4), and issues the EU/EFTA permit free of charge where an assurance of a permit has already been given (s. 2.4.1.3).

Appenzell Outer Rhodes: two pages, not one amount — and yet everything is said

Verordnung über die Gebühren im Ausländerrecht (bGS 122.22), art. 2(1): «The office charges the maximum fees permitted under federal law.»

This canton writes not a single figure, and its tariff is nonetheless known to the franc: it is Vaud’s. Its paragraph 2 likewise allows the fee to be waived in whole or in part in particular cases. And the granting and extension fees are collected by the communes, not the canton.

Three cantons read, three different ways of writing: Vaud refers to the ceiling, Zurich sets its own amounts and goes below for children, Appenzell refers to the ceiling in two pages. A table of the twenty-six is therefore reading work, not arithmetic.

Valais, Glarus, Geneva: three more ways of making a tariff

Valais also grants a child rate that federal law does not provide for: 60 francs for an unmarried person under 18, outside the AFMP (art. 9(2) of the regulation of 18.12.2002). Zurich was therefore not the exception we had believed after three readings.

⚠ And Valais nearly made us publish a cheap canton that does not exist. Its regulation has two parts: «Fees for foreign nationals to whom the AFMP applies», then «… to whom it does not apply». The «65 francs» that leaps off the page belongs to the first — it is the European rate, identical to the federal one. The section heading sat two pages above the figure. An amount read outside its scope is a false amount.

Glarus goes below the ceiling for an adult: 75 francs for granting or renewal, where the Confederation allows 95. No other canton read does so. The canton also authorises the first taking-up of employment by a provisionally admitted person free of charge.

Geneva, finally, shows the mechanism at its barest: its article 11 refers to the federal tariff for the permit, and its article 12 charges a second fee «on employers». That is the subject of a later section.

The table of the twenty-six

Two adults, three children aged 17, 14 and 3, B permit, rhythm of art. 58 OASA. Swiss francs, at most. The «labour market» column is what the employer pays, not the family.

Twenty-six per cent between Vaud and Zurich — and twenty-three cantons out of twenty-six charge the federal ceiling. The table is therefore not flat, but it is flat three-quarters of the way, and the whole spread hangs on three cantons. Saying it that way is more honest than letting readers imagine twenty-six different tariffs.

The nine reservations

A row with a reservation is not a false row: it is a row whose limit is known. Concealing it would make it false.

• Valais — the 60-franc child rate does apply outside the AFMP, but the regulation has two parts, and a figure read in the wrong part is false.
• Glarus — the article names neither the biometric card nor the data capture separately: our totals add them at the federal rate, which may overstate them.
• Bern — the 30-franc rate for a minor is expressly reserved to AFMP/EFTA nationals, so not to this family.
• Basel-Landschaft — the fee is due even if the application is refused, or withdrawn after the labour-market examination.
• Jura — the residence tariff sits with the communes (25 francs per household on arrival, 50 to 100 for the decision); the cantonal decree caps at 1,000 francs the decisions the federal tariff does not cover.
• Obwalden — the settlement permit is «gebührenfrei» at communal level only, in a text dating from 1994; the migration office’s tariff was not found.
• Schwyz — bounded, not measured: the cantonal government sets the amounts «within the federal limits», and that decision was not read.
• Ticino — the most misleading row in the table. On top of the federal ceiling come 250 francs per decision and up to 500 francs in chancery fees, cumulative. Between +250 and +1,250 in the first year depending on whether a family counts as one decision or five — the text does not say.
• Uri — no cantonal residence tariff found on two search angles; the federal tariff applies, which is the most probable reading and not a certainty.

Three cantons the federal ceiling does not let you guess

Ticino is the heaviest of the twenty-six. Its office charges «i rispettivi emolumenti massimi sanciti dall’Ordinanza» — the federal ceiling — and then adds:

«Per le decisioni emesse l’Ufficio preleva una tassa di 250 franchi.» Regolamento 143.110, art. 14(2) — «for the decisions issued, the Office levies a fee of 250 francs».

Chancery fees may reach 500 francs (visa, certificates, information, postage), as much again for a reminder about documents or a missed appointment for the biometric card, and as much again for a decision on a departure deadline. And article 16 states that «le tasse sono tra loro cumulabili» — they add up.

Who pays? Cantonal law 143.100, at article 7(2), answers: the foreign national, jointly and severally with the other applicants «quali il datore di lavoro» — such as the employer. Here, unlike the second fee described below, the person pays too. Its paragraph 3 allows fees to be reduced or waived for people «without means or of modest resources».

Jura is the only canton whose residence tariff sits with the communes. Arrival declaration: 25 francs per household — not per person, which no other canton does. Decision on settlement or residence: 50 to 100 francs. And «the fees may be waived in whole or in part for people of modest means». The cantonal decree also caps at 1,000 francs a «decision in matters of immigration police» — a maximum for what the federal tariff does not cover, not a permit price.

Obwalden writes that a settlement permit is gebührenfrei — free. ⚠ At communal level only, in a residents’-register text dating from 1994. That is not the migration office’s tariff, and we do not present it as such.

What reading the twenty-six actually showed

Three things a table of ceilings would never have given:

1. The ceiling is not a price. Glarus charges 75 where the Confederation allows 95. Zurich and Valais grant third-country children a rate federal law does not provide for.
2. The real cantonal spread is not where you look for it. On the permit side, everyone is squeezed between 65 and 95. On the labour-market decision, the range runs from 200 to 800.
3. Six cantons allow the fee to be reduced or waived where the economic situation justifies it: Vaud, Appenzell Outer Rhodes, Valais, Ticino, Jura and Neuchâtel. It is written in their texts, it has to be asked for — and nobody tells the people concerned.

8. The second fee, the one you do not pay

This is the half of the story nobody tells, and it decides far more hires than the first.

Article 8 of the federal tariff caps what is charged for the permit. It says nothing about the labour-market decision — the examination verifying that no priority candidate was available. Article 9 leaves that tariff to the canton, and the cantons do not hold back.

From 200 to 800 francs: a ratio of four. This is where the cantonal comparison is alive, far more than on the permit side where the federal ceiling squeezes everyone together.

⚠ You are not the one paying this, and adding it to a family’s budget would be a mistake. But concealing it would be another: it is what your hiring costs the person hiring you, and it explains an employer’s hesitation better than any generality about «administrative complexity».

• Fribourg charges 800 francs for a third-country national and 400 for a European. The same asymmetry as on the permit side, on the recruiter’s side.
• Basel-Landschaft charges the fee even if the application is refused, or withdrawn after the labour-market examination. An employer who backs out pays anyway.
• Geneva asks only 50 francs for the first employment or change of job of an asylum seeker or a person in need of protection. The canton prices low what others do not price at all — a real lever for those groups.

⚠ One exception worth remembering: in Ticino you pay too. The 250-franc fee per decision is not a labour-market fee but a decision fee, and cantonal law makes the foreign national liable for it «jointly and severally» with the employer. The rule «you are not the one paying» applies to the second fee, not to every cantonal charge.

9. What we do not yet know

An article that does not state its limits is not a serious article.

• Is the biometric card re-charged at every extension? No text read says so. Our totals count it once: if we are wrong, it is on the low side.
• Must settlement-agreement states meet the same integration conditions? The SEM writes «provided the conditions for granting are met» without listing them. We will not decide in its place.
• The renewal rhythm of the Luxembourg «family member» permit is not published.
• Three reading reservations remain: Schwyz is bounded but not measured; Uri and Obwalden yielded no cantonal residence tariff; Ticino does not say whether a family counts as one decision or five.
• Disbursements are in none of the totals. Sworn translations, legalisations, apostilles: they are added on, and they weigh heavily on a family whose documents are neither German, French nor Italian.

10. What this changes for you

• You are a third-country national aiming for Switzerland. The fee is not your main problem: the calendar is. Five years against ten turns on an oral B1. Start the language course in your year of arrival, not in the fifth.
• You are European but from a state without a settlement agreement. Check the list in section 4 before counting on a C permit at five years. The B1 concerns you as much as a third-country national.
• You are hesitating between Switzerland and Luxembourg. On permanence of residence, Luxembourg is shorter for a third-country national: five years, with no published language condition for access to the status. On the first permit it is more restrictive: one year, one occupation, one sector.
• You hold an F, S or Ci permit. You have the right to work. It is not an authorisation to request but a notification to make — by your employer, not by you.
• Your economic situation is difficult. Six cantons allow the fee to be reduced or waived: Vaud, Appenzell Outer Rhodes, Valais, Ticino, Jura and Neuchâtel. It does not happen by itself: it has to be asked for.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

• FNIA (SR 142.20) — art. 33 to 35: residence permit, settlement permit, cross-border commuter permit (accessed on 29/08/2026)
• OASA (SR 142.201) — art. 58 (validity), 60 and 62 (language requirements for the settlement permit) (accessed on 29/08/2026)
• Fees Ordinance FNIA (SR 142.209) — art. 8, maximum cantonal fees (as at 11.06.2024) (accessed on 29/08/2026)
• AFMP (SR 0.142.112.681) — annex I, art. 2(3) (free of charge or at the price of a national ID card) and art. 6(1) (five-year permit) (accessed on 29/08/2026)
• SEM — C permit EU/EFTA: list of states bound by a settlement agreement (last modified 01.03.2021) (accessed on 29/08/2026)
• SEM — Permits L, B, C, Ci, G, F, N, S: the right to work attached to each (accessed on 29/08/2026)
• Guichet.lu — Residing in Luxembourg as a third-country salaried worker (ADEM procedure, 80-euro fee) (accessed on 29/08/2026)
• Guichet.lu — Residing and working more than 90 days as an EU citizen (registration declaration) (accessed on 29/08/2026)
• Vaud — Regulation on fees in matters of immigration police and asylum, of 14 August 2024 (BLV 142.11.1) (accessed on 29/08/2026)
• LexFind — systematic collections of the 26 cantons: fee ordinances read one by one on 29.08.2026 (accessed on 29/08/2026)

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