3a buybacks are now possible: All you need to know

3a Buybacks

Starting from January 2025, we can now contribute to past years when we have not yet contributed to. This is something that had been discussed for multiple years, but was finally put in motion in November 2024 and takes effect in January 2025. Therefore, as of January 2025, 3a buybacks are possible.

The system is relatively simple but also fairly limited.

First, you can contribute back for any of the last ten years. After ten years, you lose the possibility to buy back a missed year. Furthermore, the year you are filling must be a year when you would be eligible for a third pillar. You cannot contribute back to years when you would not have worked, for instance.

Then, you can only do a buyback if you have fully contributed for the current year. For instance, in 2026, if you have not yet filled your 3a, you cannot contribute back to the 2025 gap. So, the ordinary contribution always takes precedence.

One major limitation is that you can only buy back up to the maximum 3a contribution of the current year. For instance, in 2025, you have not contributed at all and the same in 2026. You are therefore missing 14516 CHF (two times 7258 CHF, twice the contribution maximum for 2025/2026). In 2027, if you want to fill the gap, you will only be able to contribute up to the maximum of 2027 (for instance 7400 CHF). So, if you accumulate large gaps, you will need to fill them over multiple years.

However, you can buy back multiple years at once. So, if you have some small gaps in your 3a years, you could fill up to nine years together. But again, this is limited to the maximum 3a contribution of the buyback year.

You can only contribute back once to fill the gap of a given missed year. For instance, if in 2025, you have a gap of 2000 CHF, you cannot choose to fill that gap with 1000 CHF in 2026 and 1000 CHF in 2027. You have to contribute only once. You can do a partial contribution, but then the gap will be lost.

As soon as you receive a retirement pension, you lose the right to do 3a buybacks. Furthermore, if you withdraw one of the 3a (possible from age 60), you also lose the right to 3a buybacks. So, you need to make sure that you do your 3a buybacks early enough.

The biggest limitation is probably that this system does not work retroactively. The first year you will be able to contribute to is 2025, not earlier. It means that for most people already filling their 3a now, this new system offers limited changes.

If you want all the details and read the changes to the law, you can read this information from the federal government. It contains a summary of the change and the links to the law articles that were modified.

How to do a 3a buyback?

Buybacks in the third pillar will need to be done in writing. You will need to ask for the right to do a buyback and give the following information:

• The total amount of the buyback.
• The years you want to contribute to and the amount for each year.

Moreover, you will also have to confirm (apparently, no need to send documents, only assert that it is valid):

1. That you have the right to a 3a contribution to each of the years you would like to contribute to.
2. That you already contributed the maximum for the current year.
3. That you have not yet done a buyback for these years.
4. That you are not yet receiving any retirement benefits.

Once all of this is validated, the 3a foundation will authorize you for the buyback. After this, you will be able to do the extra contribution to your 3a. And of course, you will need to provide the document to the tax office when you do your tax declaration so that you will get a large tax deductions.

I think we can expect that some 3a providers will simplify the process to avoid being done in writing. I can see some of the digital 3a providers making it easier to do through their apps. But we will have to wait and see.

I have spoken with Finpension 3a (my review) and they confirmed that they will implement a digital process for this system. This digital process will likely be live in early 2026.

What happens when you change 3a provider?

The main reason for this system to not be retroactive is that 3a providers must now keep track of 3a buybacks and gaps. And this record must be transferred from one 3a provider to the other when changing 3a providers.

This will make 3a transfer a bit more complex, since before you only had to give the account of a another 3a foundation and the transfer would be made directly. Now, the two 3a foundations will have to exchange information. We do not yet know if this means that the transfer between different providers will be different for investors or not.

Can you time contributions?

Some people will realize that this system can be used to time contributions as an optimization.

If you know that you will have a significantly higher income the following year, you could skip the 3a contribution this year and then do a double contribution the following year to profit from a higher marginal tax rate. And the same is true if you already have very high deductions (due to house renovations for instance) in a year, you could delay your 3a contribution to a year with lower deductions.

However, you need to be cautious doing that. First, by delaying it, you risk forgetting to pay it back and you would have lost money. And additionally, you need a very significant change in marginal tax rate between the years to make that worth it. Indeed, by doing so, you are losing out on investing extra money in the first year that would compound until your next contribution. And finally, since you can only double the 3a contribution in a given year (one ordinary and one full buyback), the benefits will be really limited.

This is likely only interesting with a few years between the two periods. Because, if you have too many years in between, you would have lost too much, on average, to compounding.

For me, this is pushing the system too much for too little benefits. If you do not do it right, you will have lost money, and you will have wasted time as well.

Conclusion

Overall, these new 3a buybacks are interesting and may allow some people to fill the gap in their 3a. But it is also very limited in its application to most people.

For instance, this will change nothing in our case because we are already filling up our 3a. We had some missed years in the last ten years, but since the system is not retroactive, it does not help us.

Moreover, the system for 3a buybacks is also quite complex and requires a lot of accounting for 3a providers.

While you could use this system to time your contributions to optimize a little, we do not plan to do anything like that and simply plan to continue filling up our third pillar accounts each year.

What about you? What do you think about this new system?