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The best ETF Portfolio for Switzerland in 2026

Baptiste Wicht | Updated: |
Best-ETF-Portfolio-for-Switzerland

(Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links)

Before investing in the stock market, you must choose a portfolio. In Switzerland, you will likely invest in index funds via Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). For this, you must decide on a good ETF portfolio for a Swiss investor.

Choosing a good portfolio is an important decision. You must invest in a portfolio with low fees, high diversification, and good returns. And you should be careful about keeping it simple!

While there are many examples of ETF portfolios for the United States, there are few examples for Switzerland. So, it is not trivial to choose one.

In this article, we review the details of choosing an ETF portfolio for Switzerland. And at the end of the article, I give you an example of what I think is the best ETF portfolio for Switzerland.

Choosing an ETF Portfolio for Switzerland

Choosing an ETF portfolio is an essential step when investing in the stock market. You should keep the same portfolio for a very long time. So, you need to choose carefully.

If you live in the United States, you will have seen tons of examples of ETF portfolios. But if you live in Switzerland, you probably have not seen that many of them.

And if you live in Switzerland or Europe, you cannot blindly follow a portfolio from another country. We cannot compare Switzerland with the United States. Our stock market is 20 times smaller. And in some other countries, it is even smaller than that. So we cannot invest in the same way.

For me, the best ETF portfolio for Switzerland has two essential parts:

  1. An ETF representing the entire world stock market. Or it holds two ETFs, one for the developed world and one for the emerging markets, but not more than two.
  2. An ETF representing the domestic Swiss stock market. This part of your portfolio is called your home bias.

With these two parts, you can have a very diversified yet simple portfolio. This portfolio is what I am investing in and what I recommend people to invest in.

We will see a few things in detail before I review the ETFs that form the best ETF portfolios for Switzerland.

Home Bias

A good ETF portfolio for Switzerland should have some domestic stocks. This allocation will be your home bias.

The main reason for this is related to currency. Since the Swiss franc is a stable currency, other currencies tend to depreciate against the Swiss franc. If your entire portfolio is in USD, you may lose much value. So having an ETF in your local currency will help you.

Of course, you could hold only Swiss stocks in Swiss francs, and you will not have this issue. But having only Swiss stocks is not a great idea. A lot of Swiss companies are exporting to other countries. It means their performance is subject to currency exchanges.

The Swiss stock market is tiny, about 2.5% of the world’s stock market. So do you want to bet your entire portfolio on 2.5% of the world?

Finally, the Swiss stock market has had lower performance than the world stock market historically. So if you only invest in Swiss stocks, you will need a larger portfolio to sustain your expenses.

Another way of reducing the currency risk is to use ETFs that are hedged to CHF. But currency hedging is expensive and is generally not the best tool for long-term investing.

So, how much should you allocate to your home bias?

Between 20% and 40% should be allocated to a Swiss stocks ETF. 10% is probably OK, but anything below 10% will not make enough of a difference to bother with it. 50% is also probably okay, but you are making a large bet on the Swiss stock market with such a large allocation. It is why between 20% and 40% is a reasonable allocation.

In my ETF portfolio for Switzerland, I have 20% of Swiss stocks. Currently, I am pretty satisfied with this. I may consider bumping it to 25%, but no further.

I have done simulations of early retirement in Switzerland with Swiss Stocks. If you look at the results, this will also confirm the 20% to 40% bias.

For more information, I have an article about whether you should have a home bias in your portfolio.

What about bonds?

Swiss bonds have been in negative territory for several years in the past. However, as of 2023, Swiss bonds are once again interesting. It remains to be seen for how long, but it now makes sense to invest in bonds again.

Not everybody needs bonds in their portfolios. Indeed, this depends on your risk capacity. Personally, I do not own bonds. My portfolio is 100% stocks. But this does not mean it is a good portfolio for everybody. It is a good portfolio for me, with my risk capacity.

Using your risk capacity, you can choose your asset allocation. An asset allocation is the percentage of each asset in your portfolio. In our current, this will be the percentage of bonds and stocks.

Bonds are great for reducing volatility in your portfolio. They are especially useful in the early years of retirement when risks are higher for your portfolio.

What about foreign bonds?

Some people try to invest in foreign bonds instead. But doing so is not a good idea. I made this mistake myself. The problem with international bonds is that they will incur an additional currency risk to your portfolio.

When you invest in bonds, you want the bonds to lower the volatility of your portfolio. You want your bonds to help you when the stock market is not doing well. But if you add currency risk on top of that, you will not achieve this goal.

So, investing in foreign bonds is a lousy alternative to Swiss bonds for an ETF portfolio for Switzerland.

Alternatives to Swiss Bonds

If you do not want bonds but want to reduce volatility, there are several solutions to emulate bonds:

  1. Allocate some of your Swiss portfolio to cash. Currently, cash is better than bonds. Of course, it is not great since it is still losing value due to inflation. But it still beats losing money with Swiss bonds.
  2. Invest in your second pillar. Most second pillar accounts offer around a 1% interest rate. And you will have some tax advantages as well. For me, this is the best alternative to Swiss bonds.
  3. Invest in gold. Gold has better returns than the second pillar and the Swiss bond market. And there are some excellent gold ETFs. So you can directly invest in gold in your ETF portfolio. But gold is not risk-free and can be quite volatile at times.

Of these three options, I prefer investing in my second pillar. But the second pillar has three limitations. First, it is limited because you cannot invest a limitless amount. Secondly, you will not be able to get the money before you retire. Therefore, it is not ideal for early retirement. Also, you can only get tax advantages if you have not withdrawn from the second pillar. And without tax advantages, the second pillar is not great.

So, I would recommend starting with your second pillar. And then, you can allocate some part of your ETF portfolio for Switzerland into gold. Or you can bump up a little your cash allocation until you feel at ease.

How to choose ETFs

For each position in your portfolio, there will be several choices for you. There are many ETFs for each stock market index. So, how can you choose between these ETFs?

There are several things you need to look at:

  • The Total Expense Ratio (TER) of the fund is how much in fees you will pay each year.
  • The domicile of the fund is the country from which the ETF comes from.
  • The size of the fund. You generally want large funds for smaller spreads and higher liquidity. But do not pay too much attention to the detail. A fund managing two billion dollars is not better than a fund managing a single billion. On the other hand, a fund managing 10 million is less attractive than one managing 200 million.
  • The way the ETF is replicating the index. You only want to invest in funds with Physical Replication.
  • The way the ETF is handling dividends. A fund can either distribute or accumulate dividends. In Switzerland, you will pay the same taxes for both, mostly a matter of preference. I prefer distributing funds to get the cash once I need it in retirement. And this cash will also help me with rebalancing.

One excellent resource to find and compare ETFs is justetf.com. They have an extensive list of ETFs, and you can compare the information on different ETFs in a very convenient way.

For more detail about this process, I have an article about choosing and comparing ETFs.

The Best ETF Portfolio for Switzerland

Now, we have covered the most important aspects of designing an ETF portfolio. Thus, we can finally go over the details of the ETFs.

Now, remember that this is only an example, which only reflects my way of investing. Therefore, this portfolio may not be the best ETF portfolio for Switzerland for everybody. And remember that I am not a personal advisor and that you should still do your research and not merely copy what I am doing.

Here is what I consider to be the best ETF portfolio for Switzerland:

  • 80% World ETF
  • 20% Swiss Stocks ETF

This portfolio is extremely simple and highly diversified. As I said, the percentages can vary. Between 20% and 40% allocated to Swiss stocks is a good range. So you could go 25/75 or 60/40, for instance. Anything between 20% and 40% would be fine. Adding more Swiss stocks will reduce your currency risk but reduce your returns.

Now, we can look into the ETFs. Which one you use will depend on whether you can access US ETFs. Then, we will see how to add bonds to the mix.

ETF Portfolio with U.S. ETFs

If you have access to U.S. ETFs, for instance, with Interactive Brokers, I recommend the following ETFs:

  • Vanguard Total World (VT) for the World ETF with a TER of 0.07%
  • iShares Core SPI (CHSPI) for the Swiss Stocks ETF with a TER of 0.10%

With this portfolio, you will have very low fees and high diversification. You also have the advantage of saving 15% of the U.S. dividends on VT. Saving on dividends will make a significant difference compared to the other portfolio. It is some extra optimization that you can do to your portfolio. But in the grand scheme of things, it will not change everything.

As an example, my allocation of 20% to Swiss stocks would give this ETF portfolio for Switzerland:

  • 80% Vanguard Total World (VT)
  • 20% iShares Core SPI (CHSPI)

This portfolio is the current portfolio I am investing in.

If you wonder why I talk about U.S. ETFs, here is why U.S. ETFs are great.

ETF Portfolio without U.S. ETFs

If you do not have access to U.S. ETFs, I recommend the following ETFs:

  • Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF Distributing (VWRL) with a TER of 0.22%
  • iShares Core SPI (CHSPI) for the Swiss Stocks ETF with a TER of 0.10%

With my allocation of 20% Swiss stocks, this would give:

  • 80% VWRL
  • 20% CHSPI

This portfolio would be the one I would be using if I were not investing in U.S. ETFs. If you want to be cheaper, you can choose one ETF for the developed world and one ETF for the emerging markets. That way, you can save a little on TER. But I prefer to have only two ETFs, even if the fees are slightly more expensive.

This portfolio has two disadvantages over the one with U.S. ETFs:

  • The TER is about twice as expensive.
  • You will lose 15% of the U.S. dividends because you will not profit from the double-taxation tax treaty since the funds are not in the United States. This difference is more significant than the first one. But this difference is often ignored by many investors.

If you want to save a little money, you can switch to the MSCI World Index. This index does not cover the emerging countries, so it is less diversified. But you can find some cheaper ETFs. For instance, you have the UBS ETF MSCI World UCITS ETF (USD) A-dis ETF, which only costs 0.10% per year, but is quite small at about 400 million CHF. Or if you prefer an accumulating version, you can get its sibling, the UBS ETF MSCI World UCITS ETF (USD) A-acc ETF, which has the same TER of 0.10% but a size of about 1.4 billion CHF, which is more reasonable.

If you can, you should probably invest in U.S. ETFs. Nevertheless, I want to emphasize something that many elitists will not tell you: Investing in a good portfolio is much more important than investing in the perfect portfolio!

If your broker does not provide you with access to U.S. ETFs and you do not want to change, then invest with European ETFs!

ETF Portfolio with bonds

Now, what is the best ETF portfolio with bonds for a Swiss investor?

We can take an example with a reasonable 20% bond allocation. This is a common bond allocation that does not decrease your portfolio returns too much and still reduces volatility.

There are two ways to integrate your bonds into your portfolio regarding your home bias (if you have any).

First, you could replace your home bias with the bonds part. Indeed, a Swiss bonds ETF would play a similar role to your home bias. In this case, you can opt for a portfolio with:

  • 80% World ETF
  • 20% Swiss Bonds ETF

If you want to combine home bias in stocks and Swiss bonds, you have to be careful about not having too much in Swiss stocks and bonds. So, you can either go 20% Swiss stocks, 20% Swiss bonds, and 60% world stocks. If 40% allocated to Switzerland is too much for you, you could also opt for 10% Swiss stocks, 20% Swiss bonds, or 70% world stocks.

Finally, I recommend iShares Swiss Domestic Government Bond 7-15 (CSBGC0) ETF. It has a 0.15% TER, manages about 250M CHF, and has been around for 20 years.

So, with US ETFs, this would give us this portfolio:

  • 80% Vanguard Total World (VT)
  • 20% iShares Swiss Domestic Government Bond 7-15 (CSBGC0)

And if you want to integrate a home bias ETF, you can bring back CHSPI into the mix to craft your perfect portfolio.

Conclusion

You should now have a good idea of what ETFs you need as a Swiss investor. You can now decide on your ETF portfolio for Switzerland.

The ETF portfolios from this article are just examples of what I recommend. Of course, this portfolio may not be the best ETF portfolio for everybody. But you should now know enough so that you can do your research and decide for yourself in which ETF portfolio you want to invest.

And remember: investing in a good portfolio is more important than investing in the best portfolio. If you take years to decide on the best portfolio and delay investing, you lose out on some opportunities. It is better to get started with a good portfolio, and you can refine it over the years.

Of course, you must have a broker account to invest in your ETF portfolio. If you do not yet have a broker, here is a guide on choosing the best broker account for Switzerland.

If you want more control over your portfolio, I have a guide on creating an ETF portfolio from scratch.

What do you think of this ETF portfolio for Switzerland? What does your portfolio look like?

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Baptiste Wicht started The Poor Swiss in 2017. He realized he was falling into the trap of lifestyle inflation. He decided to cut his expenses and increase his income. Since 2019, he has been saving more than 50% of his income every year. He made it a goal to reach Financial Independence and help Swiss people with their finances.
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514 thoughts on “The best ETF Portfolio for Switzerland in 2026”

  1. Hi Baptiste

    Your blog is super helpful! Thanks a lot.

    I have one question though: You invest mainly in VT and I invested a big chunk of my capital in this ETF too. However to me it doesn’t feel right to buy only ETFs from a single provider.
    What happens if Vanguard goes bankrupt? I understand that the money in fonds won’t be used to service the company’s debts, but:
    – Could it happen that VT won’t be traded for an extended period and hence I can’t sell my shares in VT if needed? Or even worse never traded again, no idea what I would need to do in this case …
    – Could it happen that VT is liquidated and the money in the funds gets paid out? That could be problematic if the market is in a low, right? (Or at least I would be in a rush to reinvest in a different ETF.)

    If I would want to invest in a second ETF with a similar profile as VT (very low TER, total world, small and big, US-based, etc.) from a different issuer than Vanguard what would be your recommendation?

    Cheers!

    1. Hi Faber

      It’s a fair question. Vanguard itself manages trillions of dollars, so the likelihood of going bankrupt is very little. All assets from Vanguard customers are held entirely separate (segregation) from their own assets. In the event of a bankruptcy, another asset manager would step in and start managing those funds.
      It is entirely possible that the trading is halted during the bankruptcy proceedings (not an expert there). But it will not be halted forever and I don’t see these funds liquidated.

      But honestly, you have to consider the bigger picture: If Vanguard was to bankrupt, we are looking at really bad turn of event. And in this case, we are looking at some major even that is 1) unlikely and 2) significant enough that we may not care that much about our stocks.

      But if you want to diversify, why not blackrock ETFs?

      1. In addition to Vanguard and BlackRock, I would also like to speak out in favour of UBS, which has been offering its ETFs at significantly lower prices for the past year than before.

      2. Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts and recommendations.

        To me it looks like neither BlackRock nor UBS offer an ETF that can compete with VT, either they don’t include emerging markets or they are too expensive. For example iShares MSCI ACWI ETF (ACWI) is broad but has a TER of 0.32 and UBS ETF (IE) MSCI World UCITS ETF is cheap (TER 0.1) but includes only developed markets.

        I was also thinking about investing in an UBS EFT since they are quite cheap and UBS has a de facto government guarantee. On the other hand UBS uses Ireland as the domicile of their ETFs which is according to Baptiste less desirable for tax reasons than ETFs from the US, is that correct?

      3. I think you’re well advised to go with the VT. In terms of both tax and costs.

        Nevertheless, since last year there has also been the Invesco FTSE All-World UCITS ETF, which is basically a counterpart to the Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF. Both can be bought on European stock exchanges. Basically the little brother of the VT ETF.

      4. Yes, that’s another good one. Just keep in mind the advantage in tax efficiency of US ETFs.

  2. thank you ver everything. I have IB based in the UK but I haven’t yet invested in it.

    Question 1: What do you think about this portfolio allocation? VTI 50%, VWO 10%, VEA 20%, CHSPI 20%

    At the same time I have a 200K portfolio with Postfinance (mostly Nestle, UBS, Swiss Re, Roche).

    Question 2: can or should I move this to the IB Broker account?
    Question 3: Should I buy CHSPI rather with Postfinance (Swiss based or doesn’t it make a difference)?
    Question 4: same for Swiss stocks – can I buy them also with IB?

    Any tax considerations to have in this regard?

    1. Hi Ronald,

      1) Your portfolio seems alright. But why not using VT instead of using three funds that do basically the same and will be more tedious to rebalance?
      2) You could transfer your shares, but this may be costly with PostFinance. You could keep both for safety. PostFinance is not very expensive to hold (90 CHF I think). So you could keep your Swiss stocks there and start investing in your US ETFs with IB. It’s really up to you.
      3) I personally prefer CHSPI over using multiple stocks, but again, that’s up to you. CHSPI will be more diversified but still heavily weighted in the usual giants of the Swiss stock market. The only difference with IB is that you can save on the stamp duty.
      4) Yes, you can buy Swiss stocks and ETFs with IB.
      5) Tax-wise, it’s the same between a US broker and a Swiss broker.

      1. I assume that Ronald wants to limit the US share to 50% and that is why he does not invest in VT. That is my reason why I invest in VTI and VXUS, to be able to keep the balance better. But maybe that is just self-deception and I am losing performance because the USA is performing so well.

      2. Thank you Baptiste and Yes Hans-Peter is right that was the thought.. but maybe I am wrong. I think that in the US everything is overvalued.. but I have been thinking this since 10 years and just keeping money on my savings account…

        Please allow me another beginner question – I have been reading through your websites and comments. So as Swiss citizen with an UK based IB broker account you recommend buying US ETF for tax reason (the 15% withholding thing).

        Question 1: Sorry for my dummy question but what is an “US ETF” -an ETF that is legally based in USA or an ETF that invests in US stocks? It other words, does the 15% advantage apply to my total amount invested in VT or just the US stock part in it?

        Question 2: related to this : is for instance CHSPI also a “US ETF” as it is based in the US? So I have an advantage if I buy CHSPI on IBUK vs in Ireland? I guess no advantage if I buy it via Postfinance.

        Question 3: Are VTI, VWO, VEA based in the US as well – are there similar tax considerations to be made?

        I am aware that this is maybe very basic stuff, sorry….

      3. Your logic does make sense but your portfolio does not achieve this. But if you have only 80% world in your portfolio. So you are not underweighting US, you have exactly the same proportion to US stocks if you were holding 80% VT and 20% CH. VT is currently 63% US, so 80% * 60% = 50%.
        If you want to underweight US, you will need to reduce it significantly more.

        1) Yes, a US ETF is a ETF whose domicile is in the US. And the advantage is mostly for dividends coming from US stocks.
        2) CHSPI is not based in the US. It’s based in Switzerland. You should not look at the provider only, but really at the domicile of the funds. There is no tax-advantage of choosing a broker for a given ETF.
        3) Yes, they are.
        3)

      4. You are absolutely right, Baptiste. And yet I am emotionally tempted to diversify even more, even though I am already sufficiently diversified. I have studied the changes in your portfolio since 1998 and everyone has to go through this learning curve somehow. Now I see that you have even increased VT to 85% (previously 80%) because you are also including the second pillar in your considerations. Smart.

  3. Hi Baptiste,

    Thank you very much for the great info! Could you elaborate on the tax disadvantages regarding VWRL? To my understanding, Ireland ETFs do not have withholding tax for dividends. Wouldn’t it then be the same tax for Swiss residents when filling up the tax declaration (only swiss tax)?

    1. Hi Alan

      The disadvantage is for US dividends. The IRS will tax 15% of these dividends to the fund, so you will only see 85% of the dividends. And since the withholding was paid by the fund and not you, you cannot claim it back. But if you use a US ETF directly, you are paying the withholding and can get it back.

  4. Thanks for the insights Baptiste.
    I have recently signed up to Saxo invest following your positive review and comparison to IB. It has a good interface, which I like. As it has access to U.S ETFs I was wondering, other than your recommended Vanguard Total World and iShares Core SPI (CH).. Are there others you also see as potential and more variety? Such as Berkshire Hathaway ETF or Vanguard FTSE? Or in Bonds?
    Apparently, and from reading here the time to go for Bonds is now. Cheers again.

      1. Sorry, I must have missed your early comment. No real suggestions, I still use VT + CHSPI. I have used VOO as well in the past, which is a great ETF.

  5. Hi Baptiste

    I am very confused currently. I have been investing in ETFs one way or another since 2017 but I have never come across this: For a few months I have held UBS ETF CH SPI-A, called “Swiss Performance Index” on Neon. A few days ago, they paid out dividends, which is very clear to me, but on the same day also “Kapitalgewinn” which was like 1/10 of the dividend sum. On the dividend, the 35% withholding tax was calculated, on the “Kapitalgewinn”, no taxes. Now I’m confused, because how can I get capital gains without selling?

    I have tried googling it but all I get for “Kapitalgewinn ETFs” is just the scenario of selling ETFs and what that means for taxes in different countries. Neon is not helpful at all, replying to my question where the difference between those two payouts it with “We don’t provide financial advise or education”.

    1. Hi Someone,

      Yes, this is a special Swiss rule. Normal dividends are withhold as you expect. But if a company has capital contribution reserves, they can distribute dividends from these reserves. In this case, there is no withholding. This is quite complex, but this is not capital gains per se, but some sort of tax-free dividend.
      You can read this article for more information: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c18aa2d4-dc1b-4d51-80df-8ae58361eeac

      1. Okay, I did not really understand a word in that article except apparently there are two kinds of dividends on the Swiss market?
        Do you know if the one without withholding tax still counts as income in the tax declaration?

      2. They are really dividends, but they are a form of distributions (very similar to dividends).
        These distributions are not subject to income tax.

        I do not fully understand the details, either.

  6. Hello Baptiste,

    I am purchasing a small ETF amount every month for my just born son. VUSD denominated in EUR. We are talking about 200EUR per month. But IBKR fees amount to 3EUR per transaction. do you think I should invest less frequently? or there are ETFs with lower fees?

    1. Hi Leonardo

      What about investing in a US ETF? That way, you will pay only around 0.35%.
      3 EUR on 200 EUR is indeed not cheap for a EUR ETF, maybe wait two months?

  7. Hi,

    Great post. I was wondering if I should open my IBKR account in USD or EUR if my plan is to 100% accumulating Irish ETFs (VWRA or VWCE depending).

    Cheers!

    1. Hi Joel,

      It does not matter much. The base currency is only here to choose what your user interface will look like. Regardless of your base currency, you will be able to invest in everything. My base currency is CHF but I invest mostly in USD.
      I recommend the base currency to be your domicile currency.

  8. Hi,

    I have a quick question about taxes when investing in UK stocks. If I invest directly in UK companies or through an ETF, is there a tax deduction on dividends being a Swiss resident?

    Thanks!

    1. Hi Sam,

      I am not an expert on UK stocks. From a quick search (to be taken with a grain of salt), it looks like there is no dividend withholding that would be applied in your case.

  9. Hi Baptiste,

    Thanks a lot for this detailed and clear overview!

    Following your recommendation on VT: I was curious about the specific reasons you recommend VT for Swiss investors. For example, iShares MSCI ACWI UCITS ETF USD also seemed to me like a good alternative to VT, since its performance is higher than VT’s, compensating for its higher TER. Could you elaborate on the key differences between these two options, particularly why you might recommend VT despite a potentially slightly higher historical return with ACWI?

    Thanks in advance!

  10. Hi Baptiste,

    Thank you for the great content!
    Could you recommend some website similar to justETF where we can compare US ETFs?
    Many thanks, Sasha

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