Switzerland · Residence

Counting your ten years: what counts, what counts double and what breaks it

Ten years in Switzerland, three of them in the last five before you apply, and a C permit on the day you apply. The detail is in how the years are counted.

10 years3 in the last 58 to 18 counts double

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The rule, word for word in substance

You must hold a settlement permit, the C permit, when you apply (BüG article 9).
You must have lived in Switzerland for ten years in total, three of them in the five years before you apply.
Years you lived here between your 8th and 18th birthday count double, but you must have actually lived here for at least six years.
Time with a B or C permit, an FDFA legitimation card or a Ci permit counts in full. Time with an F permit (provisional admission) counts at half (BüG article 33).
Time as an asylum seeker (N permit) or on a short-stay L permit does not count, SEM says.
Your canton adds its own requirement: two to five years in the canton, and often a period in the commune (BüG article 18).

Time abroad

A short trip abroad with the intention of coming back does not interrupt your residence. But you count as having given up your residence in Switzerland if you deregister, or if you actually live abroad for more than six months (BüG article 33), and the time after that does not count toward the ten years.

One exception: a stay abroad of up to one year for your employer, or for education or further training, still counts as a short absence (BüV article 16). Belong Switzerland cannot tell a work or study stay from any other, so the Standing card measures every stay against six months and names the exception.

Your permit abroad

Separately from naturalisation, deregistering ends a B or C permit at once, and without deregistering it lapses after six months abroad. Short visits back do not restart the six months. A C permit can be kept for up to four years abroad if you ask before the six months are up (AIG article 61, VZAE article 79).

Questions people ask

I arrived as a child. How do I count?

Each year between your 8th and 18th birthday counts twice, so fewer calendar years can make up the ten. You still need six years actually lived here. Belong Switzerland counts from the residence date you give and does not know your age, so work this out with your canton if it applies to you.

Does moving to another canton reset the ten years?

No, the ten years are years in Switzerland. What can start again is the two to five years your new canton asks, and any communal period.

There are 418 practice questions in the app.

418 questions on geography, history, politics and society, drilled area by area in the order the Citizenship Ordinance sets them, with a mistakes deck and spaced repetition. There is no mock test, because there is no national paper to copy.

Written by Belong Switzerland around the four areas of BüV article 2. They are not any canton’s official questions, and the questions on your canton and your commune are not ours to write.