Probation, notice period and vacation in a Swiss job

Check your contract first

Most of the rules below are defaults. The law gives each one a starting value and lets the contract change it, sometimes only in writing and sometimes only up to a limit. So the first document to open is your contract, then any collective agreement (Gesamtarbeitsvertrag, GAV) or standard employment contract (Normalarbeitsvertrag, NAV) that applies to your job.

If you started without a full contract, you are still owed something in writing. For open-ended jobs and jobs longer than a month, the employer has to tell you in writing, within a month of the start, who the parties are, the start date, your role, your pay and any extra pay, and your weekly working time (Art. 330b(1) OR). Later changes to those points have to be confirmed in writing within a month of taking effect.

Probation: the first month

Probation (Probezeit) is the first month of a job. During it, either side can end the contract at any time with seven days' notice (Art. 335b(1) and (2) OR). A written agreement, a standard employment contract or a collective agreement can set something different, but probation can't be longer than three months. A contract that says three months is allowed. A longer period is not.

If probation is actually cut short by illness, an accident or a legal duty you did not take on voluntarily, it is extended by the same amount (Art. 335b(3)). Two things change once probation is over: the notice period gets longer, and the protected periods in the next sections start to apply.

Notice period after probation

After probation, the default notice period depends on how many years you have worked for the employer (Art. 335c(1) OR). It applies to you and to the employer, and it always ends on the last day of a month.

The contract can change these periods in writing, and so can a standard employment contract or a collective agreement. One month is the floor. Only a collective agreement can go lower, and only for the first year (Art. 335c(2)).

Here is an example with dates. You started on 15 March 2024 and you give notice on 2 November 2026. You are in your third year of service, so two months apply. Two months from 2 November runs to 2 January, and the job has to end on a month end, so it ends on 31 January 2027. If you had given notice by 31 October, it would have ended on 31 December.

If your notice falls close to the anniversary of your start date, ask which period applies. I did not check how courts count the year of service in that case.

The Code does not prescribe a form for notice. Article 335 says that either side can end an open-ended contract and that the person who gave notice has to explain it in writing if the other side asks (Art. 335 OR). Many contracts require written notice, so send it in writing and keep proof that it arrived.

When a dismissal is void

After probation, the employer can't give notice during certain periods. A notice given inside one of them is void (nichtig). The main periods in Art. 336c OR are:

• compulsory military, civil protection or civil service, plus four weeks before and after if the service lasts more than 11 days;
• illness or an accident that stops you from working fully or partly, through no fault of your own: 30 days in the first year of service, 90 days from the second to the fifth year and 180 days from the sixth year;
• pregnancy and the 16 weeks after the birth.

The article also lists further periods tied to maternity, parental and care leave, so read Art. 336c(1) for the full list. If notice was given before a protected period began and the notice period had not run out, the clock stops and continues after the protected period ends (Art. 336c(2)). If the new end date is not a month end, it moves to the next month end (Art. 336c(3)).

These limits bind the employer. They do not stop you from resigning while you are ill.

Dismissal without notice

Either side can end a job immediately only for an important reason (Art. 337 OR). That means a circumstance that makes it unreasonable to carry on under good faith. A judge decides, and being unable to work through no fault of your own can never count as such a reason. The other side can ask for the reasons in writing.

Vacation

For each year of service you are entitled to at least four weeks of vacation, and to at least five weeks if you are up to 20 years old (Art. 329a OR). For an incomplete year the vacation is pro rata.

Your employer pays your full wage for the vacation (Art. 329d OR). While you work there, vacation can't be replaced by money or other benefits. If you work for a third party during vacation and that harms the employer's legitimate interests, the employer can refuse vacation pay or ask for it back.

Absences can reduce vacation only in narrow cases (Art. 329b OR). The employer can cut vacation by one twelfth for each full month you were unable to work through your own fault, but only if that totals more than one month in the year of service. If the absence is one month or less and caused without your fault, for example by illness, an accident or a legal duty, no cut is allowed. The same applies to up to two months of absence because of pregnancy and to maternity leave.

Public holidays are not part of these articles and I did not cover them.

Overtime, bonuses and the 13th month

If more work than agreed is necessary, you have to do it as far as you can and as far as it is reasonable in good faith (Art. 321c OR). With your agreement the employer can make it up with time off of at least the same length within a reasonable period. If it is made up neither with time off nor by a different written arrangement, the employer pays your normal wage plus a surcharge of at least a quarter. Your contract may settle overtime differently, and if it does so in writing, that arrangement applies. The Employment Act (Arbeitsgesetz) sets working-time limits and has its own overtime rules, which I did not cover.

The Code of Obligations has no article that gives you a 13th monthly salary. You get one if your contract, a collective agreement or a standard employment contract says so. For special payments such as a Christmas bonus, Art. 322d OR says you have a claim only if it was agreed, and the same goes for a proportional share when the job ends before the occasion.

Wages are due at the end of each month unless shorter periods or other dates were agreed or are customary (Art. 323). You must also get a written statement of how your wage was calculated (Art. 323b(1)). Our payslip guide explains every line on it.

Pay when you are sick

If illness or an accident stops you from working through no fault of your own, the employer has to pay your wage for a limited time, provided the job lasted more than three months or was agreed for more than three months (Art. 324a OR). Unless longer periods were agreed, that is three weeks in the first year of service and a reasonable longer time afterwards, depending on how long you have worked there and on the circumstances.

The article does not say how long that longer time is. A contract can also replace the rule with another arrangement, such as an insurance solution, as long as it is at least equal in value for you (Art. 324a(4)). Ask your employer which rule or insurance applies to you and get it in writing.

If you disagree with your employer

A court case about an employment dispute normally starts with a conciliation attempt before the conciliation authority (Art. 197 ZPO). For disputes from the employment relationship with a value up to CHF 30,000, no court costs are charged, in conciliation and in the court procedure (Art. 113(2)(d) and Art. 114(c) ZPO). In conciliation no party compensation is awarded (Art. 113(1)), so each side carries its own costs there.

I did not review the rules for disputes above CHF 30,000 or for claims under the Gender Equality Act. Legal protection insurance usually covers employment law as well; our insurance guide explains how such policies work.

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