EPIC Guide

Money and Taxes

The short version:

• PhD students get paid around 55k CHF/year, with small yearly increases, and paystubs are available on the internal SESAME tool.
• To store this money, get an account at any Swiss bank. They are roughly equivalent in terms of services and typically have student discounts. App-based ones like CSX or Yuh may be even cheaper.
• Get your bank’s TWINT app to easily send and receive money using phone numbers. You typically won’t need a credit card.
• You automatically save money for retirement as an employee in Switzerland, and you can save extra money in a “3a pillar” account which is tax-deductible up to a limit.
• If you are on a B permit and you make less than 120k and your wealth is under 50k and you have no undeclared revenue, taxes are taken automatically from your salary and you need not worry about them.
• If you do not meet the criteria above, or if you have special deductions such as a 3a pillar or withheld taxes from investments or savings, you need to explicitly file your taxes. See below.

Pay

The pay for PhD students is set at the federal level subject to the approval of the ETH council. As of 2024, it is 54,550 CHF/year for the first year, and increases by 1,000 CHF/year in each of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th years (source).

The main unusual factor is the “13th salary” system: you receive 1/13th of your annual salary every month, not 1/12th, and the last 1/13th is given to you partly in November and partly in December. The origins of this system are historically not so clear, but nowadays it’s basically a way for you to pay for Christmas presents and such. If you did not work the whole year, for instance because you started in September, or because you did an internship in the summer, the 13th salary is adjusted proportionally.

Overall, expect to get around 3,200 CHF/month after all taxes starting in the first year, plus the 13th salary. Here’s an example breakdown for a first year monthly PhD student salary, for a non-November/December month (see above), as of January 2023 (the amounts may have slightly changed since then):

Note that the 1,000 CHF/year increment:

• applies at the beginning of calendar years, not “PhD years”;
• is calculated pro rata temporis based on what fraction of the previous year you were employed (in any capacity, not just as a PhD student);
• is added to whatever your annual salary was in the previous calendar year;

Thus, if you start in September 2024 with a starting annual salary of 54,550 CHF, then through December 2024, you will have worked 4/12th of the year at that rate and earned 4/12th of that amount. So in January 2025, your annual salary will be incremented by 1,000 × 4/12 = 333 CHF (not a rounding error—the annual salary seems to always be a whole number) to give 54,883 CHF. And if you work that full year, then for 2026, your annual salary will become 55,883 CHF.

In some years, EPFL can announce an inflation compensation, which is applied after any annual increment. For instance, if they announce an adjustment of 1% for 2025, your annual salary for that year will be (from above) 54,883 + 1% = 55,432 CHF. If there is then a 2% adjustment for 2026, your annual salary for 2026 will be (55,432 + 1,000) + 2% = 57,561 CHF.

Banking

While it is possible to make a direct bank transfer from anywhere to Switzerland, that could result in large transfer and currency conversion fees. A cheaper way is to use a service such as Wise (formerly Transferwise), where fees are small and known upfront. Wise and Revolut both offer payment cards that can be used in any country and for online shopping with cheap / free currency conversion.

You can get a credit card if you want, which may be beneficial if you get some form of rewards from buying things with it, but your Debit MasterCard/Visa from your bank is enough to pay anywhere in Switzerland, abroad, and online. You do not need a credit card, and Switzerland is not a place where being in debt is common; people typically pay their credit cards monthly and treat them more like debit cards.

You can pay most if not all recurring bills, such as insurance or phone, with the “e-Bill” system. In your bank’s online portal, go to the e-Bill section and look up your service providers to register.

Do not expect good yields from non-investment bank accounts, even the savings ones, due to negative interest rates on CHF.

While you technically can cash checks, banks will charge large fees for doing so, as virtually no one in Switzerland uses checks any more.

Internships in the US

The most likely complication in your personal finances will be if you do an internship in the US. Luckily, this guide has you covered with banking, taxes, and other advice for that circumstance.

Retirement

Switzerland has a retirement savings system based on three pillars: shared mandatory, personal mandatory, and personal optional. If you leave Switzerland permanently, for instance because your “permis B” expires after you find a job in another country, you will need to look up which international treaties apply to your retirement savings to know when and how you will get them back.

The first pillar is mandatory retirement savings, taken out of the salary, shared among all workers in Switzerland. It’s called “AVS” and is roughly equivalent to “social security”.

The second pillar is also mandatory retirement savings, taken out of the salary, but for yourself. The provider is always PUBLICA for EPFL employees. Money is blocked until you retire, use it to buy a house, or use it to start a company.

The third pillar is optional, for yourself, and can be deducted from your taxable income up to a cap of around 7000 CHF per year which increases slightly every few years. You can view this as an investment with a high return since its tax-deductible nature drastically lowers your taxes. The money is blocked under the same conditions as the second pillar. You get to choose where you invest, so it can be a near-zero-return but safe option (e.g. 100% cash), or up to 100% in stocks with, e.g., VIAC or PostFinance. Make sure you compare fees before choosing a solution: keeping it in cash should be free everywhere, but if you want to invest, your bank’s offering probably won’t be the cheapest. At withdrawal, a progressive tax rate is applied depending on the capital amount and your canton of residence. (source)

There are retirement accounts called “Pillar 3b” which are not tax deductible. Salespeople will try to convince you these are useful, but they are most likely wrong.

Taxes

The general principles of Swiss taxation are:

• Your income and your wealth are subject to taxation, no matter where you earned or store them in the world.
• Taxes are levied by the federal government, cantons, and communes, but the tax declaration is a single online form.
• If you are married, you must file jointly.
• Permanent residents must pay an advance on their taxes each month, while non-permanent residents have their taxes deducted directly from their salary.
• The tax authorities will help you as long as you are honest, never lie nor try to hide money, and do not try to find loopholes or technicalities.
• If you realize you filed something incorrectly, or forgot to declare something, it’s always better to contact the tax authorities yourself than wait for them to find out.

⚠️ The remainder of this page is a helpful guide to common taxable items and deductions in the canton of Vaud, not tax advice about your personal situation. You should still read every field in the tax form at least once to ensure you do not forget anything. ⚠️

Filing taxes in the canton of Vaud is done via VaudTax, the government-provided online tool that figures out your federal, cantonal, and communal taxes for you based on data you input.

If you are not a permanent resident:

• If (i) you make more than 120k, or (ii) your wealth is over 50k, or (iii) you have undeclared revenue, you must request an “ulterior ordinary taxation”, referred to as “TOU” for “taxation ordinaire ultérieure” in French.
• If you do not meet these criteria but believe you qualify for enough deductions to make a difference, typically because you have a 3a pillar, you may request a TOU. VaudTax has a simulation mode that does not need identifiers, which you can use to decide whether requesting a TOU is worth it in your case.
• Otherwise, you have nothing to do, as the right amount of taxes is already deducted from your paycheck each month.

The form to request a TOU is on the Vaud website. Once this is done, you keep being taxed at the source, but you have to follow the procedure described below to file your taxes. Opting for a TOU cannot be undone. Once requested, you will have to file your taxes every year, so if you are not obligated to do it, you should only request one if your situation in terms of deductions will be stable long-term.

Before opening VaudTax, get the following documents and information, so that filing your taxes becomes a quick 15-minute affair:

• The letter you got from the tax office that includes your “nᵒ de contribuable” and “code de contrôle” identifiers (the latter changes every year). You should get this letter around the middle of February if you are a resident or have previously requested a TOU. If this is the year you requested a TOU, you will get it shortly after your request, along with an extended deadline to file your taxes.
• Your salary certificate from EPFL’s SESAME portal.
• For each bank account you had on the 31st of December of the elapsed year (in any country/currency), the account number, amount of money there was on the account on that date, and the interest you earned for the year.
  • If you opened that account in the elapsed year, you additionally need the opening date.
  • For investment accounts, you additionally need the statements showing share purchases, share sales, and dividends received during the year.
  • If your bank provides an “e-Relevé fiscal”, get it, it’s a machine-readable version of this information and will save you time.
• For each bank account you closed during the elapsed year, the account number and closing date.
• The amount of money you paid for health insurance in the elapsed year (typically your health insurance gives you a PDF at the end of the year).
• The amount of money you paid for rent, without “charges” (this should be in your rental contract).
• If you have a 3a pillar, the PDF from your bank stating how much money you put in for the year.

Some help to file the most common items in VaudTax, after you’ve logged in with your “nᵒ de contribuable” and “code de contrôle” (not in simulation mode):

• ⚠️ Most of the boxes for numbers do not accept cents, but may screw up your copy/paste and include the cents but not the separator, leading to e.g. 1000 instead of 10.00, so double-check what you paste.
• If you already filed your taxes last year, start by importing your previous data using the “Importer une déclaration” link on the right.
• If your bank gave you an “e-Relevé fiscal”, import it using the link on the right.
• Fill in “Identification”, being very careful about the IBAN because that is the account you will get the tax refund on.
• Fill in “Contribuable 1”, as well as the second one if you are married.
• Under “Activités salariées” > “Principale, …”, add your EPFL job; the “ch. XX” refer to number XX on your EPFL salary certificate.
  • For number 15, on the second page of the certificate there is “Cotisations PC Familles vaudoises YY CHF ..”, put in that YY.
• Under “Frais professionnels”:
  • “Frais de transport”, add your commute to EPFL, typically 240 days in a year, use Google Maps’ pedestrian itinerary to see the number of km, and pick “Forfait”.
  • “Frais de repas”, add your meals, typically the same number of days as above.
• Under “Primes et cotisations d’assurances” > “Cotisations d’assurances (prévoyance)”:
  • Put your health insurance costs.
  • If you have a 3a pillar, put the amount for that year in the corresponding box.
  • The rest will typically be empty (0 for the subsidy box).
• Under “Etats des titres”:
  • Under “Comptes et livrets bancaires, …”, add each of your accounts, including those closed during that year; you can use Google for the exchange rates on the 31st of December for any foreign currency accounts.
    • If your bank statement says something about a withholding tax of 35%, then your interest is subject to withholding tax, otherwise not.
  • Under “Fonds de placement”, put any indexed funds you are investing in, if applicable.
• Under “Autres éléments de fortune et revenus de fortune”, put any other wealth you have such as a car.
  • You do not need to include basic furniture and other common household items, these are explicitly excluded from taxable wealth (source: Loi sur les impôts directs cantonaux, art. 50 al. 3).
• Under “Déductions spéciales sur le revenu”:
  • “Déduction sociale pour le logement”, input your yearly rent without charges.
  • For the other parts, if applicable, put any donations you made to charities or political parties, as well as medical costs during the year.
• If there is anything that might look weird in your situation, such as a large increase or decrease in wealth compared to the previous year, explain it under “Informations complémentaires” > “Informations complémentaires à l’attention de l’autorité de taxation”.
• Under “Acomptes” > “Total des acomptes payés…”, put your “acomptes” if you paid some and the taxes already paid à la source if applicable.
  • This is crucial, and as of 2022 the software does not automatically sync the à la source amount with the one you declared on your job, so don’t skip this step.
• In the right sidebar, under “Outils” > “Gérer des pièces justificatives”, in the second group you must upload your 3a certificate for the year, if applicable; nothing else.
• You can then check the entire computation using “Outils” in the right sidebar > “Calculer les impôts”.
  • For a full year in Switzerland of an average PhD student with a 3a pillar maxed out for the year, the taxes should be 2.5-3k, and the “solde” should be negative 2-2.5k, meaning they owe you money back.
  • Without a 3a pillar your “solde” will typically be around zero or even positive, so there is usually no point in doing a “taxation ordinaire ultérieure” in that case unless you have to.
• You can then finish by clicking on “Transmettre” in the right sidebar > “Vérifier…” and clicking on the confirmation buttons.
• Once it’s done, download all three documents you can download: two are PDF statements, and the remaining one is data that you can import next year so you only need to input changes.

After a delay from a few weeks to a year, a taxation decision will be made and you get refunded (or charged, if you had not paid enough). While it is technically possible for taxation decisions to take more than a year, this should not happen in normal situations, and if you have not heard back by the next calendar year, you should contact the tax authorities.