Changing jobs in Switzerland: where your pension money goes
| 01 | The money is yours, but it stays tied up |
| 02 | Where it can go |
| 03 | No, you cannot take it as cash |
| 04 | What stops the day you leave |
| 05 | If you are 58 or over and your employer let you go |
| 06 | If you have lost track of an old account |
You hand in your notice, you finish your last day, and the pension savings your employer has been building for years stay exactly where they are. They do not follow you. Somebody has to move them, and that somebody is usually you.
If you join a new employer with a pension fund, the handover is automatic once your old fund knows where to send it. If you do not, the law gives you a choice to make, and a default that applies if you make none.
In one line: your pension savings only change address when you tell your old fund where to send them, and if you never tell anyone, the law parks them somewhere you did not choose.
The money is yours, but it stays tied up
When you leave a pension fund before retiring, you are entitled to take what you have built with you. That amount is your exit benefit, and once it leaves your employer's fund it becomes what Switzerland calls vested benefits: pension savings that belong to you, sitting outside any employer's plan, still locked for retirement.
It is your money. It is not money you can spend.
From the day you leave, your old fund owes you interest at the statutory minimum rate until it hands the money over. If it has your instructions and still has not transferred within 30 days, it owes you default interest on top. That is a fair thing to ask about if a transfer is dragging.
Where it can go
There are four places the money can end up: one happens automatically, one you choose, one is what the law does if you choose nothing, and one is barely available at all.
A new employer's fund. If you join one, your old fund must transfer the money across. This is the normal case and it needs nothing from you except telling the old fund where the new one is.
Only as much has to move as the new fund can use to buy you full benefits under its own rules. If your savings are larger than that, the surplus stays in vested benefits. It is not lost, but it does reduce how much you could later pay in voluntarily.
A vested benefits account or policy that you choose. With no new fund, the law says you must tell your old fund which form you want: an account with a foundation, or a policy with an insurer. The choice is yours, not your old fund's. You may spread it across two institutions at most, and you may move it again later, at any time.
The fallback foundation, if you say nothing. Say nothing and your old fund must send the money, with interest, to the Stiftung Auffangeinrichtung, the institution the law names for exactly this. It happens at the earliest six months and at the latest two years after you leave. The money is not lost and you can still move it afterwards. But nobody chose it for your benefit, and it is how people end up losing track of an account entirely.
Cash, in three narrow cases. Those three are below.
No, you cannot take it as cash
The law allows an exit benefit to be paid out in cash in exactly three situations:
- you leave Switzerland for good;
- you take up self-employment and are no longer covered by the occupational pension;
- your exit benefit is smaller than one year of your own contributions.
That list is complete. Being between jobs is not on it, and nor is redundancy, unemployment benefit, a career break or retraining.
Two further conditions apply. If you are married or in a registered partnership, your spouse or partner has to agree in writing. And the self-employment route needs both halves to be true: someone who sets up a company and employs themselves is an employee again, and the door closes.
Leaving Switzerland for good is the one case this page does not cover, because it has its own limits: the mandatory part of your pension-fund savings cannot be paid in cash if you stay compulsorily insured in an EU or EFTA country. We cover that separately in leaving Switzerland and your pension.
What stops the day you leave
Three things end with the job.
Employer contributions and savings credits stop. Nothing further is added to your retirement savings while the money sits in vested benefits.
Your death and disability cover runs on for one month. After your pension relationship ends, your former fund still covers those two risks for a month, or until a new fund takes over if that happens sooner. It is cover only. Nothing is being saved during it.
On unemployment benefit, you are insured for death and disability, and nothing more. People drawing unemployment daily allowances are compulsorily insured for those two risks. No old-age savings are built during that time. A long spell out of work leaves a flat stretch in your pension that nothing fills in later by itself.
And the money that is sitting there does not quietly grow the way a fund balance does. While your old fund still holds it, it owes you at least the statutory minimum rate. Once the money sits in a vested benefits account or policy, no minimum rate is prescribed for it: the contract sets the rate, and agreed costs come off.
One thing does work in your favour while it waits. Until it is paid out, the money is outside your taxable wealth. When it is paid out it is taxed once, on its own, which is covered in how pension capital is taxed.
Example (illustrative, not your result): someone leaves in March and starts a new job in September. Their old fund pays the statutory minimum interest from March and transfers the balance in September. In between: death and disability cover for one month, then the same two risks while drawing unemployment benefit, and nothing added to their retirement savings for six months. Name no new fund and the money goes to the fallback foundation instead.
If you are 58 or over and your employer let you go
This applies only if the employer ended the employment.
In that case the law gives you the right to demand to stay insured with your existing fund rather than being moved out, and to keep building old-age savings. Your fund's regulations set the detail, and the contributions are yours to pay, along with the administration costs. Stay on that way for more than two years and the benefits must then be taken as a pension: the money can no longer be withdrawn as capital or pledged to buy a home. Stay two years or less and this rule does not take them away. Both still have their own conditions: your fund's rules decide how much you may take as capital, and a home withdrawal closes three years before your pension starts.
Within those limits you are treated like the colleagues still employed there, including on interest and on the conversion rate. Your fund may offer the same from 55 if its own rules allow it.
It is also not automatic. You have to ask.
If you have lost track of an old account
Several jobs over a working life can leave an account behind, and nobody writes to remind you.
The Zentralstelle 2. Säule, run by the Sicherheitsfonds BVG, will tell you free of charge whether occupational pension assets are held in your name. Pension funds and vested benefits institutions have to report their account holders to it every year. The office holds no money itself and decides no claims; it tells you where to look.
What SORVA does
SORVA carries your vested benefits balance in your plan, and moves it into your pension-fund lane when you take a salaried job again. Put two versions of a plan side by side and you can see what a gap costs the years after it.
See what a break between jobs does to your own numbers: create your plan at sorva.ch, free during the public beta.
Common questions
I left my job and have not told my pension fund anything. What happens?
Your fund has to transfer your money to the Stiftung Auffangeinrichtung, at the earliest six months and at the latest two years after you leave. It is not lost and you can move it afterwards, but nobody picked that home for your benefit.
Can I take my pension fund money in cash while I look for work?
No. Cash is allowed only if you leave Switzerland for good, become self-employed and drop out of the occupational pension, or your exit benefit is smaller than one year of your own contributions. Being between jobs is not one of them.
Am I still covered if I lose my job?
For death and disability, yes, for one month after your pension relationship ends, and then again while you draw unemployment daily allowances. Nothing is saved towards your retirement during that time.
When can I take money out of a vested benefits account?
At the earliest five years before your reference age. It falls due at your reference age, and can be deferred at most five years beyond that if you are still working. A capital payout needs your spouse's or registered partner's written consent.
I think I have an old pension account somewhere. How do I find it?
Ask the Zentralstelle 2. Säule at the Sicherheitsfonds BVG. It answers free of charge and tells you whether assets are held in your name. Funds report their account holders to it once a year.
Sources & review: FZG (SR 831.42) Art. 2, Art. 3, Art. 4, Art. 5, Art. 9, Art. 24a; FZV (SR 831.425) Art. 10, Art. 12, Art. 13, Art. 16; BVG (SR 831.40) Art. 2 Abs. 3, Art. 10, Art. 47, Art. 47a, Art. 84; Zentralstelle 2. Säule, Sicherheitsfonds BVG. FZG Art. 2 Abs. 1bis and the Art. 47a wording come from AHV 21, in force 1 January 2024; the FZV was amended with effect 1 August 2026.
Articles read against the Fedlex consolidated texts in force by sorva-swiss-expert. Last updated: 15 October 2026.
Educational information, not financial advice. Projections are estimates based on your inputs and current Swiss regulatory parameters, and actual outcomes may differ. Ask your fund for your own numbers.