Switzerland brings advisers and a transparency register into its AML regime from 1 October 2026

What was decided

On 26 September 2025 the Federal Assembly adopted two interlocking acts: a revision of the Anti-Money Laundering Act (GwG) and a new Federal Act on the Transparency of Legal Entities and the Identification of Beneficial Owners (TJPG). On 12 June 2026 the Federal Council set the entry into force: both laws, together with their implementing ordinances, apply from 1 October 2026, with a carve-out only for provisions on official notaries that await cantonal implementation, with no replacement date set. The implementing ordinances went through consultation from 15 October 2025 to 30 January 2026. The Federal Council was explicit about the motive: the reforms close gaps in the Swiss framework in time for the FATF country review of Switzerland scheduled for 2027 to 2028.

Change one: a federal transparency register

The TJPG creates a central federal register of the beneficial owners of Swiss companies: stock corporations, partnerships limited by shares, limited liability companies, cooperatives and the collective-investment company forms (article 2(1)(a)); listed companies and their subsidiaries held above 75 per cent, pension institutions and publicly held entities are exempt (article 3), and associations and foundations are not covered as such. It reaches foreign legal persons directly where they have a registered Swiss branch, have their actual management in Switzerland or own or acquire Swiss real estate (article 2(1)(b)), and trustees resident in or administering trusts from Switzerland carry their own duties (article 2(2)). The official portal is already live at transpareg.admin.ch. Covered entities will have to identify their beneficial owners and report them, with transition periods for existing entities that begin to run on 1 October 2026. Following the consultation, the Federal Council simplified the mechanics for the cantonal commercial registers, but the substance stands: ownership structures of Swiss companies, including those held through foreign holding vehicles, will need to be documented, current and reportable.

For internationally held groups, the practical work is making sure the facts behind the Swiss filing match what banks, tax authorities and foreign registers have been told, and documenting why the names differ where they legitimately do: the AML definition of the beneficial owner and the TJPG's 25 per cent test can identify different people, the ordinance says so, and a bank need not report a difference the law explains; an unexplained mismatch is what a bank must raise with its client and, failing an explanation, report to the register (article 30 TJPG; articles 56 and 57 TJPV).

The register is not public: the Federal Office of Justice's published answers confine access to the control body, the authorities named in the Act, financial intermediaries and advisers within the GwG (articles 25 to 27, 30 and 31 TJPG), and note that companies limited by shares, SICAVs and limited liability companies are already required to hold the information the register will ask for, with shareholders obliged to report it to the company.

Change two: advisers come inside the perimeter

The revised GwG extends due diligence obligations to defined risk-bearing advisory activities, and the perimeter is drawn by activity, whatever the profession. The new article 2(3bis) GwG captures persons who are professionally involved in financial transactions relating to: the purchase and sale of real estate; the formation of non-operative legal entities with their seat in Switzerland, or of legal entities with their seat abroad; the management of non-operative entities; contributions to and distributions by such entities; and the purchase and sale of legal entities where a non-operative entity is the buyer or the seller. "Non-operative" is defined: legal persons, companies, institutions, foundations, trusts, fiduciary undertakings and similar arrangements not founded or maintained to run or support an operating business or group, domiciliary companies above all (article 2a(6)), which puts the holding company of an operating group outside and a private asset-holding vehicle inside. Article 2(3ter) adds domiciliation services where they are provided for longer than six months.

The edges are deliberate: article 2(4ter) carves out transfers of real estate and of legal entities worth less than CHF 5 million where the price is paid and received exclusively through banks or other intermediaries subject to the Act, the purchase of a home in Switzerland for the buyer's own use or as a qualifying replacement property, and a short list of family, inheritance, agricultural and land-consolidation transfers, board roles in operating entities and pure notarisation; activities connected with litigation and the representation of clients in proceedings remain outside the perimeter under article 2(4)(f), and the formation of an ordinary operating Swiss company is largely outside scope.

Lawyers, notaries and other advisers performing in-scope activities professionally will carry AML duties: identifying clients and beneficial owners, assessing risk, documenting, and reporting where the thresholds for suspicion are met, with lawyers and notaries obliged to report only where both of two conditions hold, that they execute a financial transaction in the client's name or for the client's account and that the information is not covered by professional secrecy (article 9(2)), which leaves pure advisory work outside the reporting duty. The implementing ordinance defines when advice is professional. The general test is an independent economic activity directed at lasting income, main or side business alike, and the activity counts as professional in any event once any one of four markers is passed: gross revenue above CHF 50,000 a year, more than 20 clients or more than 20 transactions a year, assets the adviser must assume exceed CHF 5 million, or transactions above CHF 2 million a year (article 12f GwV). The markers are floors; a practice below all of them remains inside where the general test is met, so a small practice cannot read them as an exemption.

The operative obligation is structural: an in-scope adviser must affiliate with a self-regulatory organisation under the revised article 14(1) GwG and is supervised through the SRO system (article 12(d)), so the Swiss advisory profession joins the AML system on 1 October 2026 through the same supervisory architecture that already covers other financial intermediaries.

The duties start on that date; affiliation follows a timetable. An adviser already performing in-scope activity on 1 October 2026 must apply to an SRO by 1 December 2026 and may continue, until the SRO decides, only within existing client relationships; a financial intermediary that also advises notifies its own supervisor or SRO by the same date, stays under that body for everything it does (article 12a GwG) and may keep serving existing clients and take their new instructions meanwhile; a newcomer must apply within two months of turning professional. Without an application in time, or after a refusal, the activity stops (transitional provision to the GwV amendment; article 12g GwV).

Who needs to act, and how

Three groups should be moving now. Swiss legal entities and their owners should establish their beneficial-ownership position to documentation standard, resolve nominee and trust questions, and calendar the register deadlines: for existing Swiss entities, one month from the first commercial-register change after 1 October 2026 and in any event three to six months depending on form and audit regime, or two years where every beneficial owner already appears on the commercial register as partner or organ (article 51 TJPG); for covered foreign entities, six months (article 53). The register builds on a duty companies already carry: under article 697j of the Code of Obligations a shareholder who reaches or crosses 25 per cent of the capital or votes of a non-listed company must report the beneficial owner to the company within a month, and the company keeps a register of those reports (article 697l). Non-compliance with the new Act is criminal: intentional breach of the reporting duties, or false statements to the control body, carries a fine of up to CHF 500,000 (article 43 TJPG), and disregarding a final order of the control body up to CHF 100,000 (article 44).

Advisers within the new scope need affiliation with a self-regulatory organisation and an AML framework proportionate to their practice: client identification procedures, a risk assessment, training, record-keeping and a reporting route, built before the date.

Foreign-owned groups with Swiss entities should treat the register as a consistency test across all of their documentation, and factor it into any restructuring planned for late 2026: a change to the commercial-register entry in the transition window itself starts the one-month filing clock, and in our judgement a structure first documented on the eve of a deadline will be read with its timing in mind. The full legislative texts are on Fedlex (GwG revision, TJPG), with background at SIF and the Federal Office of Justice.

What this means for you

• Map beneficial ownership now. The transition clock starts 1 October 2026; entities with layered or foreign holding structures need the most lead time.
• Advisers: build the framework before the date. Scope your activities against the new rules and the ordinance thresholds, then secure SRO affiliation and stand up identification, risk assessment and reporting procedures.
• Reconcile your records. The facts behind register filings, bank KYC files and tax documentation must match, and where the legal definitions produce different names, the file should say why.
• Time restructurings carefully. A commercial-register change in the transition window starts a one-month filing clock, and in our judgement a structure first documented on the eve of a deadline will be read with its timing in mind.

Isak Legal advises companies, owners and professional advisers on Swiss and cross-border AML readiness, beneficial-ownership analysis and the design of proportionate compliance frameworks. See our Sanctions and AML page, or get in touch.

This client update is provided for general information only, reflects the position as at 26 September 2026 and does not constitute legal advice or create a lawyer-client relationship. The implementing ordinances and register practice are new; verify the current texts and guidance at the official sources linked above before acting. For advice on a specific matter, please contact us.