Working in Switzerland, living on Lake Constance: commute or move?

Between Kreuzlingen and Konstanz the national border runs straight through a built-up area: the next side street is already in the other country. For doctors from southern Germany and from Vorarlberg, the first question is therefore rarely whether they can work in Switzerland. It is whether they want to move in order to do so.

G or B: what separates the two permits

Under immigration law, everything turns on where a national of an EU or EFTA state lives. Move to Switzerland and you normally receive a residence permit B, the Aufenthaltsbewilligung B. Keep your home just across the border and travel in for your shifts and you need a cross-border commuter permit G, the Grenzgängerbewilligung G. Both require a signed employment contract; without one, neither can be applied for.

The commuter permit assumes that you return to your home abroad regularly. How that is handled in detail is a question for the cantonal migration office. After some years of living in Switzerland a settlement permit C also comes into view; it is not needed in order to be employed, but it matters for how you are taxed.

Who files the application

The authority is the cantonal migration office in both cases, with the State Secretariat for Migration behind it. The route to it differs:

• Cross-border commuter permit G. The employer normally files the application with the migration office of the canton the workplace lies in.
• Residence permit B. You register at your new municipality after the move, and it forwards the application. The deadline for registering is short, so the trip to the residents' office belongs in the first days after the move.

Cantons differ in the papers they ask for and in how long they take. What your canton requires is something the migration office will tell you; what timing your future hospital is working to is a question for its HR department.

Getting to work

Crossing the border between Kreuzlingen and Konstanz is an ordinary part of the day: there are several crossing points, on foot, by bicycle and by car, with trains and buses as well. Even so, anyone working shifts should try the journey at the hours they will actually be travelling. An early start is usually straightforward; late-afternoon traffic queues at the crossings routinely, and for how long depends on which crossing and which day of the week.

If you live further out, in the Hegau, along the German shore or in Vorarlberg, the calculation is a different one anyway: what decides it is less the border than the stretch of road before it, and whether there is a usable rail connection. A night shift that looks half an hour away on a map looks different at five in the morning in January.

Tax and health insurance in principle

We quote no figures here, because every one of them comes out differently in an individual case. The mechanics, though, are manageable.

Tax. If you live abroad and work in Switzerland, income tax is normally deducted at source as Quellensteuer: your employer takes it straight off the salary. The rate depends on the canton, on the level of income and on the family situation. How the right to tax is divided between Switzerland and the country you live in is governed by a double taxation agreement; what follows from that for your return at home is a question for the tax office there or for a tax adviser. If you move to Switzerland, tax is likewise deducted at source until you hold a settlement permit C.

Health insurance. In Switzerland it is compulsory, taken out per person and paid privately; it does not come off the salary, and there is no free cover for family members of the kind German employees are used to. For cross-border commuters, which system you belong to is a question of its own: depending on the country you live in there are choices to be made, and they have to be exercised within a deadline after you take up the post. A missed deadline here becomes expensive later, so it belongs on the list for the first few weeks.

What actually decides it

Both routes work in law. The decision is made elsewhere:

• Family. If a partner is settled in a job where you live now, much speaks for commuting. If they were looking for something new in any case, the sums change.
• School. Changing school is a bigger break for a child than a move of a few kilometres. A change in the middle of the school year wants planning well ahead.
• Housing. Around the larger hospitals housing is tight. The search is best begun as soon as the contract is signed, and some hospitals help with it; ask about that in the interview.
• The journey itself. Two short trips a day add up over a year to more than the map suggests.

We talk both routes through with you before you commit, and work an offer through with you on the basis of the one you choose. Binding information about your own permit comes only from the migration office responsible for it.