Anyone who wants to check a company in Switzerland or define a target group soon comes across three terms: commercial register, Zefix and UID. They are related but not the same. This article explains what is public, who has to register and where the limits of these sources lie.
The commercial register is public
The law is clear: the commercial register is public. Publicity covers entries, applications and supporting documents; entries, articles of association and deeds of foundation are made available online free of charge, and it must be possible to search the entries by certain criteria (Art. 936 CO). New entries are published in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce (SOGC) and only take effect upon publication (Art. 936a CO).
The register is kept by the cantonal commercial registry offices. The Federal Commercial Registry Office (FCRO) runs the central business name index Zefix. Data in Zefix have no legal effect; the cantonal entry remains authoritative (Art. 14 HRegV).
Who has to register and who does not
Corporations such as the AG and the GmbH only come into existence upon registration. For sole proprietorships there is a threshold: a natural person running a business with turnover of at least CHF 100,000 in the last financial year must register it. Members of the liberal professions and farmers are exempt unless they run a commercially managed business (Art. 931 CO). Public-law institutions only have to register if they mainly carry out private-sector business or the law requires it (Art. 932 CO).
In other words: many small sole proprietorships, medical practices, architectural offices, farms and almost all associations are missing from the commercial register, even though they are economically active.
What the register contains
On 25 October 2026, Zefix contained 795,908 active entries. The most common legal forms:
| Legal form | Active entries |
|---|---|
| Limited liability company (GmbH) | 293,050 |
| Company limited by shares (AG) | 251,533 |
| Sole proprietorship | 180,619 |
| Foundation | 17,770 |
| Branch of a Swiss company | 15,381 |
| Association | 13,591 |
Each entry includes the company name, legal form, registered office, legal domicile, purpose, UID and the persons authorised to sign. Phone numbers, email addresses, websites and industry codes are not in the commercial register. Further legal forms and their figures are on the page Commercial register by legal form.
Open data: Zefix on LINDAS
The FCRO also publishes the basic data of all active entries as open government data, via the federal administration’s linked data service LINDAS and the catalogue opendata.swiss. The terms of use read “Open use. Must provide the source”: use is free, including commercial use, but the source must be stated. kontaktdatenbank.ch builds its Swiss company database on this data.
The UID and the UID register
The business identification number (UID) in the format CHE-123.456.789 is the uniform key for businesses in Switzerland, not only for companies in the commercial register. For commercial register entries it identifies a legal entity permanently; the UID of a deleted legal entity is not reassigned (Art. 116 HRegV).
The Federal Statistical Office makes the core attributes of UID units available online but limits queries to individual units (Art. 11 UIDG). The UID register is therefore suitable for checking individual business partners, for example whether a company is registered for VAT, but not as a source for lists.
What this means for company lists
- The commercial register provides identity: name, legal form, registered office, UID. A list has to add contact details from other sources.
- Relying on register data alone misses a large share of small businesses without a duty to register.
- The UID is the best key for matching with your CRM.
- An industry selection needs an assignment to NOGA codes, which the register does not contain; more in the article NOGA 2008: industry codes.
