Methodology
Keep identity data, contact fields and official market statistics apart. A source can be good for a company’s identity without proving that it can be reached.
Data as of: 4 November 2026 (counted) · Content revised: 4 November 2026
Map statements about sources to individual fields. If the company name and a contact detail come from different sources or dates, their currency is not automatically the same.
Record the reference date when importing and keep your own checks separate; the file creation date is not a check date for every row.
The figures of the Swiss company database (as of 4 November 2026) are based on two sources: the commercial register (Zefix via LINDAS, open government data of the Federal Commercial Registry Office) and the open places data of Overture Maps (Places, licence CDLA Permissive 2.0). The other sources in the list are planned or in progress and not yet included in the figures. Figures and counting method are on the page Database status.
Basic data of all active legal entities in the commercial register: company name, legal form, UID, municipality of the registered office, legal domicile and purpose; 796,383 active entities in the file of 1 November 2026, all of them in our database. The Federal Commercial Registry Office publishes them as open government data; use is free, the source must be stated (“Open use. Must provide the source.”). The register contains no contact details.
Open place and business data of the Overture Maps Foundation (Places, release 2026-10-21.0) with name, address, phone number, website and email address; Overture combines data from Meta, Microsoft and other sources. Licence CDLA Permissive 2.0. We only count places with a confidence value of at least 0.77, match them to register entries and count places without a certain match as records of their own. We derive canton and municipality from the address, because the source’s regional information is not reliable for Switzerland.
Open map data with shops, practices and businesses (© OpenStreetMap contributors, licence ODbL). Not yet processed.
Anyone offering goods or services online must give clear and complete information about their identity and contact address including email (Art. 3 para. 1 let. s UWG). Many legal notices also state the UID, which links website and register entry unambiguously. Collection is under way; contacts from the websites are not yet included in the published figures.
For example the manufacturers and importers of medical devices published by Swissmedic. We will only use cantonal datasets if their terms of use allow it, and will comply with their conditions. Not yet processed.
We do not use telephone and business directories whose terms of use prohibit bulk queries or building address databases. Professional registers such as the register of medical professions, the audit oversight register or FINMA’s lists are meant for looking up individual persons and companies; at most we use them to check an industry assignment, not as an address source.
The table can be scrolled sideways.
| Source | What is public there | What applies to use |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial register / Zefix | entries, articles of association and deeds of foundation, free of charge online (Art. 936 CO) | The register is public. The basic data are also available as open government data with a duty to state the source. Zefix data have no legal effect (Art. 14 HRegV). |
| Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce | publications of entries, changes and deletions (Art. 936a CO) | freely accessible; suitable for tracking new registrations and deletions |
| UID register | core attributes of UID units, such as name, address, status in the commercial register and for VAT | queries only for individual units (Art. 11 UIDG); planned for checking, not as a source for lists |
| Telephone directories | entries with or without the asterisk marking | The asterisk prohibits sales calls and passing on the data for direct marketing; unlisted numbers are treated like numbers with an asterisk (Art. 3 para. 1 let. u UWG). Many directories prohibit bulk queries. |
| Legal notice details | identity and contact address including email (Art. 3 para. 1 let. s UWG), often also UID and phone | publicly accessible; personal data under the FADP for sole proprietorships |
| Federal Statistical Office | aggregated figures only, for example 649,353 businesses in 2024 | sizing the market; no information on individual businesses |
Not registered in the commercial register are, among others, sole proprietorships with turnover below CHF 100,000, many members of liberal professions, farms and most associations (Art. 931 CO). For them, generally only the details they publish themselves are public.
Besides the counted figures of our database, the home page and the industry cards give official figures. Commercial register – Zefix, open government data of the Federal Commercial Registry Office: 796,383 active entries in the file of 1 November 2026, downloaded via the linked data service LINDAS; free use with attribution (“Open use. Must provide the source.”). Statistics – FSO, Statistics on the structure of businesses (STATENT) 2024: 649,353 businesses (institutional units, reference year 2024; by size class), industry figures from the same statistics by NOGA division and type (table px-x-0602010000_106 and px-x-0602010000_105, table updated 20 August 2026, retrieved 25 October 2026). The commercial register and STATENT count differently and are not directly comparable. EU – Eurostat, Structural Business Statistics (sbs_ovw_act), enterprises in industry, construction and market services 2024: EU-27 33,978,235 (data updated 30 September 2026); Eurostat data © European Union, reuse with acknowledgement of the source (Eurostat copyright notice).
Matching is automated and cannot be error-free. With identical or very similar names and no UID on the website, the risk of a wrong match is higher.
We do not currently offer a check against the asterisk marking in the telephone directory. We therefore only deliver phone numbers flagged as “not checked” and for purposes outside direct marketing, such as matching in a CRM; the asterisk marking column of the export stays empty.
Several industries have official registers, such as the register of medical professions, the audit oversight register, FINMA’s lists or the directory of licensed staff leasing businesses. They are used to check the licence of an individual person or company and are not address directories for advertising. What exists in which industry is on the industry pages:
Background: Commercial register, Zefix and UID: what is public and NOGA 2008: industry codes for target group lists. On marketing law: B2B marketing in Switzerland: what the UWG allows.
If you find incorrect information in your own record, write to us; we will correct it.
Commercial register details are kept by the cantonal commercial registry office. We correct our record; a lasting correction also requires a change in the register.
The database status page shows which figures we publish, each with a date and source.
