Setting up a telecommunications or communication services company in Switzerland: OFCOM registration, Swiss correspondence address, numbering resources and the SPTA

There is no OFCOM licence: what changed on 1 January 2021

Until the end of 2020, the Telecommunications Act (TCA) applied a universal duty: anyone providing a telecommunications service had to notify the Federal Office of Communications. That rule is the one most online sources still describe, including law firm briefings written before the reform.

The amendment of 22 March 2019, in force since 1 January 2021, replaced it with a conditional registration: « The Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) shall register telecommunications service providers that use any of the following resources intended for providing telecommunications services: a. radio frequencies whose use requires a licence; b. addressing resources that are managed at national level. » (Art. 4 para. 1 TCA).

Read that list carefully, because everything follows from it. A provider who uses neither licensed frequencies nor nationally managed addressing resources, which in practice means Swiss telephone numbers or number blocks allocated by OFCOM, is not registered at all. Nobody vets its capital, its shareholders or its technical competence. To start a telecommunications company in Switzerland is, in that respect, no harder than starting any other service business.

The compensation for that freedom appears as soon as the company touches a resource the state manages. That is where a Swiss address, a Swiss identification number and a genuine Swiss purpose enter the picture.

Who must register with OFCOM, and how

Registration follows the resource used, not the service sold.

Registration propagates up the supply chain: « Registered providers may allow other telecommunications service providers to use resources under paragraph 1 only if these other providers have registered beforehand. » (Art. 4 para. 2 TCA). A host operator therefore cannot open numbers to an unregistered MVNO, and the ordinance requires it to inform OFCOM when it intends to do so.

The procedure itself is light. Providers communicate to OFCOM the data required for registration and inform it immediately of any change (Art. 3 para. 1 of the Ordinance on Telecommunications Services). OFCOM publishes a registration form and recommends filing through its eGovernment platform. Three things are worth knowing before you build a launch plan around it:

• No statutory deadline governs how long OFCOM takes to process a registration. Neither the Act nor the ordinance sets one. A launch date pinned to “OFCOM’s answer” rests on an assumption, not on a right.
• No dedicated fee exists for examining a registration. Where no tariff is set, the telecommunications fees ordinance applies time spent at 210 francs per hour (Art. 6, in French). Anyone quoting you a “licence price” is describing something else.
• The list is public: « OFCOM shall maintain and publish a list of registered providers and the telecommunications services that they offer. » (Art. 4 para. 3 TCA). Competitors, customers and banks will find your name, your address and your services there.

The Swiss correspondence address and the UID

This is where the question of a Swiss presence is actually settled, and it pays to use the words of the law rather than commercial shorthand. The Ordinance on Telecommunications Services provides: « Registered telecommunications service providers must provide a correspondence address in Switzerland to which documents such as communications, writs and official decisions can be delivered with legal force, at the same time stating their standard business identification number in accordance with the Federal Act of 18 June 2010 on the Business Identification Number. » And it adds: « OFCOM shall publish the postal address. » (Art. 4 of that ordinance).

Two obligations sit in one sentence, and they apply to Swiss and foreign providers alike:

• A UID, the Swiss business identification number, which is issued to entities recorded in a Swiss register, typically the commercial register or the VAT register. A company with no administrative existence in Switzerland has none.
• A correspondence address in Switzerland at which OFCOM and the courts can serve decisions with legal force. It is published, and it carries consequences: a decision served there starts the appeal period running, whether or not anyone opened the envelope.

The addressing resources ordinance repeats the requirement for numbers: applicants established abroad must give a correspondence address in Switzerland at which communications, summonses and decisions can be validly served (Art. 4 para. 6 ORAT, in French). That address is then published alongside the holder’s own address (Art. 15f ORAT, in French). For radiocommunications licences, OFCOM states the same rule on its website: applicants established abroad must provide a correspondence address in Switzerland.

It is equally important to say what this address is not. The texts never use the word “representative”: this is neither a tax representative in the VAT sense nor an agent who answers for the provider’s obligations. It is a place of valid service, published, attached to an identified entity. That is precisely why a Swiss company, whose seat is the correspondence address and which holds the UID, is the simplest answer for a foreign operator, provided someone behind that address opens the mail, understands an administrative decision and reacts within the deadline. An address with nobody behind it satisfies the wording of the ordinance and misses every deadline.

Swiss numbers and addressing resources: application, refusal, fees

Telephone numbers, short numbers and identification codes are addressing resources that OFCOM manages and allocates on application, and the Act is explicit that « no one has the right to a specific addressing resource » (Art. 28 para. 4 TCA). The application must at least state the applicant’s name and address and the resource sought, and OFCOM may request further evidence of the applicant’s legal existence, including, for a company with its seat abroad, a certified current extract from the foreign commercial register, plus the UID (Art. 4 ORAT, in French).

One ground for refusal deserves to be in every business plan built on Swiss numbers, and almost nobody cites it: OFCOM may refuse to allocate an addressing resource where it is not intended to be used mainly in Switzerland (Art. 4 para. 5 let. c ORAT, in French). A project that consists of obtaining Swiss numbers to run them from abroad, for a foreign customer base, behind a Swiss address kept for form’s sake, is the very case the provision contemplates. The other grounds follow the same logic: suspicion that the resource will be used to breach federal law, an application designed to block other interested parties, unpaid fees, bankruptcy or liquidation.

For a customer service operation that wants a short number, the 1,500 francs of annual management sit on top of whatever the operator carrying the calls invoices: two separate lines in the budget, two separate counterparties.

Frequencies and radiocommunications licences

The starting point is freedom: « The radiocommunications frequency spectrum may be freely used subject to compliance with the regulations on use. » (Art. 22 para. 1 TCA). The Federal Council may then provide that certain frequencies may be used only with a licence from OFCOM or ComCom, after giving notice to OFCOM, or with a proficiency certificate (Art. 22 para. 2). Three regimes therefore coexist depending on the band: free, on notification, under licence.

An applicant for a licence « must: a. have the necessary technical capacities and, insofar as required for using the relevant frequencies, hold the relevant proficiency certificate; b. undertake to comply with the applicable legislation, in particular this Act, the RTVA, their implementing provisions, and the licence conditions. » (Art. 23 para. 1 TCA). Foreign groups should note the reciprocity reservation: where no international obligation says otherwise, the licensing authority may refuse a licence to undertakings organised under the law of another country if reciprocity is not guaranteed (Art. 23 para. 2 TCA). A company incorporated under Swiss law is not exposed to that reservation; a foreign company applying directly is.

OFCOM publishes indicative processing times with no regulatory force: roughly 20 working days for a fixed licence, around 10 for a temporary one, and three to six months where international frequency coordination is needed. An application filed at short notice carries a 50 franc surcharge, and registering a frequency use costs 70 francs (fees ordinance, in French). Mobile telephony licences are a different matter entirely: ComCom awards them through a tender procedure, so no amount can be estimated in advance.

Radio, television and online media: where a Swiss seat is mandatory

A project that broadcasts programme services changes statute. The Radio and Television Act (RTVA) offers two routes: « Any person wishing to broadcast a Swiss programme service must: a. notify this in advance to the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM); or b. hold a licence in accordance with this Act. » (Art. 3 RTVA). Notification is the ordinary regime; a licence comes with a performance mandate, guaranteed carriage or a share of the licence fee.

The licence conditions contain the only genuine Swiss seat requirement in this whole sector. A licence may be awarded if the candidate « is a natural person with residence in Switzerland or a legal person domiciled in Switzerland » (Art. 44 para. 1 let. f RTVA), having also shown that it can fulfil the performance mandate, credibly demonstrated its financing, disclosed « the identity of the majority holder of its capital » and guaranteed compliance with employment law. The reciprocity reservation is broader here than for radiocommunications: « a legal person controlled from abroad, a domestic legal person with foreign participation or a natural person without Swiss citizenship may be refused the licence if the corresponding foreign state does not guarantee reciprocal rights to a similar extent » (Art. 44 para. 2 RTVA). A broadcaster may hold at most two television and two radio licences.

Licence holders pay an annual licence fee capped at one per cent of gross advertising and sponsorship revenue (Art. 22 RTVA). An online publication that does not broadcast a programme service within the meaning of the Act falls outside all of this; where the boundary lies between a programme service and on-demand content is a question to settle with OFCOM before launch, not after.

The SPTA: the duty that registration does not trigger

The reasoning “no numbers, no registration, therefore no obligations” stops at the Act on the Surveillance of Post and Telecommunications (SPTA), whose scope is far wider than Art. 4 TCA. Duties to cooperate bind, among others, « providers of telecommunications services under Article 3 letter b of the Telecommunications Act », « providers of services which are based on telecommunications services and enable one-way or multipath communication (providers of derived communications services) », « operators of internal telecommunications networks », « persons who grant third parties access to a public telecommunications » network and « professional retailers of cards and similar means which permit access to a public telecommunications network » (Art. 2 SPTA).

A messaging app, a video conferencing service or an IP telephony platform without Swiss numbering is a provider of derived communications services under letter c. Such providers « must tolerate surveillance carried out by the Service or by persons it designates of the data that the person under surveillance transmits or stores using derived communications services. For this purpose, they must without delay: a. grant access to their facilities; b. provide the information required for the surveillance. » (Art. 27 para. 1 SPTA). On request they must supply the secondary telecommunications data available to them (para. 2).

There is a further tier. Where necessary for telecommunications surveillance, the Federal Council makes providers of derived communications services « that provide services of major economic importance or to a large number of users subject to all or some of the obligations referred to in Article 26 », the heavier duties imposed on operators (Art. 27 para. 3 SPTA). Any company building a Swiss offering on confidentiality should know this framework before writing its marketing page: Switzerland is not a surveillance-free zone, it is a jurisdiction where surveillance is governed by a statute that names those it binds.

Legal form, seat, VAT and accounting

Nothing in the TCA imposes a legal form. In practice a company limited by shares or a limited liability company is the sensible answer for three sector-specific reasons: the UID and the correspondence address attach to an entity recorded in the commercial register; interconnection, MVNO hosting and wholesale agreements are signed with a legal person able to give guarantees; and the reciprocity reservations in Art. 23 para. 2 TCA and Art. 44 para. 2 RTVA target companies organised under foreign law, which a Swiss company is not. The choice between the two forms follows the general rules set out in our guide to the incorporation of a company in Switzerland and our page on the Swiss public limited company.

VAT follows the place of the recipient: « The place of supply of a service is deemed, subject to paragraph 2, to be the place at which the recipient of the service has its registered office or a permanent establishment for which the service is provided, or in the absence of such a registered office or such a permanent establishment, the recipient’s domicile or place of normal abode. » (Art. 8 para. 1 VAT Act). A Swiss operator invoicing a customer established abroad supplies a service located abroad.

The sector then has a rule of its own, which foreign operators routinely miss. Exemption from tax liability does not apply to a business with its seat abroad where it « supplies telecommunication or electronic services to recipients who are not liable to the tax » (Art. 10 para. 2 let. b no. 2 VAT Act), and those same supplies are excluded from the acquisition tax mechanism (Art. 45 para. 1 let. a). In plain terms: a foreign operator selling subscriptions to private customers in Switzerland becomes liable to Swiss VAT itself, from 100,000 francs of worldwide turnover, rather than shifting the tax to its customers. Our guide to VAT in Switzerland and our tax representative service cover what that entails.

Telecoms accounting has its own shape: subscription revenue spread over time, interconnection and termination charges from host operators, annual OFCOM fees, equipment written down over short periods, and a large share of purchases from abroad. A communication product with no numbering belongs instead to the questions we address in our guide to starting a SaaS company in Switzerland.

Pitfalls of a Swiss telecoms project

The first is looking for a licence that no longer exists, and paying an intermediary to obtain it. Since 2021 there is only registration, and only for licensed frequencies or Swiss numbers.

The second is treating the correspondence address as a formality. It is published and used to serve decisions; with nobody reading them, appeal periods expire unnoticed.

The third is applying for Swiss numbers for an activity that is not Swiss, when the ordinance allows OFCOM to refuse resources not intended for use mainly in Switzerland.

The fourth is concluding that a messaging or VoIP service without numbers has no obligations at all, when the SPTA binds providers of derived communications services.

The fifth is promising investors an OFCOM timeline or a “licence cost”: no statutory deadline exists for registration, and the fee is charged on time spent.

The sixth, for a foreign operator, is forgetting that selling to private customers in Switzerland creates Swiss VAT liability in its own right, entirely separate from anything OFCOM does.

FAQ: starting a telecommunications company in Switzerland

Do you need an OFCOM licence to provide telecommunications services in Switzerland?

No. Since 1 January 2021 the law provides only for registration, and only for providers that use radio frequencies whose use requires a licence or addressing resources managed at national level, meaning Swiss numbers (Art. 4 para. 1 TCA). A provider using neither is not registered.

Can a foreign company register with OFCOM without a Swiss entity?

The law does not forbid it, but every registered provider must state a Swiss business identification number and a correspondence address in Switzerland where decisions can be served with legal force, and OFCOM publishes that address (Art. 4 of the Ordinance on Telecommunications Services). Applicants for numbers established abroad face the same requirement. A Swiss company holding the UID, whose seat serves as the correspondence address, is the simplest route, provided it has a real organisation.

Can OFCOM refuse Swiss numbers?

Yes. The addressing resources ordinance allows refusal where the resource is not intended to be used mainly in Switzerland, where there is reason to believe federal law will be breached, where the application is designed to block other applicants, while fees remain unpaid, or where the applicant is bankrupt or in liquidation. The Act adds that no one has a right to a specific addressing resource (Art. 28 para. 4 TCA).

What does registration with OFCOM cost?

No fixed fee is set for examining a registration: OFCOM charges time spent at 210 francs per hour. Addressing resources have their own tariffs: 420 francs for an allocation, 200 francs a year to manage a number block, 1,500 francs a year for a short number.

Does a messaging or VoIP service without Swiss numbers have obligations?

Yes, under the SPTA. Providers of services based on telecommunications services that enable communication between people are providers of derived communications services (Art. 2 let. c SPTA). They must tolerate surveillance ordered by the Service, grant access to their facilities and supply the secondary data available to them (Art. 27 SPTA), with no OFCOM registration involved.

Is a Swiss seat required to launch a radio or television service?

For a licence, yes: the candidate must be a natural person resident in Switzerland or a legal person domiciled in Switzerland (Art. 44 para. 1 let. f RTVA), and a licence may be refused to a company controlled from abroad where reciprocity is not guaranteed. Broadcasting without a licence requires only prior notification to OFCOM (Art. 3 RTVA).

Sources

• Telecommunications Act (TCA, SR 784.10), Art. 4, 22, 23 and 28, as in force since 1 January 2021
• Ordinance on Telecommunications Services (SR 784.101.1), Art. 3 and 4
• Ordinance on addressing resources in the telecommunications sector (ORAT, SR 784.104), Art. 4 and 15f (in French)
• Federal Act on Radio and Television (RTVA, SR 784.40), Art. 3, 22 and 44
• Ordinance on fees and charges in the telecommunications sector (SR 784.106), Art. 6, 20, 34, 45 and 46 (in French)
• Federal Act on the Surveillance of Post and Telecommunications (SPTA, SR 780.1), Art. 2, 22 and 27
• Federal Act on Value Added Tax (VAT Act, SR 641.20), Art. 8, 10 and 45
• OFCOM, Registration and publication as a telecommunications service provider
• OFCOM, List of registered telecommunications service providers
• OFCOM, Radiocommunications licences in general (in French)
• OFCOM, Information for radio and television broadcasters (in French)