{"id":13275,"date":"2026-09-26T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my-swiss-company.com\/?p=13275"},"modified":"2026-09-18T11:05:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T09:05:22","slug":"open-medical-practice-switzerland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my-swiss-company.com\/en\/open-medical-practice-switzerland\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting up a medical practice company in Switzerland: cantonal licence, admission of the company and its doctors, needs clause and TARDOC"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Doctors who want to open a medical practice in Switzerland increasingly do so through a company, either a limited liability company (GmbH\/S\u00e0rl) or a company limited by shares (AG\/SA). The company is a useful vehicle for billing, hiring and succession, but it does not replace a single personal requirement. Each doctor still needs a cantonal practising licence and must personally qualify for admission to compulsory health insurance (OKP), while the company that bills must itself be admitted as an outpatient institution, and its doctors count towards the cantonal cap on practitioners.<\/p>\n

This guide is written for doctors trained in the European Union, the United Kingdom or elsewhere who are considering Switzerland, as well as for Swiss doctors setting up or grouping a practice. It separates what the company genuinely changes, from billing and social insurance to tax and succession, from what it leaves untouched.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Contents<\/h3>\n
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  1. Practising licence, OKP admission, RCC number: three separate permissions<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Doctors trained abroad: diploma, three years in Switzerland, language<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. The needs clause: doctors employed by a company count too<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Sole proprietorship, GmbH or AG: what the company changes<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. TARDOC and outpatient flat rates since 1 January 2026<\/a><\/li>\n
  6. What the canton decides: Geneva and Ticino as examples<\/a><\/li>\n
  7. VAT, social insurance and accounting of a practice company<\/a><\/li>\n
  8. Where practice companies go wrong<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n

    Practising licence, OKP admission, RCC number: three separate permissions<\/h2>\n

    To open a medical practice in Switzerland, three permissions stack up. They come from different bodies and are granted to different persons, and most delays start when they are treated as one.<\/p>\n

    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
    The three permissions needed to practise and bill compulsory health insurance<\/caption>\n
    Permission<\/th>\nWhat it allows<\/th>\nGranted by, to whom<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
    Practising licence<\/td>\nPractising medicine under your own professional responsibility<\/td>\nThe canton of practice, to the doctor (Art. 34 MedPA)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    Admission to OKP<\/td>\nProviding services reimbursed by compulsory health insurance<\/td>\nThe canton, to the doctor and, where relevant, to the institution (Art. 36 HIA)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    RCC creditor number<\/td>\nIssuing prescriptions and invoices charged to OKP<\/td>\nsant\u00e9services sa, to the admitted natural or legal person<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

    Under the Medical Professions Act (MedPA), practising a university medical profession under your own professional responsibility requires a licence from the canton where you practise (Art. 34). The licence is granted to a holder of the federal diploma who is trustworthy, offers the physical and mental guarantees for irreproachable practice and has the necessary knowledge of an official language of that canton; doctors must also hold the corresponding federal postgraduate title (Art. 36). A licence from one canton in principle satisfies the conditions of another.<\/p>\n

    The Canton of Geneva explains in its FAQ that a valid practising licence is a precondition for OKP admission and that both applications may be filed together. The creditor number, known as RCC in French and ZSR in German, is then issued so that the admitted person can sign prescriptions and invoices charged to OKP. Geneva stresses that the RCC number is not an admission in itself, and that it is issued for independent activity both to individuals and to institutions. Since 1 July 2026, the former SASIS SA and the other companies of the sant\u00e9suisse group operate under the single name sant\u00e9services sa.<\/p>\n

    Doctors trained abroad: diploma, three years in Switzerland, language<\/h2>\n

    For a doctor trained outside Switzerland, the first question is the diploma. A foreign diploma is recognised when its equivalence with a federal diploma is established by a mutual recognition treaty with the issuing state, and a recognised diploma then has the same effect as a federal one; the Medical Professions Commission (MEBEKO) decides on recognition (Art. 15 MedPA). Holders of diplomas from states without such a treaty can practise under their own responsibility only in narrow cases defined by the Federal Council, for example while teaching in an accredited programme at the hospital where they teach, or in a region where the supply of care is demonstrably insufficient (Art. 36 para. 3 MedPA).<\/p>\n

    Recognition opens the door to a practising licence, not yet to OKP billing. Since 1 January 2022, the Federal Health Insurance Act (HIA) requires doctors seeking admission to have worked at least three years at a recognised Swiss postgraduate training institution in the specialty concerned, and to prove the language skills of the region through a language test taken in Switzerland (Art. 37 para. 1 HIA).<\/p>\n