Income percentiles in Switzerland
Where each yearly income band starts in Switzerland, in CHF, and what a reading there measures.
Reference data version 2026.4, reference year 2024.
Three cut-offs
- Bottom tenth
- under CHF 30,000 a year
- Top tenth
- from CHF 130,000 a year
- Top hundredth
- from CHF 290,000 a year
The middle of the distribution, the 40th to 55th percentile, is CHF 56,000 – CHF 69,000 a year.
Every band
The 11 bands the income question offers in Switzerland, verbatim, lowest first.
| Band | Yearly income |
|---|---|
| Below the 10th percentile | under CHF 30,000 |
| 10th to 25th percentile | CHF 30,000 – CHF 44,000 |
| 25th to 40th percentile | CHF 44,000 – CHF 56,000 |
| 40th to 55th percentile | CHF 56,000 – CHF 69,000 |
| 55th to 70th percentile | CHF 69,000 – CHF 86,000 |
| 70th to 80th percentile | CHF 86,000 – CHF 100,000 |
| 80th to 90th percentile | CHF 100,000 – CHF 130,000 |
| 90th to 95th percentile | CHF 130,000 – CHF 170,000 |
| 95th to 98th percentile | CHF 170,000 – CHF 220,000 |
| 98th to 99th percentile | CHF 220,000 – CHF 290,000 |
| Top 1% | CHF 290,000 or more |
Per earner. The source publishes household income divided by everyone in the household; the labels multiply it by 1.83, the people one worker's income stands for in Switzerland, so a person can place their own income.
What the data rests on
- Confidence
- Medium
- Years covered
- 1981 to 2024
- Survey-based years
- 50% of covered years
- Nearest survey
- 2 years from 2024
- Age bands
- 6 of 6 resolved by the OECD
- Measured on
- income
- Currency
- CHF (CHF)
Why: the span is short of the longest horizon; 50% of covered years rest on a survey.
What a reading in Switzerland measures
- Your place: which of the bands above your income is in now, against the band it was in a year ago, read as a position in the income distribution of Switzerland itself.
- Your ground: both incomes with consumer prices in Switzerland taken out, against how the middle of the distribution moved over the same year.
- Nothing is compared across borders. A reading in Switzerland is measured against Switzerland alone.
A band is a range, so a move inside one band does not register, and published distributions understate the very top. The confidence level above travels onto every card measured here.