Bitcoin Estate Planning Switzerland Access and Rights

Your heirs inherit the right to your Bitcoin, not the keys.

I work in the crypto self-custody space. The pattern I see among Swiss holders is the same every time. The seed phrase sits on a piece of paper in a drawer. The hardware wallet sits on a shelf. Nobody else knows the PIN, the passphrase, or which exchange accounts exist. A position you spent years accumulating becomes permanently inaccessible at your death.

This post fixes that. It is not the tax post; for Zurich rates, the date-of-death valuation and the deadlines, read Bitcoin Inheritance Tax Zurich. Here you get the two tracks: the legal one, so heirs receive the Bitcoin lawfully, and the technical one, so they can reach it.

Why self-custody Bitcoin is hard to inherit

Swiss real estate runs through the cantonal Grundbuchamt: heirs acquire it at death and dispose of it after registration (ZGB Art. 656 Abs. 2). There is a register and a procedure.

Self-custody Bitcoin has neither. No institution to call, no password reset. The seed phrase is the Bitcoin. A BIP-39 or SLIP-39 secret cannot be reconstructed without the words. Private keys that cannot be found cannot sign, and Bitcoin that cannot be signed for does not exist in any practical sense.

Estate planning solves this.

Swiss legal framework for Bitcoin inheritance

No federal inheritance tax. Switzerland levies no federal Erbschaftssteuer; the ESTV says so on page one of its dossier on inheritance and gift taxes. DBG Art. 24 lit. a exempts inheritance receipts from federal income tax and StHG Art. 7 Abs. 4 lit. c does the same for cantonal income tax. Cantonal, and in some cantons communal, inheritance tax is the only layer. For the Zurich tariff and worked examples, see Bitcoin Inheritance Tax Zurich.

Pflichtteil. Under ZGB Art. 470 and 471, in force since 1 January 2023, descendants, the surviving spouse and the registered partner each hold a compulsory share of half their statutory share. Parents lost their Pflichtteil in that reform. You cannot will 100 percent of your Bitcoin away from protected heirs, except on the narrow disinheritance grounds of ZGB Art. 477. An Erbvertrag or will that violates the Pflichtteil can be reduced by a Herabsetzungsklage, which the heir must file within one year of learning of the violation and at the latest ten years after the will was opened (ZGB Art. 533).

Erbvertrag form. If you want a binding inheritance contract rather than a revocable will, ZGB Art. 512 requires the form of a public will: a deed signed by both parties before the notary and two witnesses (ZGB Art. 499). A private signed agreement between you and an heir is not an Erbvertrag. In Zurich the Notariat takes the deed on deposit for CHF 150 under the Notariatsgebührenverordnung (Anhang Ziff. 4.3.4); other cantons have their own deposit offices under ZGB Art. 505 Abs. 2.

Disclosure. The disclosure duty is a tax-inventory duty, not an anti-money-laundering rule. In Zurich the Steuergesetz has the municipal tax office start an official inventory within two weeks of death (§ 163), covering every asset at its value on the date of death (§ 164), with heirs and the executor bound to complete and truthful information and to report later-found assets within ten days (§ 166). The Inventarfragebogen is due within 60 days (Merkblatt 396). Bitcoin on a hardware wallet, at a Swiss exchange or at a foreign exchange is all part of the estate (ZGB Art. 560). Non-disclosure triggers back tax plus a penalty tax of up to three times the evaded amount (ESchG § 68); only tax fraud with false documents is a criminal offence (ESchG § 74). The balance is visible on a public blockchain once the address is known.

The 7-step estate planning procedure

Step 1. Build a complete Bitcoin inventory

List every Bitcoin address, hardware wallet, exchange account and custodian balance you hold. For each on-chain wallet, record the derivation path (BIP-44, BIP-84 or BIP-86), the device model and firmware version, the quantity and its CHF value at the current market price. Add the ESTV Kursliste value for the last 31 December from ictax.admin.ch; the Kursliste publishes only year-end values, and the estate inventory uses the market value on the date of death. For exchange accounts, record the platform, the account email, and where the 2FA backup codes are kept, separate from the seed.

The inventory is the map, not the seed. I keep mine in a sealed envelope, apart from any seed material, and update it after every purchase, withdrawal or hardware change.

For the self-custody concepts behind wallet addresses and derivation paths, Bitcoin Self-Custody covers the full setup.

Step 2. Choose your seed backup scheme

Single-seed BIP-39 (12 or 24 words) is the format most hardware wallets outside the Trezor Safe family use by default, and the simplest for an heir to restore. Trezor Safe 3 devices set up since June 2024 default to a 20-word SLIP-39 Single-share Backup; 12- or 24-word BIP-39 can be chosen from the Backup format dropdown during Trezor Suite setup, per the Trezor backup formats page. SLIP-39 Multi-share Backup on the Safe 3 and Safe 5 splits the seed into shares with a configurable threshold, for example 2-of-3, so no single share restores the wallet on its own.

Coldcard Mk5 and the larger Coldcard Q sign PSBTs (Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions) over MicroSD or QR for air-gapped workflows, which is the right approach for a multisig estate setup. Foundation Passport Prime runs open-source firmware and supports BIP-39 seeds and multisig signing.

In my view SLIP-39 suits a technically capable heir who can manage share assembly, and a single BIP-39 seed suits a non-technical spouse. Whatever you pick, store the seed in stainless steel (a Cryptosteel Seed24 capsule, or washers stamped with the Blockmit jig) for fire and flood resistance. A paper seed lost in a house fire, with no second copy, is a permanently lost position.

Step 3. Set up a 2-of-3 multisig vault

Multisig requires M-of-N keys to sign any transaction. A 2-of-3 structure spreads the keys across three parties so no single keyholder can move the Bitcoin alone, while the estate survives the permanent loss of one key.

Casa and Unchained both hold one of the three keys and publish an inheritance procedure: at Casa the named recipient starts a request in the app (casa.io/inheritance), at Unchained the Inheritance Protocol guides the executor step by step (unchained.com/inheritance). Casa Standard cost USD 250 per year on 14 September 2026. Neither page states availability for Swiss residents; ask before you rely on it. Onramp is a different model: three institutions hold the three keys and the client holds none, which is custody rather than collaborative self-custody.

For a self-managed route, Sparrow Wallet and Specter Desktop support 2-of-3 multisig with Coldcard, Trezor and Passport devices and no third-party keyholder; the estate then carries the whole recovery burden. Document the wallet descriptor or XPUB set and store it with the sealed executor instructions. Without the descriptor, heirs holding only two of the three keys cannot reconstruct the wallet, because the third public key is missing; even with all three seeds they would need the script type and the derivation paths.

Step 4. Prepare a sealed executor instruction envelope

The Erbvertrag tells heirs what they receive. The envelope tells them how to reach it. Mine contains the inventory from Step 1, the model and location of each hardware wallet, the bank safe-deposit box number, the multisig wallet descriptor or XPUB set, the contact details of any collaborative custody service, the exchange account names and emails, and the contact details of my notary.

It does not contain the seed phrase or any SLIP-39 share. The envelope is the map, the seed is the key, and they live apart.

I use a tamper-evident bag so the executor can see whether the envelope has been opened. One copy sits with the executor, a second in the safe-deposit box. Ask your Notariat whether it will take a sealed envelope on deposit; the Zurich fee table covers the deed, not envelopes.

Step 5. Sign an Erbvertrag before a Swiss notary

An Erbvertrag binds the testator to one or more contracting parties, usually heirs (ZGB Art. 494). It takes the public-deed form described above; a private written agreement between you and an heir is not an Erbvertrag under Swiss law.

Have the deed name the Bitcoin custody structure, reference the sealed executor envelope and its location, and state who receives which part of the Bitcoin. Your Notariat can take the deed on deposit. In Zurich the deed costs CHF 300 to 6,000 and the deposit CHF 150 (NotGebV Anhang Ziff. 4.3.3 and 4.3.4).

The Pflichtteil applies to an Erbvertrag as it does to a will (ZGB Art. 522), and the disposable portion is calculated on the estate at death (ZGB Art. 474). If Bitcoin is your main asset, the Pflichtteil lands on it.

A Swiss foundation under ZGB Art. 80 to 89a can hold Bitcoin, but a family foundation may only fund the education, endowment or support of family members (ZGB Art. 335); a foundation that simply passes wealth to heirs is not permitted. If you think that structure fits, ask a Notar and an attorney. You will not get that answer from a blog post.

Step 6. Run a recovery drill with your heir

The deed and the envelope exist on paper. The restore has to work in practice. I run a recovery drill with the heir who will handle access at least once a year and after every hardware or firmware change. For a non-technical spouse the drill covers locating the device, connecting it to a computer running Trezor Suite or the matching companion software, restoring from the seed phrase, checking that the first address matches the inventory, and checking that the on-chain balance is visible.

For multisig the drill also covers loading the wallet descriptor and confirming the wallet displays correctly before any transaction is attempted. Doing this once with no time pressure is a different experience from doing it for the first time inside the 60-day inventory window.

If the heir cannot complete the restore with the written instructions, fix the instructions now. For the tooling side of a restore, the BTCRecover tutorial covers recovery in detail.

Step 7. Run an annual review of keys, heirs and exchange accounts

Set a calendar reminder for the same date each year. Update the inventory with the ESTV Kursliste value for 31 December from ictax.admin.ch, confirm the hardware wallet firmware is current, rotate keys if any key material may have been exposed, check that the Erbvertrag still reflects the intended distribution (a new child or a changed relationship may need a new notarial deed), and confirm the sealed envelope is still sealed and still where the deed says it is.

If you added a hardware wallet, moved Bitcoin or changed a multisig configuration since the last review, update the inventory and the envelope before the year closes.

The seed phrase problem in Swiss probate

A common failure mode is technical, not legal: the testator named an heir in the will and never passed on the seed phrase or hardware wallet access in any usable form.

The cantonal authority opens the will (ZGB Art. 557). It can order an official estate administration (ZGB Art. 554). Only you can name an executor, in your will (ZGB Art. 517), and that executor then carries the duties of ZGB Art. 518. None of them can recover a lost seed phrase. No Swiss court, authority or technology can. The Bitcoin stays on-chain, visible to anyone who knows the address, and frozen.

The fix is Step 4, the sealed envelope, and Step 6, the drill that turns it into something the heir can act on.

For what makes a wallet configuration recoverable versus unrecoverable, see BIP-39 Brute Force Attack.

Exchange accounts and custodian assets

Bitcoin at a Swiss-regulated custodian is part of the estate (ZGB Art. 560) and of the tax inventory. Until the inventory is taken, anyone holding estate assets may release them only with the consent of the municipal inventory authority (ZH StG § 165), and the custodian must give the authority written information on the holdings (§ 167). Heirs then present the Erbschein and whatever the platform asks for.

Foreign exchange accounts (Coinbase, Kraken, Binance) are also part of the Swiss estate. The tax-inventory duty covers every asset, wherever the platform is domiciled (ZH StG § 164). Heirs report them at their value on the date of death, with a printout as evidence, as ZStB 16.5 asks for self-custody holdings.

Summary checklist

1. A current Bitcoin inventory (addresses, devices, exchange accounts, ESTV Kursliste 31 December values)
2. A chosen and documented seed backup format (BIP-39 or SLIP-39)
3. For larger holdings, a 2-of-3 multisig with the wallet descriptor stored in the executor envelope
4. A sealed executor envelope with access instructions and no seed material
5. An Erbvertrag as a public deed before a notary and two witnesses under ZGB Art. 512, with a Bitcoin custody clause
6. A recovery drill completed with the heir who will do the restore
7. An annual review date in the calendar

Under ZGB Art. 560 the heirs acquire the estate by law; the seed is what gives them access. The deed without the access instructions leaves your heir with rights but no access. The instructions without the deed leave access but no rights. Both tracks have to be complete.

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This is education, not legal or tax advice. Bitcoin estate planning combines Swiss inheritance law, custody mechanics, and cantonal tax-inventory disclosure rules. The articles and paragraphs cited are from the ZGB, DBG and StHG on fedlex.admin.ch, the Zurich Steuergesetz, ESchG and Notariatsgebührenverordnung on zh.ch, and the vendor pages named, all checked on 14 September 2026. Consult a licensed Swiss Notar and Steuerberater before signing an Erbvertrag.

Estimate your wealth tax: the Zurich Bitcoin tax guide and calculator turns your holding into the CHF figure for your return.