In this article
- TL;DR
- Why cantonal gift tax is not uniform across Switzerland
- Cantonal Schenkungssteuer rates on direct-line gifts 2026
- Where Zurich does tax a Bitcoin gift
- How Bitcoin is valued for gift tax purposes
- What a valid Schenkungsvertrag looks like
- Cross-canton gifts when donor and recipient live in different cantons
- Gifting Bitcoin pre-mortem versus inheriting it post-mortem
- VAT and gift tax do not interact
- Summary
Every Q4, Swiss Bitcoin holders with kids ask me the same thing. Can I gift my child some Bitcoin without the tax hit? In Zurich, Bern, Zug, Schwyz, and Geneva, yes, whatever the amount. In Vaud, only up to CHF 300,000 a year. Gift the same coins to the partner you never married and Zurich takes up to 36 percent.
I work in the crypto self-custody space. Switzerland has no federal gift tax, so you are dealing with cantonal Schenkungssteuer, one of the most heterogeneous taxes in the system. Two cantons sharing a border can run opposite rules. Zurich exempts a child and taxes a sibling at three times the base rate. Vaud taxes a child above CHF 300,000 a year. Lucerne has no gift tax at all until the donor dies within five years of signing.
This post maps the cantonal rules I could read in the statute, explains how the ESTV values Bitcoin on the gift date, covers what a Schenkungsvertrag has to contain, and walks through the cross-canton question that catches people out.
TL;DR
Switzerland has no federal gift tax. A gift to your child or spouse is untaxed in Zurich, Bern, Zug, Schwyz, and Geneva. Vaud taxes a child above CHF 300,000 per calendar year. Lucerne pulls a gift into the estate if you die within five years. Gifts to an unmarried partner, a sibling, or a friend are taxed almost everywhere, in Zurich at two to seven percent times a multiplier of up to six. You value the Bitcoin at the exchange price on the day the transfer confirms, not at the ESTV year-end rate. A handwritten, dated, signed Schenkungsvertrag covers movable property under OR Art. 243, and a transfer executed on the spot needs no document at all. When donor and recipient live in different cantons, the donor's canton wins.
Why cantonal gift tax is not uniform across Switzerland
The StHG (Steuerharmonisierungsgesetz, fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1991/1256_1256_1256/de) coordinates most cantonal direct taxes but leaves Schenkungssteuer to cantonal discretion. No StHG floor or ceiling applies. Cantons set their own brackets, exempt direct descendants entirely, or write progressive scales. The wide cantonal variation you see below is the design.
The DBG (Bundesgesetz uber die direkte Bundessteuer, fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1991/1184_1184_1184/de) contains no gift tax provisions. Federal direct tax touches employment income, business income, and investment income. Gifts are invisible to the federal level.
Cantonal Schenkungssteuer rates on direct-line gifts 2026
The table covers the cantons whose statute I read in the official legislation portal. Each source link goes to the law or to the cantonal tax office page, checked on 13 September 2026. Cantons I could not verify to a primary URL are omitted.
| Canton | Gift to spouse | Gift to child | Statute and source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zurich (ZH) | Exempt | Exempt | ESchG § 11, LS 632.1 |
| Bern (BE) | Exempt | Exempt | ESchG Art. 9, BSG 662.1 |
| Lucerne (LU) | Exempt | No gift tax; a gift made within 5 years before the donor's death joins the estate, where municipalities may tax a child up to 1% above CHF 100,000 | EStG § 6 and § 11, SRL 630 and Steuerverwaltung Luzern |
| Zug (ZG) | Exempt | Exempt | StG § 175, BGS 632.1 |
| Schwyz (SZ) | No tax | No tax | Steuerverwaltung Schwyz, no inheritance or gift tax is levied |
| Geneva (GE) | Exempt | Exempt, unless the donor was taxed under the expenditure-based regime in one of the last three assessments | LDE art. 27A, rsGE D 3 30 and ge.ch, impôt sur les donations |
| Vaud (VD) | Exempt | Exempt up to CHF 300,000 per child per calendar year; above that the whole gift is taxed at 1.2 to 3.5% cantonal plus a communal surcharge of up to 100% | LMSD art. 16, 20, 34, RSV 648.11 |
Aargau, Basel-Stadt, Basel-Landschaft, and St. Gallen are missing because I have not read their statutes at the article level. YMYL pages do not get to guess. Ask the cantonal Steuerverwaltung directly for current rates.
Where Zurich does tax a Bitcoin gift
Zurich exempts your spouse, your registered partner, and your descendants without any cap. The rule is one sentence in ESchG § 11: "Der Ehegatte, der eingetragene Partner und die Nachkommen des Erblassers oder Schenkers sind von der Steuerpflicht befreit." The same law covers inheritance, so the exemption holds whether you gift now or leave the coins at death.
Zurich bites when the recipient is anyone else. Three parts of the law decide the bill:
Deduction, ESchG § 21. CHF 200,000 for a gift to your parent. CHF 15,000 for a sibling, a grandparent, a fiancé, a stepchild, a godchild, a foster child, or a household employee of more than ten years. CHF 50,000 for the partner you live with, if you have shared a household for at least five years. Nothing for a nephew or a friend, beyond the CHF 5,000 occasional-gift exemption in § 12.
Simple tax, ESchG § 22. Two percent on the first CHF 30,000 of the taxable amount, three percent on the next CHF 60,000, four percent on the next CHF 90,000, five percent on the next CHF 180,000, six percent on the next CHF 480,000, seven percent on the next CHF 660,000. Above CHF 1,500,000 the simple tax is a flat six percent of the whole amount.
Multiplier, ESchG § 23. Parents pay the simple tax once. Grandparents and stepchildren pay it twice, siblings three times, stepparents four times, uncles, aunts, nieces, and nephews five times. Everyone else, which includes the partner you live with but never married, pays six times.
Valuation. The taxable CHF figure is the market value on the day the gift is executed, ESchG § 7 and § 13 (see the next section).
A Zurich resident who gifts CHF 300,000 of Bitcoin to an unmarried partner owes the simple tax on CHF 300,000: CHF 600 on the first 30,000, CHF 1,800 on the next 60,000, CHF 3,600 on the next 90,000, and CHF 6,000 on the remaining 120,000, so CHF 12,000, times six, CHF 72,000. If the couple has shared a household for five years, CHF 50,000 comes off first: simple tax on CHF 250,000 is CHF 9,500, times six, CHF 57,000. The same coins gifted to a child cost nothing. Marrying first, or a registered partnership, turns the CHF 72,000 into zero; that is the single largest planning lever in the canton. The recipient files the gift-tax return within three months (§ 34).
How Bitcoin is valued for gift tax purposes
Two different values matter. For the wealth tax, Zurich takes the ESTV year-end value: the ESTV publishes in its ICTax Kursliste one closing price per coin for the last trading day of December, and the Zurich Steuerbuch 16.5 tells you to declare Bitcoin at that figure under "übrige Guthaben" with a wallet printout as proof. For the gift tax, Zurich takes the market value on the day the tax claim arises, ESchG § 13, and § 7 sets that day at the execution of the gift.
For Bitcoin, execution is the confirmed transaction into the recipient's wallet, not the signature on the contract. Sign on 15 March 2026, transfer 0.5 BTC the same day, and the CHF figure is 0.5 multiplied by the closing price of a leading exchange on 15 March 2026. The ESTV publishes no daily crypto rates; its working paper on cryptocurrencies allows the market value of a leading trading platform where no ESTV value exists.
Save a PDF of the exchange price on the transfer date and the wallet printout with your records. That is the evidence the Kantonales Steueramt asks for.
The full Swiss Bitcoin tax framework, including wealth tax valuation at year-end, is covered in Bitcoin Tax Switzerland.
What a valid Schenkungsvertrag looks like
Bitcoin counts as movable property under Swiss private law, so the formal requirements come from:
- OR Art. 242 and 243 (Code of Obligations, SR 220): a gift of movable property is either executed on the spot by handover, the Handschenkung of Art. 242, or promised in writing, the Schenkungsversprechen of Art. 243 para. 1, where the donor's signature suffices (OR Art. 13).
- OR Art. 245 (SR 220): you can attach conditions and charges. A plain unconditional Bitcoin gift to a family member needs no special clause.
A handwritten letter or typed document, signed and dated by the donor, identifying the donor, the recipient, the date, the Bitcoin amount, and the CHF market value on the day of transfer covers the legal requirement. Notarial certification (offentliche Beurkundung) is optional for movable property.
What most Swiss Steuerberater recommend is a one-page document with:
- Full name and address of donor
- Full name and address of recipient
- Date of the gift
- Description: "X.XXXXX Bitcoin (BTC), transferred to wallet address [address]"
- CHF market value on the day of transfer, with the exchange named: CHF [amount]
- Donor's signature and date
Keep two copies. Give one to the recipient. Retain one for your own tax file. Both of you may need it for your respective cantonal declarations.
If the gift involves real property (land, apartments), OR Art. 243 para. 2 demands notarial form. Bitcoin sidesteps that.
Cross-canton gifts when donor and recipient live in different cantons
This is the question I get most from Swiss Bitcoin holders who moved cantons while their kids stayed put.
For movable assets including Bitcoin, the inter-cantonal allocation rule hands gift tax jurisdiction to the donor's canton of domicile at the time of the gift. The recipient's canton has no claim on a movable-asset gift. Zurich states it in ESchG § 2 para. 1: the tax is due when the donor is domiciled in the canton at the time of the gift. The federal ban on inter-cantonal double taxation (BV Art. 127 para. 3) keeps a second canton from taxing the same gift.
So if you live in Zurich and your daughter lives in Zug, Zurich Schenkungssteuer applies. The Zug zero rate on direct-line gifts does nothing for you. Move your domicile from Zurich to Zug before you sign, and Zug rules apply from the date your domicile actually changes.
Tax domicile in Switzerland follows the Steuerdomizil, registered in the cantonal Einwohnerregister. Moving to a lower-Schenkungssteuer canton to cut your bill is legal, but only if you genuinely live there. Cantonal authorities apply an economic attachment test when domicile is challenged.
Gifting Bitcoin pre-mortem versus inheriting it post-mortem
Swiss Bitcoin holders often ask whether gifting now reduces eventual inheritance tax. Depends on the canton.
In Zurich, Bern, Zug, Schwyz, and Geneva, both a lifetime gift and an inheritance at death sit at zero for a spouse or a child. Pre-mortem versus post-mortem does not change the answer for them. It changes everything for an unmarried partner: Zurich taxes that inheritance at six times the simple tax, and a gift during your lifetime costs exactly the same, so the fix is a registered partnership or marriage, not timing.
Lucerne is the canton where timing matters. It has no gift tax, but EStG § 6 adds any gift made within five years before death back into the estate. Gift early and survive five years, or the gift is taxed as if it had never left.
Vaud taxes a child on both sides. A gift above CHF 300,000 in one calendar year is taxed in full; an inheritance is taxed on the same barème. Spreading gifts across years is the only lever, since the exemption is per year, not per lifetime. The Zurich mechanics for other heirs are worked through in Bitcoin Inheritance Tax Zurich.
The estate planning mechanics for Swiss Bitcoin holders, including multisig setups, Erbvertrag structures, and heir-access drills, sit in Bitcoin Estate Planning Switzerland.
VAT and gift tax do not interact
Gifting Bitcoin is not a supply of goods or services for Swiss VAT. The ESTV MWST-Info 04, section 2.7.3, practice since 1 June 2019, treats payment tokens such as Bitcoin like legal tender, and a gift is by definition not a commercial transaction. No VAT on a Bitcoin gift regardless of CHF value.
VAT rules for a Swiss business that accepts Bitcoin as payment for goods or services are a different topic, covered in Bitcoin VAT Switzerland.
Summary
Cantonal Schenkungssteuer on a Bitcoin gift to your spouse or child is zero in Zurich, Bern, Zug, Schwyz, and Geneva. Vaud taxes a child above CHF 300,000 per calendar year. Lucerne taxes only if you die within five years. Gifts to an unmarried partner, a sibling, or a friend are where the money is: in Zurich up to 36 percent for the partner and 21 percent for the sibling on the top slice.
Four moves before you sign a Schenkungsvertrag:
- Confirm the donor's canton of domicile. That canton's rules govern, not the recipient's.
- Record the exchange closing price on the transfer date and keep the wallet printout; the ESTV year-end rate is for the wealth tax, not the gift.
- If the recipient is not your spouse, registered partner, or child, look up the deduction and multiplier for that relationship before you sign; in Vaud, check what you already gave that child this calendar year.
- Write the Schenkungsvertrag to OR Art. 243 standard: signed, dated, Bitcoin amount and CHF value stated.
A licensed Swiss Steuerberater or Treuhander sits between reading this and acting on it. Use one before transferring a material amount.
This is education, not tax advice. Cantonal gift tax rates change. The cantonal Steuergesetze cited here reflect publicly available 2026 sources, but rates, thresholds, and exemptions are subject to revision by cantonal parliaments. Consult a licensed Swiss Steuerberater or Treuhander for personal cases and current cantonal rates before making any Bitcoin gift.
Estimate your wealth tax: the Zurich Bitcoin tax guide and calculator turns your holding into the CHF figure for your return.
