Weekly resident tax 2026: CHF 30 a day, one room, one trip home — and the hours rule that doesn't exist

👤 Who is a weekly resident: the hours rule that doesn't exist

Four nights at work, three at home — and yet you pay your taxes where you sleep less. You are a weekly resident if you have accommodation at your place of work during the week and regularly go home at weekends; it is only recognised if a daily return cannot reasonably be expected. Then the tax office allows three deductions a commuter never sees: room, meals, trip home.

Your tax domicile remains at your family location – and so does cantonal tax sovereignty. For singles, the tax office checks more strictly: you must prove that you maintain your own household at the main residence and regularly return there. A room at your parents' home is generally sufficient. Anyone additionally taxed at source — permit B, L or G — pays via payroll deduction and must actively claim the deductions back.

The weekly stay must be professionally necessary – not merely convenient. Anyone voluntarily living closer to work has no claim to additional deductions.

BDO Tax Tip No. 27

🏠 Deducting the room: never the whole flat

Same rent, different flat: CHF 1,800 a month earns a deduction of CHF 7,200 a year in Thurgau as a 2-room flat, but only CHF 4,800 as a 3.5-room flat. The more rooms, the smaller the deduction. What you can deduct is the customary local cost of one room – that is what the federal Professional Expenses Ordinance provides (Art. 9 para. 3; there is no official English version of Swiss federal law, so this is a paraphrase). Not the whole flat. How the room is carved out of a flat's rent differs by canton: Thurgau divides the annual rent by the number of rooms plus one, Solothurn allows at most two room units for a flat (room 1, kitchen and bathroom ½ each), Graubünden caps it at CHF 9,600 a year.

Utilities (heating, electricity, water) are additionally deductible, provided they are listed separately in the rental agreement. The deduction only applies for months you actually live at the workplace.

🍽️ Deducting meals: CHF 30 a day, not a cent more

The flat rate is CHF 30 a day, but the annual cap of CHF 6,400 is reached after 213 days: from day 214 at your workplace, you eat at your own expense. The CHF 30 at federal level covers lunch and dinner. If your employer subsidises lunch (canteen, vouchers), the deduction drops to CHF 22.50. Proving higher costs is ruled out – the flat rate applies. The canton of Zurich ends up at the same figure in two items: lunch and dinner at CHF 15 each. You enter them directly in ZHprivateTax. And if you work two days a week from home, you lose the meal deduction on those days, but not every deduction: what applies on home-office days is in the home office deduction by canton.

🚆 Deducting trips home: exactly one a week

Whether you commute every day or cross the country once a week to get home: at federal level the same cap applies to both, CHF 3,300 a year. You may deduct one weekly home journey. No more. Additional trips during the week (even for family reasons) are not deductible. Public transport costs are the benchmark – a car is only accepted if you save at least one hour per journey.

🧮 Weekly resident calculator: the ConvivaPlus Tax Timetable

Enter rent, rooms, days on site and trips home: the ConvivaPlus Tax Timetable works out the three deductions for federal tax — and for Zurich alongside, where the canton allows more. It shows the deduction, not an invented tax saving.

🧰 ConvivaPlus Tax Timetable: canton + salary → deadline, extension, flat rate

ConvivaPlus.ch

📍 Canton comparison: one studio, three cantons, three deductions

A studio at CHF 1'200 a month. Solothurn lets you deduct the full CHF 14'400 a year, Graubünden at most CHF 9'600, and Thurgau states that you have «in principle no entitlement» to the rent of a one-room flat, only to the customary cost of a room. The same flat, three deductions: that is what the ConvivaPlus analysis of the three cantonal tax manuals shows. What counts is the law of your home canton; how differently the cantons calculate is shown by the tax comparison of all 26 cantons. For the trip home it is Zurich that differs: CHF 5'200 instead of CHF 3'300 for federal tax.

Zurich allows CHF 1,900 more for the trip home than the federal level

📅 Weekly resident tax deadline: your home canton's

If you work in Zurich and live in Bern, you file in Bern, by March 15, not by March 31 like your Zurich colleagues. The deadline follows your residence: Switzerland has 22 fixed and 4 individual deadlines. The tax timetable above shows yours.

⚠️ Common mistakes: the whole rent and the second trip

The costliest mistake has a number: deduct the full rent of a 3.5-room flat at CHF 1'800 a month and you claim CHF 16'800 more than the Thurgau formula allows for one room — CHF 21'600 instead of CHF 4'800. The correction follows. These five mistakes cost money every year and are avoidable.

📋 Receipts checklist: what to keep

For up to 10 years after the end of the tax period, the tax office can claim back taxes (Federal Direct Tax Act, Art. 152) — every one of these documents must stay findable that long. The most important is not a tax form, but proof that you really live at home.