On 19 June 2026, the National Council and the Council of States passed the federal decree on additional AHV financing through a VAT increase in their final votes: the National Council by 108 votes to 85 with six abstentions, the Council of States by 28 to 13 with three abstentions. The standard rate is to rise from 8.1% to 8.5%, and the special rate for accommodation from 3.8% to 4.0%. The money co-finances the 13th AHV pension, paid out for the first time in December 2026.
Because the Federal Constitution has to be amended, the people and the cantons decide at the ballot box on 29 November 2026. The increase cannot take effect before 2028.
For a trade business this is not a story for the archive. If you write a quote in 2027 for a conversion that will only be carried out in 2028, you are selling work today that may already have to be invoiced at the new rate. The preparation is manageable. It just should not start in December 2027.
What exactly changes
| Rate | Today | From 2028 |
|---|---|---|
| Standard rate | 8.1% | 8.5% |
| Reduced rate | 2.6% | 2.6% |
| Special rate, accommodation | 3.8% | 4.0% |
The VAT 2028 calculator shows what it means for your quotes (German).
For the trades, only the first line really matters. The reduced rate for food, books and similar goods stays unchanged, and the special rate covers accommodation, so hotels and campsites, not your building site. The full picture on rates and on when you become liable is in the guide VAT for tradespeople.
The increase is 0.4 percentage points. On a CHF 20’000 net job that is CHF 80 more tax; on CHF 200’000 it is CHF 800. Small enough to overlook, large enough to come out of your own margin if you quoted a fixed price.
The exact switchover date will be set by the Federal Council if the proposal is accepted. It cannot fall before 2028. The 13th AHV pension costs roughly CHF 4.2 billion in its first year, and the increase covers only part of that; the rest of the financing is still politically open. None of that changes your planning: what counts is what has to appear on your invoices from 2028.
Which rate applies to my work?
This is where the one rule you really need on site sits. ESTV states it in VAT Info 19: what determines the applicable rate is neither the invoice date nor the payment date, but the moment the service is rendered.
In practice:
- The quote date is irrelevant. A quote from October 2027 for work carried out in spring 2028 is invoiced at the new rate.
- The invoice date is irrelevant. Work you finish in December 2027 and invoice in January 2028 stays at the old rate.
- An invoice covering both periods has to be split. The date or period of the work and the amount attributable to it must be shown separately. If you do not split it, ESTV practice is that the whole invoice is taxed at the new, higher rate, and the difference is yours to pay.
An example from the last rate change, on 1 January 2024, shows how it works: a kitchen installed on 22 December 2023, invoiced on 12 January 2024 and paid a week later still fell under the old rate, because the work was done in the old year. The same mechanism applies in 2028, only in the other direction: whatever you carry out after the switchover costs more, even if the quote, the order and the material purchase all date from the previous year.
Practically, that makes your job reports and time tracking more important than usual during the transition year. The service date stops being paperwork for the bookkeeper and becomes the evidence for which rate applies to which line.
Works contracts that run past the switchover
A works contract with a fixed gross price is the riskiest variant: if the rate goes up during execution, your net revenue falls, because the agreed amount including VAT stays the same. Go through your live contracts with work scheduled from 2028 and check whether the price was agreed net or gross.
For quotes covering work that may run into 2028, put a clause in the document. This wording has proven itself:
All prices are net, plus VAT at the statutory rate applicable at the time the work is performed.
That makes clear a rate change feeds through to the final amount and not into your margin. How a complete quote is structured is set out in the guide How to write a quote.
Partial invoices and advance payments
For staged work and instalments the same logic applies stage by stage: the part of the work performed before the switchover is billed at the old rate, the part after it at the new one. If you invoice a construction project in progress statements, put the service period on every partial invoice from 2027 onwards. Where an advance payment covers work that will only be performed after the switchover, that portion may already be invoiced at the new rate. The groundwork is in the guide Advance payments and partial invoices.
Flat tax rate: what changes for small businesses
If you file under the flat tax rate method, you still show your customers the standard rate but remit a lower, industry-specific flat rate on turnover to ESTV. That rate is tied to the statutory rates: according to ESTV, an increase in the tax rates leads to a corresponding adjustment of the flat tax rates. At the last increase, the turnover and tax-liability limits for the method were adjusted as well.
For you that means: expect your flat tax rate to be a different number from 2028. ESTV publishes the new rates before the switchover; until then there is no figure you could calculate with in good faith. If you are building a multi-year forecast, leave the line open rather than carrying today’s rate forward.
Filing once a year instead of quarterly
Independently of the increase, there has been a simplification since 2025 that many businesses still do not use: if your annual turnover is up to CHF 5’005’000, you can apply to file VAT once a year instead of quarterly or twice a year. The condition is that the returns for the last three years were filed on time and paid in full.
The application runs through ESTV’s ePortal and has to be submitted no later than 60 days after the start of the tax period, so by the end of February. In return you pay instalments during the year, set by ESTV: three instalments due 30 May, 30 August and 30 November under the effective method and the flat-rate method, one instalment due 30 August under the flat tax rate method. The annual return itself is due by the end of February of the following year.
It pays off for small businesses with steady turnover that experience four filings a year as pure admin. It does not pay off if your turnover swings hard or you regularly run an input tax credit: you would then wait a year for money you get back quarterly today. For the move to 2028 the annual return is actually convenient, because the switchover falls on a year boundary and therefore sits cleanly between two filings.
Checklist to the end of 2027
- Update the quote template. Switch the VAT clause to “plus VAT at the statutory rate applicable at the time the work is performed” as soon as you quote dates from 2028.
- Review live contracts. Which works contracts run into 2028? Where is there a gross price that does not reflect the increase? Settle those cases with the customer before the work starts.
- Get your software ready for two rates. During the transition year your system has to carry both rates in parallel and split an invoice by service period. Check that early, not in the first week of January 2028.
- Ask your accountant. Three specific points: the new flat tax rate, how work in progress across the switchover is handled, and whether annual filing suits you.
- Recalculate your prices. For business customers the increase is a pass-through item; for private customers the final price goes up. Decide deliberately whether you pass on those 0.4 percentage points or absorb them.
In MeisterOffice, the VAT rate is stored on the document: a new rate in the company profile applies to new quotes and invoices, existing documents keep their rate, and the rate can be adjusted per document. That way a quote written in 2027 for work carried out in 2028 can be issued at the new rate; what it costs is on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
Is VAT going up in 2027? No. Nothing changes in 2027; the standard rate stays at 8.1%. The new rates apply from 2028 at the earliest, and only if the people and the cantons accept the proposal on 29 November 2026.
Which VAT rate applies to a 2027 quote carried out in 2028? The rate at the time the work is performed, so the new one. Neither the quote date nor the invoice date matters. If part of the work is still carried out in 2027, split the invoice by service period and show both rates separately.
Do I have to change my quote template? As soon as you quote work to be carried out from 2028, yes. A net price with the addition “plus VAT at the statutory rate applicable at the time the work is performed” is enough. If you quote a fixed gross price, you carry the difference yourself.
What happens if voters say no on 29 November 2026? Then the federal decree of 19 June 2026 falls and the rates stay at 8.1%, 2.6% and 3.8%. The 13th AHV pension will be paid from December 2026 either way: what is on the ballot is not the pension but its financing. For your quotes that means the clause referring to the statutory rate at the time of performance is right in both cases, and you will not have to touch it after the vote.