Cross-border worker, first job in Switzerland: which documents should you bring?

What you do not have to bring: your safety shoes, your helmet and your gloves. The employer provides them and pays for them (see below).

It all depends on the duration. Permits are covered in detail in L, B, G permits and temporary work from France; here is what matters for your documents.

• Three months or less per calendar year: no permit (Ordinance on the Free Movement of Persons, OLCP art. 4 para. 4). The agency files an online registration no later than the day before the first day (OLCP art. 9 para. 1bis). You only provide your identity document and your contract details.
• More than three months, and you go home at least once a week: EU/EFTA G permit, valid throughout Switzerland (OLCP art. 4 para. 3). The application is made in the canton where you work, before the first day.

In Geneva, the file contains a colour copy of your identity document, a photo with your surname and first name on the back, and your employment contract; for a temporary worker, also the assignment contract or staff leasing contract. You can work as soon as the complete file has been sent; the second acknowledgement of receipt sent to the employer proves it in case of an inspection. The office currently announces 4 months of processing time. Each change of employer must be reported within 14 days.

In the canton of Vaud, the application goes through the online G1 form. The employment and assignment contracts must be signed, otherwise the file stalls. You can start as soon as the application has been filed. You will then receive, through the agency, a notice to attend the Biometrics Centre in Lausanne. The permit costs CHF 70.00 (CHF 55.00 for a change of employer); the employer is jointly liable for the bill.

Watch out for the return rule: for the G permit, once a week is enough. For tax, it is a different matter (see below).

A Franco-Swiss agreement of 11 April 1983 states that a cross-border worker employed by an employer in the cantons of Bern, Solothurn, Basel-Stadt, Basel-Landschaft, Vaud, Valais, Neuchâtel or Jura pays tax on their salary only in France. In return, the canton receives 4.5 % of gross salaries, paid by France.

To benefit, you must meet all of these conditions (Vaud directive; Neuchâtel says the same):

• be tax resident in France;
• go home as a general rule every day, at least 4 days a week if full time; 45 nights spent outside France per year are tolerated;
• not exceed 40 % remote work;
• give the employer the tax residence certificate, form no. 2041-AS, in two copies, before the first day of work.

The G permit is not enough: the canton of Vaud writes that holding one "is not relevant" for tax status. A mason from Annemasse who sleeps in Sion from Monday to Friday is entitled to the G permit, but loses cross-border tax status and pays withholding tax in Valais.

How to get it. For the first two years, and at each change (address, personal situation), you fill in 4 copies of form 2041-AS (sections I, II and III) and your French tax office stamps them (section IV). It keeps one, you keep one, and you give two to the agency: it keeps one for 10 years and sends the other to the cantonal tax administration. From the third year, if your tax affairs in France are in order, the tax office sends you a pre-filled certificate, the 2041-ASK, in two copies; if nothing has changed, it does not need to be stamped.

Every year and every employer. Neuchâtel says it clearly: one certificate for each employer, for each calendar year, before 1 January for subsequent years. In temporary work, two agencies means two certificates.

If you arrive without it. The agency must deduct withholding tax until you hand it in. Then, in the canton of Vaud, it files a corrective list, recovers the tax and pays it back to you, by 31 March of the following year at the latest. After that date, the agency can no longer correct it. You are then left with asking the tax administration for a decision, possible until the same date (Federal Direct Tax Act, LIFD art. 137). Do not let it drag on.

Watch out in temporary work: in the canton of Vaud, the agreement covers an employer that has its head office or a branch in the canton, and to which you are attached. Your employer is the agency: ask them if their office and the site are not in the same canton.

Geneva and Fribourg are not part of the 1983 agreement. Form 2041-AS is of no use there: the agency deducts withholding tax from every salary. The Fribourg guide confirms it: for a French cross-border worker, the whole salary remains taxable in Switzerland up to 40 % remote work.

What you must then give the agency is your family situation: married or not, number of dependent children, and whether your spouse works. This is what picks the tax scale (A, B, C, H). One mistake, and the tax is wrong every month.

If at least 90 % of your household's worldwide gross income (spouse included) is taxable in Switzerland, you are a quasi-resident and can request a subsequent ordinary assessment so that your real deductions count. The request must be made again every year, by 31 March of the following year at the latest (LIFD art. 99a).

Anyone who works in Switzerland receives an AHV number (AVS in French): 13 digits starting with 756. It never changes. If you have already worked in Switzerland, find it on an old payslip or an old insurance card.

If you do not have one, do nothing: the employer registers you with its AHV compensation fund, which requests the number for you. The AHV insurance certificate is not needed, the number is enough.

In the main construction sector, the National Collective Agreement (LMV/CN) classifies you when you are hired (LMV/CN art. 39). The rules on wage classes for a French diploma are written in black and white (LMV/CN, appendix 5, art. 8):

• CAP in masonry + one proven year on site: class A;
• brevet professionnel (BP, French advanced vocational certificate) or bac pro (French vocational baccalaureate) + one proven year on site: class Q;
• other foreign certificate: the Swiss Joint Enforcement Commission (CPSA) decides on equivalence; a certificate not recognised for class Q still entitles you to class A (LMV/CN art. 38).

The word that matters is "proven". Bring the diploma and your work certificates or employer attestations showing one year on construction sites. Without paperwork, the agency can put you in class C, "without professional knowledge".

In gross CHF, LMV/CN appendix 4, red zone. Excluding holidays, the 13th-month salary and allowances.

Between class C and class A: CHF 888.80 gross per month, for two sheets of paper.

• French driving licence: since 1 March 2024, an EU licence with categories C or D is enough to drive a Swiss-registered truck professionally, without a Swiss licence. The canton of Vaud still requires a formality for work vehicles over 3'500 kg that do not exceed 45 km/h.
• Crane: a CACES (French machine operator certificate) is not enough as it is, you need a Suva licence. Everything is in our article crane operator in Switzerland.
• Construction machines: an operator who holds the M2 to M7 course certificate and operates more than occasionally is in class A (LMV/CN, appendix 5, art. 3). Equivalence of foreign machine operator training is checked by the K-BMF (appendix 5, art. 7): bring your CACES, but do not count on automatic recognition.

The law does not require you to have an account: salary is in principle paid in cash, "unless otherwise agreed or customary" (Code of Obligations, CO art. 323b). Bank transfer is the custom, so bring an IBAN. LMV/CN wages are set in Swiss francs; if you give a euro account, your bank does the currency exchange.

The employer provides helmet, shoes, gloves, goggles, hearing protection and protective clothing (Ordinance on Accident Prevention, OPA art. 5) and bears the costs (OPA art. 90). Suva specifies that this also applies to temporary staff, including replacement of worn items. The company running the site has the same safety obligations towards you as towards its own workers (OPA art. 10).

The agency must give you a written contract (Employment Services Act, AVG/LSE art. 19), in principle before you start work; only urgency allows you to start first, and the written contract must follow as soon as possible (Employment Services Ordinance, OSE art. 48). It must state:

1. the type of work;
2. the place of work and the start date;
3. the duration of the assignment or the notice period;
4. the working hours;
5. the salary, allowances and social deductions;
6. what is owed for overtime, illness, maternity, accident, military service and holidays;
7. the payment dates.

Check your class and your hourly wage before signing. No agency can ask you for money for a job: such an agreement is void (AVG/LSE art. 19 para. 5). To read your payslip afterwards: from gross to net.

The employer only processes data that concerns your suitability for the job or that is necessary for the contract (CO art. 328b). According to SECO guidelines, a question about your health, a pregnancy or your criminal convictions is only allowed if it is "absolutely necessary" for the job. A criminal record extract requested from everyone, with no link to the work, goes too far.

Julien, 31, mason, lives in Annemasse. CAP in masonry, four years with an employer in Haute-Savoie. Married, two children, his wife works in France. An agency offers him six weeks of formwork.

If he had forgotten his work certificate, 176.00 h in class C instead of A would have cost him CHF 888.80 gross over the month.

As for health insurance, the three-month deadline to choose between LAMal and French insurance starts from the beginning of work in Switzerland: see LAMal or CMU. The choice concerns anyone from the EU who works in Switzerland and lives in France, with or without a G permit: a short job under registration counts too (CLEISS).