Research a Swiss company: which source answers which question

Most questions a seller has about a Swiss company have one source that answers them best. The UID register settles identity, the cantonal extract shows who can sign, the SHAB dates every register change, and job ads show where a team is growing. Each source below comes with its limits and the date we last checked it.

To keep what you find, use the Swiss account research template. It holds one company per page, with each finding next to its source, the date of the source and the date you checked it. Two completed briefs show it filled in.

Which source answers which account question

Choosing between Zefix, Moneyhouse, a purchased address file and a prospecting platform is a separate decision, covered in Zefix, Moneyhouse or SHAB: which one to use.

Swiss company data sources: what each one shows, checked on 20 October 2026

Source	What it shows	Limits to know	How current	Access
UID register	UID, name, address; status in the UID, commercial and VAT registers, with VAT start and end dates	A unit outside any public register, such as a sole proprietor known only to the old-age insurance (AHV), is listed only with its consent (Art. 11 UIDG). The NOGA code is visible to government offices only.	Updated by the offices that keep the commercial, VAT and AHV registers. Deleted units stay listed, marked as deleted, for up to ten years.	Free, no account
Zefix	Legal name, legal form, seat, UID, purpose and status in every canton, with links to the cantonal extract and the SHAB notices	No legal effect: only the certified extract and the SHAB text are binding. No headcount, revenue or shareholders.	Follows the cantonal registers	Free; the API needs credentials from the Federal Office of Justice
Cantonal register extract	Every registered person with function and signing rule, capital, auditor, and the history of entries	An AG entry lists no shareholders; a GmbH entry lists its partners. The layout differs slightly by canton.	The online extract is current to the last entry	Online extract free; certified extract CHF 50 in Zurich, CHF 40 in St. Gallen
SHAB	Every new entry, change and deletion in a commercial register, with its publication date; bankruptcies and calls to creditors	Legal text in the canton's language, one notice per change, with no reason given	Published on working days. Over twelve months, Prospex measured a median of five days between a change and its publication.	Free; email alerts on saved searches with a user profile
Debt enforcement extract	Debt collection proceedings against the company in the last five years	You must make an interest credible, for example with a contract, invoice or offer. It covers one office's district only, and an entry does not prove that the debt exists.	On the day the office issues it	CHF 18 in Fribourg; online through EasyGov or from the office
Transparency register	Beneficial owners of AGs, GmbHs and cooperatives	Open to authorities, and to financial intermediaries and advisers with anti-money-laundering duties. Sellers cannot consult it.	In force since 1 October 2026; existing companies have one month to two years to report	No public access
Published accounts	Balance sheet, income statement, audit report	Only companies with bonds outstanding or listed shares must publish them (Art. 958e CO). Other companies give access to creditors with an interest worthy of protection.	Once a year, after approval	Investor-relations pages
BFS STATENT	Enterprises, workplaces and jobs by industry code, size class, canton and commune	Counts only: it names no company	The latest release describes December 2024 and was published on 20 August 2026	Free
Swissreg	Trademark applications and registrations: owner, classes of goods and services, filing date, status	An application claims a name; it does not show that a product exists	As the IPI publishes them	Free search; monitoring of a saved search with an account
Company website	Products, locations, team, news, and the legal notice naming the entity behind the site	The company's own description, often undated. A group site may cover several legal entities.	Whenever the company edits it	Free
Job ads	Function, location, seniority and posting date; software named in the description	An ad can stay online after the role is filled. For occupations under the job reporting obligation, 10.8% of employment in 2026, only jobseekers registered with a regional employment office (RAV) can apply during the first five working days.	Hours to days	Free to search
LinkedIn	People, roles, arrivals and departures; company posts	Self-reported. The size band is chosen by the company, and the member count covers only people who name the employer.	When members update their profiles	Free with limits; Sales Navigator is paid
simap.ch	Tenders, awards and direct awards of the Confederation, cantons and communes; the winner, price and number of offers	Only procurements above the legal thresholds are published	On publication	Free; the search API needs no account

Official registers: identity, signatories and changes

UID register

Start with the UID, because it stays the same when a company changes its name or moves its seat. Search it at uid.admin.ch, compare the name and address with what you have, and read the three status fields together. An active UID with no commercial register entry usually means a sole proprietor, an association or a public body. The Swiss UID guide covers the check digit and the VAT suffixes.

Zefix

Zefix searches all 26 cantonal registers at once, so it is the fastest way to find a company by name. Its data carries no legal effect. When a decision depends on a register fact, such as a signing rule in a contract, read the cantonal extract or the SHAB text it links to. To query the same records from code, the Zefix API guide covers the credentials and every endpoint.

Cantonal commercial registers

The cantonal extract is the full record: every board member, manager and authorised signatory, with the rule each one signs under. "Joint signature by two" means a contract needs a second authorised signature. Choose the view with deleted entries when you need the company's history: former names, former addresses and people who have left. Zurich, for example, serves the uncertified extract free and charges CHF 50 for a certified one. Section by section, the register extract guide explains what each part means.

SHAB (Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce)

A register entry takes effect with its publication in the SHAB, so the publication date is the date to record. Search by UID, since the name may have changed. Read each notice as an event that needs context: a capital increase or a new board member says that something changed, rarely why. Bankruptcy notices and calls to creditors are published here too, and a call to creditors can mean a voluntary liquidation as well as distress. The SHAB reading guide goes through the notice types, and the SHAB API guide covers bulk access.

Debt and ownership: two registers with restricted access

The debt enforcement extract (Betreibungsauszug) is the only public source on whether creditors are pursuing a company, and the office issues it only to someone who shows an interest: a contract, an invoice, an offer or correspondence with the company. A prospect you have not yet dealt with gives you no such interest. Once you hold an offer or a signed order, request it from the office at the company's seat; the steps are in the company check guide. Several entries from different creditors say more than a single one, because anyone can start a debt collection without proving the debt.

The federal transparency register has recorded beneficial owners since 1 October 2026, and only authorities and parties with anti-money-laundering duties can consult it. For ownership, read the partners listed in a GmbH's register entry, the group structure in an annual report, and the "about us" page of the parent company.

Size and finances: published accounts and federal statistics

Most private Swiss companies publish no accounts, so registered capital is often the only financial figure on record. It is a nominal legal amount and says nothing about revenue or equity. To size one account, combine register clues (auditor, capital, number of signatories) with the company's locations and its recent job ads, as the company size guide shows. Where accounts are published, check that they describe the entity you would contract with: a group report covers its subsidiaries together. The financial statements guide covers who has to publish what.

The BFS structural business statistics (STATENT, page in German) answer market questions: how many companies of a given size work in an industry and canton. Each release describes the economy about twenty months earlier, so check its reference year before setting it beside a recent company event.

Job ads: evidence of hiring

A job ad shows what a company plans to staff, in which function and where. Before treating it as evidence, check the posting date, look for the same role on the company's own careers page (agencies repost ads, sometimes without naming the employer), and count how many related roles are open. Four new roles in one team are a stronger sign of growth than a single vacancy open for months. Swiss boards such as jobs.ch and jobup.ch can be searched by company and location.

Ads for occupations under the job reporting obligation appear first on the public employment service's Job-Room, where for five working days only jobseekers registered with an RAV can apply. On other boards those roles show up at least a week later. A software name in an ad needs the same care: the software in Swiss job ads report explains what a mention can and cannot establish.

Company websites, press and trademark filings

Company websites

The website is where a company says what it sells today, which is often narrower than its registered purpose. Read the legal notice (Impressum): it usually names the entity that runs the site, which can differ from the one you found in the register. Note the date of any news item you rely on, because product pages rarely carry one. For a small list of accounts, checking a few pages each month is enough: products, careers and news.

Press

Startupticker.ch reports Swiss funding rounds and product launches. The business press (Handelszeitung, Bilanz, PME Magazine) covers larger companies and acquisitions, much of it behind a paywall. An article often names a brand or a group, so match it to the legal entity before recording it.

Swissreg trademark filings

A trademark application can name a product before it reaches the website. Search Swissreg by owner, check that the owner is the entity you are researching, and read the classes of goods and services to see the product category. Defensive filings and renewals of old brands appear in the same results. The trademark filings guide covers how to read one.

LinkedIn: people and roles

LinkedIn shows the people the register does not: sales managers, IT leads, the team around a new hire. For board members, managing directors and signatories, the register is the reference, and a LinkedIn title that disagrees with it is usually out of date. Treat the employee figure on a company page as an estimate, and the arrival of a new decision maker as a reason to recheck the account.

Public contracts on simap.ch

simap.ch publishes the tenders and awards of the Confederation, the cantons and the communes. An award names the winner, the price and the number of offers, and the winner's vendor profile usually carries its UID, which leads back to the register entry. The SIMAP API guide shows how to follow that path.

Record each finding with two dates

Note the date of the source (the SHAB publication, the job ad, the filing) next to the date you checked it. Mark each finding as confirmed or open, and write down the question that is still unanswered. The account research template is built this way, with fields for identity, buying entity, activity, size, recent changes and a decision, and two completed briefs on invented companies.

Keep the record current: alert options checked on 20 October 2026

The SHAB subscription is described in the official instructions. For the setup of each option, step by step, see how to monitor a Swiss company for free.

Where Prospex fits

Prospex reads the SHAB every working day, along with Swissreg trademark filings, company websites, job ads and funding news, and attaches each change to the company's UID with its source link and date. In the Market Builder you describe the companies you sell to and review the matches, each with the reasons it was chosen; a free account builds one list and shows its first ten companies. To follow a single company, the free company watch sends its register publications by email.