Swiss invoice template: what a correct invoice looks like
A Swiss invoice has no prescribed form — but certain details must be on it, or you'll run into trouble with clients, bookkeeping or the tax administration. Right below you can download the template as a Word and an Excel file — one version with VAT, one without, no email address required. Underneath: everything that belongs on an invoice, as an annotated example, with the rules for VAT and the QR payment slip.
Word and Excel, free and without an email address. The Excel version calculates line items, VAT and total automatically.
The 7 details every invoice needs
For VAT-registered businesses, Art. 26 of the Swiss VAT Act prescribes the content of an invoice. Even without VAT registration, the same details are the accepted standard — your clients (and their accountants) expect them:
- 1Sender — your name or company with full address. If VAT-registered, add your VAT number (CHE-XXX.XXX.XXX MWST).
- 2Recipient — the client's name and address as officially registered.
- 3Invoice date — the issue date, plus a payment deadline (30 days is the Swiss norm).
- 4Invoice number — unique and sequential — gaps or duplicates cause problems in an audit.
- 5Service — what was delivered, with the date or period of the work. The more concrete, the fewer queries.
- 6Amount — line items, subtotal and total in CHF. If VAT-registered: show the rate (8.1 %, 2.6 % or 3.8 %) and VAT amount per rate. Cash totals round to 5 centimes.
- 7Payment details — your IBAN or QR-IBAN — cleanest as a QR payment part every Swiss banking app can scan.
With or without VAT — which applies to you?
Below CHF 100,000 annual revenue you are exempt from VAT. Your invoice then carries no VAT line, no rate and no VAT number. If you show VAT anyway, you owe it to the tax administration — the most expensive copy-paste mistake an internet template can cause.
If you are VAT-registered, the opposite applies: rate and tax amount must be shown, and your VAT number belongs in the invoice header. Whether you settle effectively or with the net tax rate method changes nothing on the invoice itself — only your reporting to the FTA. The current rates and the conditions for the net tax rate method are published by the Federal Tax Administration.
Word and Excel templates: where they fall short
For your very first invoice, a Word or Excel template is fine. Then the familiar problems start: invoice numbers counted up by hand (and eventually duplicated), totals calculated manually, and every invoice living as a separate file in some folder — with no overview of what's paid and what's open.
The biggest gap: a Word template cannot produce a valid Swiss QR payment part. The QR code must follow the SIX standard — no text document can do that. Your client ends up typing your IBAN by hand.
The standard since 2022: the QR-bill
The QR-bill definitively replaced the old red and orange payment slips in October 2022. A current invoice template therefore includes a payment part with the Swiss QR code: the client scans it, amount and reference are pre-filled, done. How the payment part must be built is defined by the SIX QR-bill standard.
Payvetia generates the QR payment part automatically for every invoice — with your IBAN or QR-IBAN, correct to the standard, as a PDF ready to send. Invoice numbers increment automatically, VAT is calculated from your profile (or left off entirely), and you always see which invoices are outstanding.
Frequent questions about invoice templates
Yes. You may invoice for work even without a registered business — with the same details, just without VAT. Regular income counts as self-employment though, and must be registered with the AHV.
With Payvetia you create a correct Swiss invoice with QR payment part in under a minute. Your first 3 documents are free, no credit card.
Create an invoice for free