Family Alimony in Switzerland: A short guide

• In Switzerland, a distinction is made between maintenance payments owed to a spouse and those owed to children. Children are entitled to parental support until they reach the age of 18 or complete a suitable education, while former spouses can only claim maintenance if the marriage had a “formative effect” (lebensprägend) on the spouse’s way of life. Courts decide this on a case-by-case basis.
• The Federal Court has clarified important questions concerning maintenance law with a number of landmark rulings in 2020 and 2021, which in some cases changed previous practice: a marriage is no longer automatically considered to have had a formative impact on life if children were born of the marriage, the marriage lasted more than ten years or a spouse who is not gainfully employed reaches the age of 45.
• Child support is made up of financial and childcare allowance. The parent who is personally looking after a child can provide their share of maintenance as “support in kind,” while the other parent will pay a larger share of the financial support or even the full amount.

“Marriage is no longer a life insurance policy for women,” announced the Swiss media in spring 2021, referring to recent decisions made by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court relating to alimony payments for divorcees.

Maintenance payments, also called alimony, provide financial security for your spouse and children should you get divorced. When is there a claim to post-marital maintenance? When is there a claim to child maintenance? How high is a possible claim and how do recent rulings of the Federal Supreme Court affect the alimony claim for the spouse?

This article addresses precisely these questions.

What, until now, have the criteria been for assessing whether a marriage had a formative effect on the spouse’s way of life?

Prior to the recent change in federal court rulings on alimony law, the question of whether a marriage had a formative effect was answered according to the following principles:

• If a person was not employed during the marriage and dependent on the spouse's income, and had reached the age of 45 at the time of divorce, this person was not expected to re-enter working life and was accordingly entitled to post-marital maintenance.
• If the marriage lasted more than ten years or if children were born of the marriage (irrespective of the duration of the marriage), a claim to retain the previous marital standard of living was affirmed.
  

Until now, there has been no consistent method throughout Switzerland for calculating alimony payments, as this was partly dependent on different cantonal requirements.

What has changed with respect to spousal support since November 2020?

As mentioned above, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court has introduced a series of successive decrees intended to modernize family law. Divorced spouses will thus be increasingly responsible for financing their own living expenses.

While some decisions will continue to be made on a case-by-case basis, the court has specified that greater deliberation is now required before a marriage can be considered as having had a formative effect on life. The following was decided:

• The meaning of the “age 45 rule” is changing. According to case law, it can now be assumed in principle that taking up or extending gainful employment is still reasonable even for spouses over 45 years of age.
• A marriage that has lasted 10 years or more is no longer automatically considered to have had a formative impact on life.
• Even if the couple has had one or more children together, this no longer automatically qualifies the marriage as having had a formative effect.

According to the new legislation, a marriage can be viewed as having had a formative effect on life if one spouse has given up financial independence to provide for the household and look after the children, and can no longer return to their former occupation. But even then, the duration of the maintenance payment is suitably limited, and taking up gainful employment may still be reasonable even at an advanced age.

How is child support calculated in Switzerland and who pays it?

Child maintenance is determined by the court and comprises financial support and a childcare allowance.

• The financial element covers the costs of a child’s basic needs, e.g., food, clothing and education. The parent looking after the child can provide their share of support as “support in kind,” while the other parent will pay a larger share of the financial support or even the full amount.
• The childcare allowance is intended to compensate for the lost earnings of the parent providing care. However, this only applies if the parent cannot work during normal working hours due to childcare obligations. If the children go to school during working hours, the parent is considered capable of going out to work and is only entitled to partial compensation, if at all.

The standard of living of the parent providing financial support can also effect how child support payments are calculated. If the parent’s income and standard of living are high, they may be required to pay more.