The tax bill of a family with two children, municipality by municipality

A model case calculated by the Confederation

A municipality’s tax burden cannot be read from its tax multiplier: cantonal calculation bases differ too much for those percentages to be comparable. Civiora therefore uses the model cases of the Federal Tax Administration simulator, which applies the same family situation and the same income everywhere.

The scenario used here is a married couple with a single income of 150’000 francs and two children. The amount adds federal, cantonal and municipal income tax, without wealth and without church tax. It is expressed as a percentage of gross income, which makes the 2’107 municipalities directly comparable.

A median of 9.98 % of income

The median municipality takes 9.98 % of this family’s income, or 14’970 francs a year. Half the municipalities sit above, half below. The distance between the two extremes is a little more than seven times the lowest amount.

The lightest and the heaviest municipalities

The first six places go to the canton of Zug, whose cantonal median stands at 2.06 %. Schwyz follows (5.97 %), then Nidwalden (7.73 %), Schaffhausen (7.95 %), Geneva (8.01 %) and Zurich (8.15 %).

The canton does not decide everything

Within a single canton, the gap between municipalities remains considerable. Fribourg shows the widest spread: 3.95 percentage points separate its lightest municipality from its heaviest, against a cantonal median of 11.39 %.

• FR: 3.95 percentage points of internal spread, median 11.39 %
• SO: 3.81 percentage points of internal spread, median 11.87 %
• GR: 3.62 percentage points of internal spread, median 8.62 %
• LU: 3.52 percentage points of internal spread, median 9.39 %
• BE: 3.21 percentage points of internal spread, median 12.73 %

For a family, these percentage points translate directly into francs. Three points of difference on an income of 150’000 francs amount to 4’500 francs a year, more than the same household’s annual electricity bill.

This internal spread reflects the room each municipality has. The canton sets the scale and its own multiplier; the municipality adds its own, expressed as a percentage of the cantonal tax. Two municipalities under the same cantonal scale can therefore show markedly different amounts, with nothing changing in the taxpayer’s situation.

Worth checking before drawing conclusions

This model case does not replace a personal calculation. It ignores wealth, the deductions specific to each situation, church tax and childcare costs, which are deducted differently from one canton to another. It gives an order of magnitude and allows comparison; it does not compute a tax return.

Tax year 2025, the last complete year published by the Federal Tax Administration. Municipalities that merged or changed canton on 1 January 2026 are shown as unavailable, since their new tax multipliers have not yet been published. Internal spreads are calculated only for cantons with at least five documented municipalities.