Swiss perspectives in 10 languages

More non-denominational than Catholics in Switzerland for the first time

Swiss church religion non-denominational
In 1970, only 1% of the population had no religious affiliation. © Keystone / Gaetan Bally

For the first time, there are more people with no religious affiliation in Switzerland than Catholics.

At 34% of the population, the group with no religious affiliation has overtaken Catholics (32%).

In third place are the Protestant Reformed, as the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) announced on Friday. It is based on figures from the year 2022.

+ Deserted churches and fewer believers: Swiss abandon God

According to the Federal Statistical Office, the proportion of the population with no religious affiliation has increased continuously in Switzerland over the past 50 years. While only 1% of the population had no religious affiliation in 1970, this proportion had risen to 11% by the turn of the millennium.

+ What next after Swiss Catholic Church sexual abuse revelations?

By 2010, it had almost doubled to 20%. by 2022, 34% of the population aged 15 and over no longer belonged to any religious community.

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.

External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
Daily news

Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox.

Daily

The SBC Privacy Policy provides additional information on how your data is processed.

News

Two Rothornbahn gondolas cross each other on Lenzerheide on Friday, April 3, 2009.

More

Swiss cable car activity rose in winter 2023-2024

This content was published on In the winter season up to April 2024, railway and cable car operators ferried 3% more visitors compared to the previous winter, and 5% more than the five-year average.

Read more: Swiss cable car activity rose in winter 2023-2024
flooding Rhine

More

Rhine flooding: Swiss to invest CHF1 billion with Austria

This content was published on As part of an international agreement with Austria, the Swiss government wants to pump CHF1 billion ($1.1 billion) into flood protection measures along the Rhine over the next three decades.

Read more: Rhine flooding: Swiss to invest CHF1 billion with Austria

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR