Buy or rent? Find out where you can afford to live in Switzerland

Where do you stand the best chance of finding affordable housing in Switzerland? Keystone / Michael Buholzer

Where do you stand the best chance of finding affordable housing? Where is renting cheaper than buying? Find out using our housing calculator.

Finding an affordable flat in Switzerland can feel like hunting for a needle in a haystack. Whether you’re looking to rent or buy, data analysed exclusively for Swiss public broadcaster SRF by the property consultancy IaziExternal link shows where you can find a flat to fit your budget.

The key rules of thumb

• Whether buying or renting, if you’re on a tight budget it is easier to find housing away from city centres.
• In rural areas, buying tends to pay off, because the monthly cost of ownership is often lower than rent.
• In the city, renting is often cheaper: in very central areas and in tourist spots, renting is considerably less expensive than buying.

Those are the general rules. But what does that mean for you? The interactive calculator answers your most pressing questions in three steps:

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Even if you can afford the local rent or purchase price, that doesn’t mean you’ll find a suitable flat on the market. Availability is often limited. The data shows that in the first quarter of 2026, on average only 0.6% of owner-occupied flats were listed for sale. As for rental flats, 2.4% of rental accommodation were advertised for rent.

Availability of owner-occupied flats is higher in French-, Italian-, and Romansh-speaking Switzerland than in German-speaking Switzerland. Rental flats, meanwhile, can be found more easily in Central Switzerland and Jura regions.

How the calculations were made

IaziExternal link, a company providing property market analysis and consultancy, carried out the analysis for SRF.

For every Swiss municipality, a market rent and a transaction price were calculated for a typical new-build flat of 3.5, 4.5 or 5.5 rooms. On this basis, the expected monthly costs over a ten-year horizon were calculated separately for both an owner and a tenant, and then compared.

Assumptions regarding the cost of apartments

For a purchase, the property is financed at a fixed rate over a period of 10 years.

– Mortgage interest rate: 2.0% (as of March 2026)

– Loan-to-value ratio: 80%

Costs taken into account for buyers:

– Interest costs

– Maintenance costs of 1% of the building value per year

– Taxable income from the imputed rental value (excluding financing, maintenance)

– Owner’s opportunity costs

The local tax burden is based on the tax burden of a typical family of four. A tax deduction of 100% of maintenance costs is assumed, thereby slightly favouring owners.

Not taken into account:

– Repayment/amortisation of the second mortgage

– Potential gains/losses in the property’s value

Required equity

The calculator checks whether you can meet the minimum required 20% equity for the average flat price in a municipality. It does not take into account whether you could put down a larger deposit. As a result, for those with higher assets, the map tends to underestimate the number of municipalities in which you can afford to buy.

Market availability

This measures, at district level, the proportion of owner-occupied and rental flats respectively that were advertised for sale or rent in the first quarter of 2026, relative to the total housing stock.

Affordability of rental flats

Since different benchmark values exist in practice for the maximum permissible rent burden, to ensure the highest possible comparability with the affordability calculation on the buyer’s side, it was assumed that the annual rent may correspond to at most one third of gross income. However, it must be noted that this assumption lies at the upper end of the various benchmark values.

‘The situation is tense’

“It’s expensive for everyone,” says Donato Sconamiglio, professor at the University of Bern, chairman of the board of directors of Iazi and a member of the Zurich cantonal government (Protestant Party). Availability is lagging behind demand, particularly when it comes to property ownership. “The current situation is very tense. Young families who would like to buy a house have to put their dreams on hold for a long time, because prices keep rising.”

Those who don’t have to move have an advantage: owners benefit from the rising value of their property, whilst the existing rents for long-term tenants remain stable. Moving, on the other hand is expensive.

Jonas Glatthard (editorial), Balz Rittmeyer (front-end development and interaction design), Ida Künzle, Marina Kunz (design)

Translated from German, sub-edited by cm/ac