Settlement Treaties Switzerland–Germany 1909 and Switzerland–Austria 1875 — historical bilateral agreements under the AFMP regime

1. Overview — two treaties of the 19th and early 20th centuries

The Swiss Confederation agreed by treaty, at an early stage, on formalised settlement privileges with its two large German-speaking neighbours. These are two materially related agreements which nevertheless arose in different temporal and political contexts:

Settlement Treaty Switzerland–Germany of 31 March 1909 (Classified Compilation SR 0.142.111.361; the consolidated version is available via the Fedlex directory of the Classified Compilation of Federal Law — see the source reference in the frontmatter): the treaty was concluded on the eve of the First World War between the German Empire and Switzerland and replaced the previous settlement treaty of 1876. It outlasted two world wars, the fall of the Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, the division of Germany and reunification — and remains formally applicable in its substantive content to this day. In its application, it was largely superseded as from 1 June 2002 by the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons Switzerland–EU (AFMP, SR 0.142.112.681).

Settlement Treaty Switzerland–Austria-Hungary of 7 December 1875 (Classified Compilation SR 0.142.111.631; consolidated version available via the Fedlex directory — see the source reference in the frontmatter): the treaty was concluded with the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy and, following its dissolution in 1918, passed into the legal succession of the Republic of Austria. It is thus one of Switzerland's oldest bilateral agreements still formally in force and, in substantive law, the forerunner of a free-movement-like arrangement between the two Alpine states.

At their core, both treaties contain a national-treatment clause for the respective nationals of the other contracting party — settlement, the exercise of a trade or business, legal transactions and property are to be open under the same conditions as for the state's own nationals. From this clause, the practice arose in the 20th century whereby the Swiss migration authorities issued German and Austrian nationals the C settlement permit after five years of lawful residence, instead of after the ordinary ten years.

With the entry into force of the AFMP on 1 June 2002, this preferential treatment shifted structurally: German and Austrian nationals are today treated in migration practice primarily as AFMP-EU beneficiaries — the historical settlement treaties have, in their relationship to the AFMP, receded as lex generalis behind the lex specialis (AFMP), without having been formally repealed.

2. Relationship to the AFMP — from bilateral treaty to free-movement-of-persons regime

The legal position of German and Austrian nationals in Switzerland has been governed, since 1 June 2002, primarily by the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons Switzerland–EU. Both states are EU member states — Germany as a founding member, Austria since its EU accession on 1 January 1995 — and thus parties to the AFMP through the EU as the contracting partner.

Lex specialis relationship: the AFMP contains, for EU citizens, a complete settlement, employment and family-reunification regime whose design is more generous than the bilateral treaties of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Where the AFMP applies, it takes precedence over the historical settlement treaties; the bilateral treaties nevertheless remain relevant as a fallback regime for cases in which the AFMP does not apply for personal or substantive reasons.

Concrete consequences for German and Austrian nationals:

• First-time residence proceeds via the AFMP permit regime: B EU/EFTA for employees with an open-ended employment relationship or one lasting more than twelve months (Art. 6 Annex I AFMP); L EU/EFTA for short-term gainful activity of less than twelve months; G EU/EFTA for cross-border commuters (see the G cross-border-commuter permit).
• Persons not in gainful employment (pensioners, students, persons with sufficient means of their own) likewise receive a B EU/EFTA permit based on Art. 24 Annex I AFMP — provided they have sufficient financial means and health insurance.
• The C EU/EFTA settlement permit is issued after five years of lawful residence — at structurally the same temporal threshold as under the historical settlement treaties, but materially based on the AFMP-derived expectancy.

Current practice for DE/AT nationals: the practice of the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) generally handles German and Austrian nationals through the AFMP channel. The historical bilateral agreements are still invoked above all where the authorities document, in their reasoning, the international-law depth of the preferential treatment, or in rare case constellations in which the AFMP is not directly applicable (for example for persons who fall outside the AFMP's scope of application — which scarcely occurs in practice for DE/AT nationals). Decisive for the authorities' practice are the SEM directives in force in the foreign-nationals and citizenship field (available via sem.admin.ch); their current status is to be consulted before any case-specific assessment.

A systematic presentation of the AFMP regime and its permit types can be found in the AFMP/free-movement glossary. It sets out in particular the conditions of the AFMP permits, the group of persons concerned, the transitional arrangements for the EU-2/EU-8/EU-2 states as well as the mechanics of the safeguard clause.

3. The 5-year C path for German and Austrian nationals

For Swiss migration practice in 2026, the central practical consequence is the following: a German or Austrian national receives the C EU/EFTA settlement permit after five years of lawful, uninterrupted residence in Switzerland — based on the combination of Art. 34 para. 2 FNIA, SEM practice on the AFMP scope of application and (subsidiarily) the historical settlement treaties of 1909 and 1875.

Legal basis in Swiss migration practice:

Conditions (with a cross-link to the C settlement permit for the full version):

• 5 years of uninterrupted lawful residence with a valid B EU/EFTA residence permit — short interruptions of less than six months are harmless (Art. 61 FNIA); periods under an L permit count under strict conditions.
• Successful integration under Art. 58a FNIA: respect for the legal order and the values of the Federal Constitution, language competence, participation in economic life or the acquisition of education, encouragement of the family's integration.
• Language: proof of the national language spoken at the place of residence at oral level B1 and written level A1; the recognised forms of proof and levels are governed by the Ordinance on Admission, Residence and Gainful Employment (OASA, SR 142.201), in particular Art. 60a OASA. For applicants with the relevant national language as their first language, the proof is in practice regularly eased: in German-speaking cantons, a school or vocational qualification acquired in Switzerland or in a German-speaking country is often accepted as proof; in French- or Italian-speaking cantons, the language of the relevant region must be demonstrated (French in Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel, Jura as well as in the multilingual cantons of Fribourg, Valais and Bern; Italian in Ticino and in the Italian-speaking municipalities of Graubünden).
• Economic self-sufficiency without current receipt of social assistance, as a component of the integration assessment (Art. 58a para. 1 let. d FNIA, "participation in economic life").
• No grounds for revocation under Art. 62 FNIA (revocation of short-term and residence permits) or Art. 63 FNIA (revocation of the settlement permit); these provisions cover grounds of public security and order as well as serious breaches, but not minor breaches or outstanding debt-enforcement proceedings as such.

Practical classification: since German is the official and majority language in the majority of cantons and the first language of many DE/AT nationals, the language criterion for the issuance of the C permit in German-speaking cantons generally represents no substantial hurdle for this group. This is one explanatory factor for the fact that the share of settlement permits within the German-speaking diasporas tends to be high; the formulations used here are qualitative and do not replace a case-specific assessment by the competent cantonal authority.

Documentary requirements — differing by canton: which forms of proof of language competence are accepted in concrete terms (for example a school or vocational leaving certificate versus a fide language attestation or a standardised language certificate) is handled differently by the cantonal migration authorities within the framework of Art. 60a OASA and the relevant SEM directives. The current status of these directives (available via sem.admin.ch) is decisive before any case-specific assessment.

4. Economy and migration — the German-speaking diasporas in figures

The German and Austrian diasporas in Switzerland are considerable in volume and economic significance. The presentation below deliberately refrains from day-precise figures and is limited to qualitative orders of magnitude; the decisive figures on the resident population are provided by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) in its survey of the foreign resident population (available via bfs.admin.ch — see the source reference in the frontmatter). For every concrete figure, the most recent FSO publication is to be consulted.

German nationals in Switzerland: the German diaspora forms one of the largest groups of foreign persons in Switzerland and ranks — measured by permanent residence — in the order of magnitude behind the group of Italian nationals. The distribution across economic sectors is broad: industry (pharma in Basel, machinery and equipment construction in northern and eastern Switzerland), services (Zurich financial centre, insurance, consulting), research and universities (ETH Zurich, EPFL, universities), healthcare (in particular medical and nursing staff), gastronomy and tourism. Geographically, the German diaspora is concentrated primarily in the German-speaking economic centres of Zurich, Basel, Bern and Zug, with a considerable presence also in the university cities of French-speaking Switzerland.

Austrian nationals in Switzerland: a group that is markedly smaller than the German diaspora but traditionally present. It is frequently encountered in healthcare, gastronomy and tourism (especially in the winter-sports cantons) as well as in specialised industrial sectors and in the financial sector. Geographically distributed across all of German-speaking Switzerland, with concentrations in the border cantons of St. Gallen, Thurgau and Graubünden.

Cross-border commuters (G EU/EFTA):

• Southern Germany → north-western and north-eastern Switzerland: a significant number of German cross-border commuters crosses the border every working day, concentrated in the cantons of Basel-Stadt, Basel-Landschaft, Aargau and Schaffhausen. Particularly relevant economically for the Basel pharmaceutical and chemical industry as well as the High Rhine economic area. The day-precise figures are published by the FSO in its cross-border-commuter statistics.
• Vorarlberg → St. Gallen and Thurgau: a quantitatively smaller, but structurally similarly anchored, commuting movement of Austrian cross-border commuters across the Rhine.

Both groups receive a G EU/EFTA permit under Art. 7 Annex I AFMP, the conditions and practice of which are presented in detail in the G cross-border-commuter permit. The G permit requires in particular weekly return to the place of residence in the home state and is not coupled to the settlement expectancy of residence-based stay.

5. Double-taxation agreements DE and AT — brief orientation

The historical settlement treaties contain no comprehensive tax regulation. The tax relationship between Switzerland and Germany, respectively Austria, is governed by autonomous double-taxation agreements which are to be regarded as entirely separate from the settlement question.

DTA Switzerland–Germany (Agreement for the Avoidance of Double Taxation, SR 0.672.913.62; original version 1971, revised several times — in particular by later revision protocols): the agreement is complex and contains special rules for cross-border commuters (taxation right split between the state of residence and the state of activity; in the state of activity, the taxation of wages under the agreement's cross-border-commuter rule — Art. 15a (SR 0.672.913.62) — is capped at a maximum rate that is credited in the state of residence), for senior executives with a Swiss employer, for managerial activity vis-à-vis German subsidiaries as well as for the treatment of German pensions and Swiss pension assets. The interpretation of individual DTA provisions is regularly the subject of Federal Supreme Court decisions and of mutual-agreement procedures between the two tax administrations. The source/wage taxation relevant here is a cantonal tax; the applicable procedural and tariff rules derive from cantonal tax law in conjunction with the Federal Act on the Harmonisation of Direct Taxes of the Cantons and Communes (THA, SR 642.14) — and not from the federal source-tax provisions of the Federal Act on Direct Federal Taxation (DFTA, SR 642.11), which concern a different subject matter.

DTA Switzerland–Austria (Agreement for the Avoidance of Double Taxation, SR 0.672.916.31; original version 1974, comprehensively revised in 2010): the agreement follows, in structure, the OECD Model Convention, but contains specific provisions for the close economic and personal interlinkage between the two states — in particular for commuters in the Lake Constance region, for Austrian pensioners resident in Switzerland, and for the treatment of directors' fees and board-of-directors remuneration.

Practical consequences for DE/AT persons in Switzerland:

• Both DTAs follow the residence principle — anyone who takes up residence in Switzerland is generally subject to unlimited taxation in Switzerland and only to limited taxation (source, assets, pensions) in the state of origin.
• Unlike the United States, neither Germany nor Austria operates citizenship-based taxation — relocation to Switzerland ends unlimited tax liability in the state of origin (subject to German exit taxation under § 6 AStG in the case of substantial shareholdings, which can become relevant in individual cases).
• Swiss banks show, vis-à-vis German and Austrian private clients, no comparable FATCA hurdles as towards US persons.

Anti-scope: SwissImmigrationPro is not a tax-advisory service. The above notes serve orientation purposes only. For any concrete tax-law question — exit taxation, treatment of German life insurance or Austrian pension funds under the DTA, source-tax optimisation for cross-border commuters, inheritance-tax constellations with a DE/AT connection — a specialist in international tax law must be consulted.

6. Family reunification for German and Austrian nationals — Art. 3 Annex I AFMP

Since German and Austrian nationals, as EU citizens, fall under the AFMP regime, their family reunification does not proceed via the more restrictive third-country regime of the Federal Act on Foreign Nationals and Integration (FNIA, SR 142.20) — in particular Art. 43 FNIA (reunification with settled persons) and Art. 44 FNIA (reunification with residence-permit holders) — but via the broader AFMP rule in Art. 3 Annex I AFMP (Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons Switzerland–EU, SR 0.142.112.681).

Group of persons (Art. 3 Annex I AFMP, para. 2): entitled to family reunification, irrespective of nationality, are:

• the spouse of the EU beneficiary
• the registered partner (Same-Sex Partnership Act, PartA, SR 211.231) — generally treated by Swiss practice as equivalent to the marital community
• the descendants of the EU beneficiary and of their spouse who have not yet reached the age of 21 or to whom maintenance is provided
• the ascendants of the EU beneficiary and of their spouse to whom maintenance is provided

Compared with the FNIA third-country regime, two extensions in particular are practically significant: the age limit for children is set at 21 instead of 18 years (and falls away entirely in the event of need for maintenance), and the reunification of dependent parents and grandparents is possible — both constellations practically excluded under the third-country regime.

Third-country-national family members: the reunified family members of a German or Austrian national receive a B EU/EFTA permit with the annotation "Family EU" — even where they themselves hold no EU nationality. They thereby enjoy the full AFMP right of residence accessorily to the principal entitled person, including gainful employment without a separate authorisation procedure.

Conditions for family reunification under the AFMP: a suitable dwelling and (for non-gainfully-employed persons to be reunified, in particular ascendants) proof of sufficient financial means and health insurance by the principal entitled person.

No A1 language requirement at first-time reunification: unlike the third-country regime of the FNIA (Art. 43 FNIA and Art. 44 FNIA, which, for family reunification with settled persons or residence-permit holders, impose a language-promotion or language-proof requirement for spouse and child reunification), the AFMP provides for no corresponding language requirement for first-time family reunification. This is one of the central differences from the third-country regime.

7. Naturalisation for German and Austrian nationals — no bilateral special path

The historical settlement treaties govern exclusively settlement, not citizenship. A German or Austrian national who aspires to Swiss citizenship goes through the full ordinary naturalisation procedure under the Swiss Citizenship Act (SCA, SR 141.0) and under cantonal and communal law. There is no bilateral easing for DE/AT nationals.

The standard conditions derive from the Citizenship Act (Art. 9 SCA, Art. 11 SCA, Art. 12 SCA) and are concretised by the Citizenship Ordinance (CO, SR 141.01):

• Federal residence period (Art. 9 SCA): ten years of lawful residence, three of them in the last five years before submitting the application; years between the completed 8th and the completed 18th year of age count double, whereby the actual duration of residence must be at least six years.
• The C settlement permit as a formal condition for submitting the application (Art. 9 SCA) — the five-year AFMP C expectancy thus also affects the temporal course of the naturalisation path.
• Successful integration under Art. 11 let. a SCA, concretised in Art. 12 SCA: respect for public security and order, respect for the values of the Federal Constitution, participation in economic life or the acquisition of education, encouragement of the family's integration. The language requirement (oral B1, written A2) derives from the Citizenship Ordinance (CO) — Art. 6 (SR 141.01) — and is thus regulated at ordinance level and not in the act itself.
• No receipt of social assistance in the three years preceding submission of the application, insofar as the receipt was not repaid (concretisation in the CO).
• Cantonal and communal conditions are added (duration of residence in the canton/commune, integration interview, knowledge test in some cantons).

Facilitated naturalisation (Art. 21 SCA): possible for the foreign spouse of a Swiss national. In the case of residence in Switzerland, Art. 21 para. 1 SCA requires three years of marital community as well as five years of residence in Switzerland, including the year before submission of the application. In the case of residence abroad, Art. 21 para. 2 SCA requires six years of marital community and close ties to Switzerland. This easing applies irrespective of the nationality of the foreign spouse.

Language proof in the naturalisation procedure: for German and Austrian nationals, language proof in the naturalisation procedure in German-speaking cantons generally represents no substantial hurdle for this group: school or vocational certificates from the German-speaking area (for example a school-leaving/matura certificate, an apprenticeship qualification or a German-language university degree) are frequently recognised as sufficient proof; the concrete recognition, however, lies with the competent cantonal or communal authority. In French- and Italian-speaking cantons, the language of the relevant region must be demonstrated — including by applicants with German as their first language.

For detailed application of the practice, see Naturalisation in Switzerland and the glossary on the 2018 Citizenship Act.

8. Dual citizenship — the differing regimes DE and AT

The question of dual citizenship upon acquisition of Swiss citizenship is regulated differently for German and Austrian nationals, because the home states have different multiple-nationality regimes.

Switzerland: Switzerland permits dual citizenship without restriction (without reservation since 1992). Acquisition of Swiss citizenship requires no surrender of the previous nationality. Swiss dual citizens are, domestically, fully fledged Swiss nationals politically and legally, without multiple nationality entailing any restrictions.

Germany: multiple nationality generally permitted since the reform of 27 June 2024. Before this reform, German nationality could be retained upon acquisition of a foreign nationality only in narrowly defined exceptional cases (in particular for EU member states and Switzerland under the retention reservation [Beibehaltungsvorbehalt]). With the reform of the German Nationality Act (Staatsangehörigkeitsmodernisierungsgesetz, in force since 27 June 2024), multiple nationality was generally permitted. Concretely: anyone who, as a German national, acquires Swiss citizenship from 27 June 2024 onwards retains German nationality without a separate retention application. Anyone who completed the acquisition of Swiss naturalisation before 27 June 2024 and thereby lost German nationality under the law then in force may, where appropriate, apply for re-acquisition under the conditions of German nationality law (§ 13 StAG, renaturalisation). The treatment of such transitional constellations is governed by German law and is to be clarified case by case by a body specialised in German nationality law.

Austria: still restrictive. Austria adheres to the principle that Austrian nationality automatically lapses upon acquisition of a foreign nationality (§ 27 StbG), unless the person concerned obtains, before acquisition, a retention permit from the Austrian authorities. The permit is granted under certain conditions — in particular where professional, economic or family reasons speak in favour of retention — and must be applied for before the Swiss naturalisation decision. An Austrian national who aspires to Swiss naturalisation and wishes to retain Austrian nationality must mandatorily initiate the Austrian retention procedure before acquiring Swiss naturalisation.

Note on practice developments: the German multiple-nationality reform of 27 June 2024 raises a number of practical questions, in particular the treatment of transitional constellations, the recognition of retention procedures carried out before the reform and the effects on persons already naturalised. Austrian practice is distributed across the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) and the competent provincial governments; the granting practice for the retention permit may vary depending on the province and the individual justification. Both sets of questions concern foreign (German or Austrian) nationality law and lie outside Swiss migration law, which this page addresses.

Anti-scope: SwissImmigrationPro does not advise on questions of multiple nationality. The above notes serve exclusively to inform about the existence and broad contours of the topic. For any individual question on the retention of German or Austrian nationality upon acquisition of Swiss naturalisation, a law firm specialised in the nationality law of the relevant home state must be consulted — in Germany a firm focused on nationality law (§ 25 StAG, § 13 StAG), in Austria a firm experienced in the retention procedure under § 28 StbG.

9. Practical DE/AT special cases in Swiss migration

Practice gives rise, for German and Austrian nationals, to some recurring constellations, which are sketched here for orientation:

Students at Swiss universities: ETH Zurich, EPFL Lausanne, the universities of Zurich, Basel, Bern, Geneva and Lausanne have a considerable share of German and (smaller) Austrian students. Admission takes place according to the ordinary admission rules; the residence permit is issued as a B EU/EFTA for non-gainfully-employed persons under Art. 24 Annex I AFMP, provided that financial means and health insurance are demonstrated. Note numerus-clausus subjects (medicine): here cantonal quotas and the EMS aptitude procedure apply, which make admission significantly more difficult.

Doctorate and academic staff: doctoral candidates and postdocs at Swiss universities generally receive a B EU/EFTA permit based on the employment relationship with the university. Changes between universities and between scholarship/employment relationships are practically uncomplicated under the AFMP regime. L EU/EFTA permits are issued for fixed-term research stays of less than twelve months.

Seasonal gainful activity in tourism: the Alpine winter-season jobs in Graubünden, Valais, the Bernese Oberland and Ticino (gastronomy, ski schools, hotel industry) attract German and Austrian employees. The permit form is, depending on duration, L EU/EFTA (less than twelve months) or B EU/EFTA (from twelve months); the practice of seasonal extensions is less restrictive under the AFMP regime than under the third-country regime.

Business managers and the highly qualified: the pharmaceutical industry based in Basel, the banks and insurers concentrated in Zurich, the consulting sector as well as the machine builders in eastern Switzerland employ a considerable share of German executives. The AFMP B permit is issued on presentation of the employment contract; an in-depth labour-market assessment (priority for resident workers) does not take place — this is the central difference from the third-country regime.

Commuters from the border region: as set out under section 4, a significant number of German and a smaller number of Austrian cross-border commuters commute into Switzerland every working day (the day-precise figures are provided by the FSO in its cross-border-commuter statistics). The G EU/EFTA permit is issued at the request of the Swiss employer; the condition is regular (generally weekly) return to the place of residence in the home state. Detailed practice notes in the G cross-border-commuter permit.

10. Comparison with the Brexit constellation — DE/AT continuously AFMP, the UK in acquired-rights protection

The comparison with the situation of British nationals after Brexit illustrates the significance of the AFMP regime for German and Austrian nationals.

British nationals fell out of the AFMP with effect from 1 January 2021 and are classified in Swiss migration practice into a two-track regulation (see the UK Citizens' Rights Agreement):

• Acquired-rights protection under the Citizens' Rights Agreement Switzerland–UK (SR 0.142.113.672, Ci EU-WA permit) for UK nationals resident in Switzerland before 31.12.2020.
• Third-country FNIA regime for post-Brexit new arrivals — with priority for resident workers, quotas, qualification-related conditions.

German and Austrian nationals, by contrast, remain fully entitled AFMP beneficiaries without restriction. German and Austrian EU membership is stable; no "Dexit" or "Austrian Exit" is foreseeable; the historical settlement treaties of 1909 and 1875 in any case form only the pre-AFMP anchor that would hypothetically be reactivated if the AFMP fell away — a constellation that, in the current geopolitical situation, is neither to be expected nor relevant to advisory practice.

Hypothetical reactivation: were the AFMP out of force in its application to Germany or Austria (for example in a hypothetical AFMP lapse following the free-movement-of-persons initiative or another political shock), the historical settlement treaties — formally still in force — would function as a substantive fallback basis. The concrete scope of protection would, however, be significantly narrower than under the AFMP: no AFMP cross-border-commuter rule, no AFMP family reunification with extended groups of persons, no automatic entry into a unified EU/EFTA labour market.

Anti-scope: this page does not speculate about the likelihood of hypothetical AFMP lapses. The political debate on the further development of the bilateral relations Switzerland–EU (Bilaterals III, institutional agreement, safeguard-clause mechanics) is not dealt with here.

11. Reform note — historical treaties, present AFMP stability

Both historical settlement treaties are still formally in force and have for decades not been the subject of bilateral revision negotiations between Switzerland and Germany, respectively between Switzerland and Austria. In current application, they rest as a pre-AFMP anchor, without either contracting party actively pursuing their updating or abolition.

What is relevant politically and to advisory practice is not the stability of the historical treaties, but the stability of the AFMP itself and the ongoing negotiation of the Bilaterals III between Switzerland and the EU. These negotiations — in particular on the safeguard-clause mechanics, on dispute resolution and on the institutional aspects — will shape the framework conditions for the German and Austrian diaspora in Switzerland for the coming decade.

Note on the state of negotiations: at the time this page was prepared, the Bilaterals III are in a politically dynamic phase. This page deliberately refrains from detailed forecasts and refers, for the respective current status, to the ongoing publications of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) and the Directorate for European Affairs (DEA) (available via eda.admin.ch) as well as to the parliamentary reporting of the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) of the National Council.

12. Anti-scope — what this page is not

On this page, SwissImmigrationPro provides a structured, legally robust overview of the historical settlement treaties Switzerland–Germany 1909 and Switzerland–Austria 1875 as well as their practical effect in Swiss foreign-nationals law in 2026 under the dominant AFMP regime. The page is not individual legal advice and not a strategy for optimising the acquisition of settlement.

In particular, we make no statements regarding:

• Personal eligibility: whether, in an individual case, the conditions for the issuance of the C EU/EFTA permit after 5 years or of ordinary naturalisation after 10 years are met depends on the concrete integration assessment by the competent cantonal authority. We do not forecast permit or naturalisation successes.
• Optimisation advice: whether a particular residence path (B vs. C vs. ordinary naturalisation; first place of residence in a German-speaking vs. French-speaking canton; retention procedure for AT nationals before or after the acquisition of Swiss naturalisation) is "the best" for an individual case is a lawyer's strategic question, not a knowledge question.
• Tax advice: the DTAs Switzerland–Germany and Switzerland–Austria are complex (see section 5). For any concrete tax-law question, a specialist in international tax law must be consulted — in particular a firm focused on German-Swiss or Austrian-Swiss tax law.
• Multiple nationality / dual citizenship: German and Austrian practice on the retention of home-state nationality upon acquisition of Swiss citizenship (see section 8) is, in detail, too complex and too country-specific for a Swiss migration platform to be able to depict it conclusively for individual cases. We expressly refer to firms specialised in the nationality law of the relevant home state.
• German or Austrian foreign-nationals law: this page deals exclusively with Swiss foreign-nationals law and the AFMP preferential treatment of German and Austrian nationals in Switzerland. For questions on German residence law (AufenthG, FreizügG/EU) or on the Austrian Settlement and Residence Act (NAG), a firm admitted in the relevant home law must be consulted.

13. Cross-references

• Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons (AFMP) and free movement of persons — AFMP regime: the decisive settlement and residence regime for DE/AT nationals since 2002
• Glossary on the 2018 Citizenship Act — SCA terminology (naturalisation)
• Glossary of FNIA and OASA terms — FNIA and OASA terminology (applicable on a subsidiary basis)
• C settlement permit — C settlement permit, full version with integration criteria and grounds for revocation
• B residence permit — B residence permit; AFMP B and third-country B compared
• G cross-border-commuter permit — G cross-border permit: main channel for DE southern-Germany and AT Vorarlberg commuters
• Naturalisation in Switzerland — ordinary and facilitated naturalisation
• Settlement Treaty Switzerland–USA 1850 — comparison case: third-country settlement treaty without AFMP overlay
• UK Citizens' Rights Agreement — comparison case: former AFMP contracting state under acquired-rights protection after AFMP lapse