Calculator · Eligibility dates

When can you apply for the C permit — and the Swiss passport?

Both paths have a computable earliest date. Enter your entry date; the calculator shows your dates, including the double-counting years between ages 8 and 18.

Your situation

Three inputs suffice — the birth date only if you entered before your 18th birthday.

Current permit

Entry date (start of residence)

The start of your authorised residence in Switzerland.

Birth date (optional)

Only relevant if you entered before your 18th birthday: years between 8 and 18 count double towards citizenship.

Married to a Swiss citizen

Opens the path to facilitated naturalisation (BüG Art. 21).

Enter your entry date — your dates will appear here.

All calculations run in your browser. Your dates are neither transmitted nor stored.

Keep your dates in view permanently — My dossier Staying abroad for longer? Check the six-month rule — to the absence calculator

The legal position

The waiting periods, spelled out

The four clocks behind the calculator — with the articles they come from. Residence years are only ever one requirement among several.

C — ordinary

10 years

After ten years of uninterrupted residence under an ordinary permit, the settlement permit can be granted — integration presupposed.

AIG Art. 34 Abs. 2

C — early

5 years

With successful integration under Art. 58a AIG (language, participation in economic life), the settlement permit can be granted after just five years.

AIG Art. 34 Abs. 4

Naturalisation — ordinary

10 years

Ordinary naturalisation requires ten years of residence — three of them within the last five years — and, at the time of application, the settlement permit C.

BüG Art. 9 Abs. 1 lit. b

Facilitated (marriage)

5 + 3 years

Spouses of Swiss citizens: five years of residence (including the year before the application) and three years of marital union.

BüG Art. 21 Abs. 1

Sources & status

Reviewed on 12.06.2026

General information, not lawyer-reviewed legal advice. The day counts come from the citation-verified deadline table; for double-counting years the calculator deliberately rounds up and never states a date earlier than the law allows. Cantons and communes may require additional residence periods.

Legal sources

AIG Art. 34 Abs. 2AIG Art. 34 Abs. 4BüG Art. 9 Abs. 1 lit. bBüG Art. 21 Abs. 1

Is your question not about eligibility dates, but about losing your right to stay?

If revocation, non-renewal or removal is at stake, different deadlines apply. The crisis page shows the first steps.

To the crisis page

Unsure which years count in your case?

Ask Clara a question — you get a cited answer from Swiss immigration and citizenship law, free of charge.

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Clara is an AI and does not replace legal advice.