Family, schooling and the texture of life

Read the PDF edition (1 page)

Tax and permits decide whether a move is possible. Family decides whether it lasts. Both hubs have excellent international schools with waiting lists, both are expensive and both offer a quality of public administration that founders from larger countries find unfamiliar. The differences that clients report after a year are these. Zug is small, Zürich is twenty-five minutes away and the Alps are an hour away. The working day overlaps with Europe and the American morning but not with Asia. Singapore is a city-state of six million with a working day that overlaps Asia and the European morning but not the American market hours, a tropical climate and travel times of five to eight hours to the main Asian centres. A founder whose investors and exchange partners sit in Asia will find Singapore the natural base, and vice versa.

A point that is often missed concerns the spouse. In Switzerland, the lump-sum regime requires both spouses to satisfy the conditions, so a spouse who takes a job in Zürich forfeits the regime for the couple.¹ In Singapore, a dependant's pass holder may work only with a separate letter of consent or their own pass, so a spouse with a career needs to be planned for. Divorce in either country reaches the token position. Swiss participation in acquired property treats gains accrued during the marriage as divisible, while Singapore's Women's Charter gives the court a wide discretion over matrimonial assets. Chapter VIII returns to marital agreements.

Notes

1. DFTA, SR 642.11, Art. 14 para. 2; FTA Circular No. 44 of 24 July 2018, section 2.4. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of October 2026.