Serafe in a Flatshare and as a Weekly Resident: Who Pays, How Much, and When a Second Bill Looms

The Serafe bill is the Swiss radio and television fee that every household pays. It is collected by Serafe AG on behalf of the federal government. The amount is currently CHF 335 per year and private household.

Three things surprise almost everyone who moves to Switzerland or lives in their own place for the first time:

• You do not have to register. The fee arrives automatically. Serafe receives the data directly from your municipality's residents' register.
• You cannot deregister either. There is no form that lets you opt out.
• It does not matter whether you own a device. The fee is charged regardless of equipment. Without a TV, without a radio and without internet you are still liable. This rule has applied without exception since 1 January 2024.

If you once heard that you could register "for radio only" or get an exemption by not owning devices: that no longer exists. Every household owes the full amount.

For you as a flatshare resident or weekly resident, two very different questions matter, and this article answers exactly those: Does everyone in a flatshare pay separately? And: Do I get two bills if I have two residences?

The Federal Council sets the amount. Currently:

• Private household: CHF 335 per year. This is the normal case, including every flatshare apartment.
• Collective household: CHF 670 per year. More on that below, it applies to student residences, for example.

Instead of the annual bill you can also pay quarterly, at CHF 83.75 per quarter. Important: if the bill has to be delivered on paper, CHF 2 per bill is added. With four paper bills a year that is CHF 8 extra just for delivery. Receiving the bill electronically saves that.

The fee is going down by 2029

Good news if you are holding a bill right now. The Federal Council has decided to reduce the household fee gradually to CHF 300 per year by 2029. Compared to today that is around CHF 35 less per household per year.

The background is the popular initiative "200 francs are enough!", which the Federal Council rejects. Instead of the CHF 200 demanded, it put forward this gradual reduction as its own approach.

The exact intermediate steps are set by the Federal Council by ordinance. So the amount on your current bill is always what counts, and you can check it any time at serafe.ch.

So budget around CHF 28 per month for the entire household. In a four-person flatshare that is CHF 7 per person per month. That puts the initial shock of a CHF 335 bill into perspective.

This is the core issue behind most misunderstandings, and the answer is clear:

A flatshare is one household. One household receives one bill. That single bill covers all residents.

So you do not pay CHF 335 per person, you pay CHF 335 for the whole apartment. With four people in the flat that works out at CHF 83.75 per person per year.

How Serafe knows who belongs to your household

Serafe does not read your rental contract and does not ring your doorbell. It receives the data from your municipality's residents' register. Whoever is registered at your address belongs to the household as far as Serafe is concerned. That is the entire mechanism.

This has an important practical consequence: whoever is registered at your address appears on the bill. The letter lists the names of all adult liable persons in the household.

Joint and several liability, and what it means for you

All these persons are jointly and severally liable for the amount. In plain terms: Serafe may collect the full amount from a single person if the others do not pay. Whoever pays then has to recover the money from their flatmates themselves.

This is no reason to panic, but it is a good reason not to let the bill sit around and not to wait for someone else to deal with it. That is exactly how the unpleasant cases described below begin.

Formally the situation is clear: Serafe bills the household, and all registered adults are jointly liable. How you split it internally is up to you. Serafe says nothing about that, and it does not need to.

In practice three models work well:

1. Through the flatshare kitty

If you already keep a shared kitty for cleaning supplies, kitchen items and internet, Serafe belongs there. CHF 335 once a year, done. This is the simplest route.

2. One person pays, everyone transfers their share

Whoever finds the bill in the letterbox pays it and sends the others the amount divided by the number of residents. A photo of the bill in the flat chat creates transparency and avoids discussions.

3. Quarterly instead of annually

If CHF 335 at once is too much for your kitty, switch to quarterly billing. CHF 83.75 per quarter hurts less. Just factor in the CHF 2 paper surcharge per bill if you do not receive it electronically.

What to agree before it becomes an issue

Clarify once who receives the bill and who pays it, and write it down. Two minutes when moving in saves you the argument when a reminder suddenly arrives in spring and nobody feels responsible.

If someone moves in or out mid-year, the household changes in the residents' register and Serafe follows suit. The amount for the apartment stays the same, only the number of people sharing it changes.

Now to the question weekly residents ask most often, and for which there are surprisingly few clear answers online: do I pay twice if I have two residences?

As a rule the answer is: no.

The underlying rule: no radio and television fee is owed for second homes. The same principle applies to weekly residents. What matters is where your residence is:

• Main residence in Switzerland: the fee is owed there, at your main residence. No second fee is added for the room at your weekly location.
• Main residence abroad: then you are liable in the household you occupy during the week, meaning at your Swiss weekly location.

That is the clean logic: the fee applies once per centre of life, not once per address where you are registered.

The typical case in our flatshares

You work in Aarau, Brugg or Wohlen, have a furnished room during the week and travel at weekends to your family or your own apartment in another canton. Your main residence stays there. Result: you pay Serafe at your main residence and nothing additional applies to the weekday room.

The case where it gets expensive

You come from Germany, Austria or another country, formally still have your main residence there, but work in Switzerland and live here during the week. Then you are liable in Switzerland, in the household you occupy during the week. Anyone still paying broadcasting fees in their home country effectively pays twice, once per country. There is no way around that, these are two different states with two different systems.

More on registration, permits and taxes in this constellation is in our detailed guide for weekly residents.

A special case that affects many students: collective households.

Anyone whose main residence is a room in a student residence, boarding school or retirement home usually does not pay the fee themselves. Such institutions count as collective households and pay for their residents. There the fee is CHF 670 per year and communal household, not per person.

The distinction that matters

Not every form of living in such an institution is automatically a collective household. Anyone renting a self-contained apartment with its own kitchen and bathroom there counts as their own household and pays the fee themselves.

This does not apply to a normal flatshare in an apartment building of the kind we rent out: that is an ordinary private household with one bill of CHF 335, shared among the residents. A flatshare is not a collective household, even if several people live in it who did not know each other before.

With sublets it depends on whether you are part of the household or occupy a separate unit.

• You belong to the household: you pay no additional fee. The single household bill covers you. This is the normal case when you sublet a room in an apartment and share kitchen and bathroom.
• You occupy a granny flat: meaning a self-contained separate unit. Then you count as your own household and pay the fee yourself.

So the dividing line is not the contract but the form of living. If you share kitchen and bathroom, you are one household. If you have your own self-contained apartment, you are your own household.

If you are unsure how your living situation is classified, ask your municipality's residents' registration office how you are recorded there. That record determines which bill lands with you.

The exemptions are narrow. Exempt from the fee are:

• Recipients of supplementary benefits (EL) to AHV or IV. You have to apply for the exemption, it is not automatic, and you need the EL decision as evidence.
• Diplomats and comparably privileged persons.
• Deafblind persons, provided nobody else in the household is liable.
• Second homes, with the exception described above for a main residence abroad.

What does not justify an exemption, even though it is often believed:

• no television, no radio, no internet
• watching only foreign channels
• studying, low income or a temporary stay
• the argument that you "only watch Netflix anyway"

A tight budget alone is therefore not grounds for exemption. Anyone actually receiving supplementary benefits should apply, however, since it is CHF 335 a year.

Sometimes the bill is wrong. Typical cases: you moved out long ago, you are recorded twice, or the bill lists people who no longer live with you. Here is how to proceed:

1. Check what the residents' register says

Almost every Serafe error is in fact a registration error at the municipality. Serafe does not invent households, it uses the register data. So first clarify whether your registration or deregistration was processed properly.

2. Correct the registration at the municipality

If a deregistration after a move is missing or a person is still listed at the old address, correct it at the residents' registration office. Ask for written confirmation.

3. Contact Serafe with the evidence

Only then is it worth contacting Serafe. Bring the municipality's confirmation, otherwise you will go in circles.

4. Pay the undisputed parts on time

An ongoing clarification is not a payment deferral. Pay what is undisputedly owed so that no reminder fees accumulate while you sort things out.

5. Check the result

Check the next bill to see whether the correction actually came through. If not, follow up with the same evidence.

This is where a small bill turns into a big problem, and it is the part we point out to every one of our tenants.

If the Serafe bill is left unpaid, a reminder with fees follows first. If it stays open, debt collection follows. And then it gets unpleasant well beyond CHF 335:

An entry in the debt collection register remains even after you have paid.

That entry is the actual problem. For almost every rental application in Switzerland the management requires a current debt collection register extract. An entry, no matter how small the amount, immediately pushes you to the back of a field of applicants. The same applies with some employers.

That is the real cost: an unpaid fee of CHF 335 can cost you your next room. And a debt collection extract cannot be argued away, it is simply submitted.

If you are in this situation right now, we have two articles that help concretely, one on the debt collection register extract and one on applying properly despite an entry. The better route, however, is not to let it get that far. CHF 28 a month for the entire household is plannable.

When moving or changing flatmates, one simple rule applies: you do not need to notify Serafe. The municipality does that via the residents' register.

What you do have to do is handle the registration with the municipality properly:

• Deregister when moving out, and actually do it. A forgotten deregistration is the most common cause of a bill at the old address.
• Register on time when moving in. Usually within 14 days, depending on the municipality. Without registration you are missing from the household, which can show up later as a back claim.
• Declare weekly residence as such. If you register a secondary residence at your weekly location and your main residence is correctly recorded, the second-home rule applies and you receive no separate bill there.

If someone moves in or out of your flatshare, the amount for the apartment does not change. Only the number of people sharing the CHF 335 changes. Adjust your internal split accordingly, otherwise someone ends up paying too much.

The six misconceptions we encounter most often:

"I do not have a TV, so I do not pay."

The fee is device-independent. No device, no internet, still liable.

"In a flatshare everyone pays their own CHF 335."

No. One household, one bill, divided by the number of residents.

"I have two residences, so two bills."

No, as long as your main residence is in Switzerland. No fee is owed for second homes.

"I will simply deregister with Serafe."

Not possible. There is no registering or deregistering by private individuals, the data comes from the municipality.

"As a student I am exempt."

Studying does not exempt you. Anyone living in a student residence may however be covered through the collective household.

"I just will not pay, it is only CHF 335."

The most expensive misconception of all. It ends in a debt collection register entry that stays and burdens your next apartment search.

We get asked this often, so here it is clearly and without marketing fog.

Our rooms are all-in rooms. The rent includes furnishing, service charges, WLAN and shared use of kitchen, bathroom and laundry room. You move in with a suitcase and do not have to organise anything.

Not included are room electricity and the Serafe fee.

That is deliberate, not an oversight. Serafe is attached to the household and to registration in the residents' register, not to the individual room. We could not allocate it cleanly to individual rooms, and we do not want to charge you a flat rate for something that, depending on your situation, may not apply to you at all.

Concretely this means:

• If you live with us as your main residence, your flatshare shares one bill of CHF 335 per year. In a four-person flat that is around CHF 7 per person per month.
• If you are a weekly resident with a main residence in Switzerland, you pay the fee at your main residence. Nothing is added here.
• If your main residence is abroad, you are liable in the Swiss household.

We would rather tell you this before you move in than have you surprised by a letter in your first spring. If you are unsure which case applies to you, just ask us. We will tell you honestly what we know and where you are better off asking your municipality.

The essentials in four sentences:

A flatshare is one household and receives one bill of CHF 335 per year. All registered adults are jointly liable, how you split it internally is up to you.

As a weekly resident with a main residence in Switzerland you pay only once, at your main residence. There is no second bill for the weekday room.

The fee is going down, gradually to CHF 300 per year by 2029.

And the most expensive mistake is leaving it unpaid. A debt collection register entry over CHF 335 remains and may later cost you your next room.

If you are looking for a furnished room in Aarau, Brugg, Wohlen or St. Gallen where service charges, WLAN and furnishing are included and you know exactly what comes on top: have a look at the currently available rooms. We tell you in advance what to expect.