Federal Act
on the Compilations of Federal Legislation
and the Federal Gazette
(Publications Act, PublA)

This Act reg­u­lates the pub­lic­a­tion by the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery of:⁵

a.

the com­pil­a­tions of fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion (the Of­fi­cial Com­pil­a­tion of Fed­er­al Le­gis­la­tion, AS and the Clas­si­fied Com­pil­a­tion of Fed­er­al Le­gis­la­tion, SR);

b.

the Fed­er­al Gaz­ette (BBl);

c.⁶

oth­er texts re­lated to le­gis­la­tion.

¹ Pub­lic­a­tion un­der this Act takes place cent­rally via a pub­licly ac­cess­ible on­line plat­form (the pub­lic­a­tions plat­form).

² In prin­ciple, it also takes place in a form that is ma­chine-read­able and in which the cur­rent and all earli­er ver­sions are made avail­able. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify the ex­cep­tions.

The fol­low­ing shall be pub­lished in the AS:

a.

the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion;

b.

fed­er­al acts;

c.

or­din­ances of the Fed­er­al As­sembly;

d.

or­din­ances of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil;

e.

oth­er le­gis­lat­ive en­act­ments of the fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies and of or­gan­isa­tions and per­sons un­der pub­lic or private law that are as­signed ad­min­is­trat­ive du­ties but do not form part of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion;

f.

fed­er­al de­crees sub­ject to the op­tion­al ref­er­en­dum;

g.

fed­er­al de­crees on the ap­prov­al of in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies;

h.

simple fed­er­al de­crees, if the Fed­er­al As­sembly so de­cides.

¹ If they are bind­ing on Switzer­land, the fol­low­ing shall be pub­lished in the AS:

a.

in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies that are sub­ject to a ref­er­en­dum un­der Art­icles 140 para­graph 1 let­ter b and 141 para­graph 1 let­ter d of the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion;

b.

oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies and de­crees un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law that en­act law or con­fer le­gis­lat­ive powers.⁸

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may de­cide that treat­ies and de­crees that are not le­gis­lat­ive in their nature be pub­lished in the AS.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the re­quire­ments by which treat­ies and de­crees of no more than six months in dur­a­tion and of lim­ited scope need not be pub­lished in the AS.⁹

The fol­low­ing shall be pub­lished in the AS:

a.

agree­ments between the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons that en­act law or con­fer le­gis­lat­ive powers;

b.

oth­er agree­ments between the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons if the Fed­er­al Coun­cil so de­cides;

c.¹¹

Agree­ments between can­tons that have been de­clared by the Con­fed­er­a­tion to be gen­er­ally bind­ing (Art. 48a Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion).

¹ Texts in terms of Art­icles 2–4 which by their spe­cial nature are not suit­able for the pub­lic­a­tion in the AS shall be in­cluded in the AS on the pub­lic­a­tions plat­form simply as a title with a ref­er­ence, in par­tic­u­lar if:

a.

they con­cern only a small group of people;

b.

they are tech­nic­al in nature and only in­ten­ded for spe­cial­ists;

c.

they must be pub­lished in a format that is not suit­able for pub­lic­a­tion in the AS; or

d.

a fed­er­al act or Fed­er­al As­sembly or­din­ance re­quires pub­lic­a­tion out­side the AS.

² Texts un­der Art­icles 2–4 that are pub­lished in an­oth­er or­gan of pub­lic­a­tion avail­able free of charge in Switzer­land shall also be in­cluded in the AS only by title with a ref­er­ence or source in that or­gan.

³ Art­icles 6–10 and 14 ap­ply.

¹ Fed­er­al en­act­ments, in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies and de­crees un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law that must be treated as con­fid­en­tial in the in­terests of Switzer­land’s in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity or in­ter­na­tion­al com­mit­ments shall not be pub­lished in the AS.

² Where texts un­der para­graph 1 im­pose ob­lig­a­tions on in­di­vidu­als, only per­sons who have been giv­en no­tice of the rel­ev­ant pro­vi­sions are bound.

¹ The texts in terms of Art­icles 2–4 shall be pub­lished in the AS at least five days be­fore they come in­to force.

² Agree­ments and de­crees un­der Art­icles 3 and 4 whose com­mence­ment date is not yet known at the time of their ap­prov­al shall be pub­lished im­me­di­ately after the an­nounce­ment of their com­mence­ment date.

³ A text shall be pub­lished by way of ex­cep­tion on the day it comes in­to force at the latest (emer­gency pub­lic­a­tion) if this is re­quired either to en­sure its ef­fect­ive­ness.

⁴ If the pub­lic­a­tions plat­form is not avail­able, the texts shall be pub­lished by oth­er means (ex­cep­tion­al pub­lic­a­tion).

¹ Leg­al ob­lig­a­tions arising from texts in terms of Art­icles 2–4 shall ap­ply as soon as the texts have been pub­lished in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions of this Sec­tion.

² If an en­act­ment is pub­lished in the AS after com­mence­ment, ob­lig­a­tions arising there­from ap­ply from the day fol­low­ing pub­lic­a­tion, sub­ject to Art­icle 7 para­graph 3.

³ If an en­act­ment is pub­lished un­der the ex­cep­tion­al pro­ced­ure, it re­mains open to any per­son af­fected thereby to show that he or she was un­aware of the en­act­ment and des­pite tak­ing all reas­on­able care could not have been aware of it.

¹ The Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall cor­rect er­rors and for­mu­la­tions in the AS that af­fect the mean­ing and do not cor­res­pond to the de­cision of the en­act­ing au­thor­ity:

a.

in fed­er­al en­act­ments, with the ex­cep­tion of Fed­er­al As­sembly en­act­ments: at its own be­hest;

b.

in in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies and de­crees un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law: by agree­ment with the con­tract­ing part­ners.¹⁶

² For the cor­rec­tion of Fed­er­al As­sembly en­act­ments, Art­icles 57 para­graph 1^bis and 58 of the Par­lia­ment Act of 13 Decem­ber 2002¹⁷ ap­plies.¹⁸

³ Er­rors in Fed­er­al As­sembly en­act­ments that arose on pub­lic­a­tion are cor­rec­ted in the AS by the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery by agree­ment with the Fed­er­al As­sembly Draft­ing Com­mit­tee.¹⁹

The SR is a re­vised com­pil­a­tion, ar­ranged un­der sub­ject head­ings and up­dated at reg­u­lar in­ter­vals, which con­tains:

a.

the texts pub­lished in the AS, with the ex­cep­tion of non-le­gis­lat­ive fed­er­al de­crees on the ap­prov­al of in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies and de­crees un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law; and

b.

the can­ton­al con­sti­tu­tions.

¹ The Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall in­form­ally cor­rect er­rors in the SR that do not change the mean­ing.

² It shall in­form­ally amend de­tails such as de­scrip­tions of ad­min­is­trat­ive units, links, ref­er­ences or ab­bre­vi­ations in the SR.

³ For the cor­rec­tion of Fed­er­al As­sembly en­act­ments, Art­icle 58 of the Par­lia­ment Act of 13 Decem­ber 2002²¹ ap­plies.

¹ The fol­low­ing shall be pub­lished in the Fed­er­al Gaz­ette:

a.

dis­patches and drafts of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil on en­act­ments of the Fed­er­al As­sembly;

b.²²

re­ports and drafts of Fed­er­al As­sembly com­mit­tees on en­act­ments of the Fed­er­al As­sembly and the re­lated Fed­er­al Coun­cil state­ments;

c.²³

…

d.

fed­er­al de­crees on amend­ments to the Con­sti­tu­tion as well as on the ap­prov­al of in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 140 para­graph 1 let­ter b of the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion;

e.

fed­er­al acts and fed­er­al de­crees sub­ject to an op­tion­al ref­er­en­dum;

f.

simple fed­er­al de­crees that are not pub­lished in the AS in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 2 let­ter h;

f^bis.²⁴

Fed­er­al Coun­cil dir­ect­ives;

g.

fur­ther texts that must be in­cluded in ac­cord­ance with fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion.

² In ad­di­tion, the fol­low­ing may be pub­lished in the Fed­er­al Gaz­ette:

a.

re­ports, state­ments or agree­ments of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil, Fed­er­al As­sembly com­mit­tees or the fed­er­al courts, un­less these must be pub­lished un­der para­graph 1;

b.

Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­crees and an­nounce­ments;

c.

de­crees, dir­ect­ives and an­nounce­ments from the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion and from or­gan­isa­tions and per­sons un­der pub­lic or private law that are as­signed ad­min­is­trat­ive du­ties but do not form part of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion.²⁵

³ If it seems ap­pro­pri­ate, the pub­lic­a­tion may be lim­ited to the title with the ref­er­ence or source (Art. 5).

⁴ For the cor­rec­tion of texts, Art­icle 10 ap­plies by ana­logy.

¹ The fol­low­ing texts are also pub­lished on the pub­lic­a­tions plat­form:

a.

the full ver­sions of the texts pub­lished by ref­er­ence in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 5 para­graph 1 und 13 para­graph 3;

b.²⁷

the doc­u­ments re­lat­ing to con­sulta­tion pro­ceed­ings un­der the Con­sulta­tion Pro­ced­ure Act of 18 March 2005²⁸;

c.

former ver­sions of fed­er­al law;

d.

trans­la­tions of of­fi­cial pub­lic­a­tions, in par­tic­u­lar those in Ro­man­sh or Eng­lish.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may provide that fur­ther texts that are re­lated to le­gis­la­tion are pub­lished on the pub­lic­a­tions plat­form.

¹ Pub­lic­a­tion is ef­fected sim­ul­tan­eously in the of­fi­cial lan­guages Ger­man, French and Itali­an. In the case of en­act­ments, the three ver­sions are equally bind­ing.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may de­cide that texts that are pub­lished by ref­er­ence in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 13a para­graph 1 let­ter a and oth­er texts in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 13a para­graph 2 will not be pub­lished in all three of­fi­cial lan­guages or in any of­fi­cial lan­guage if:³⁰

a.

the pro­vi­sions con­tained in these texts do not dir­ectly bind the per­sons con­cerned; or

b.

the per­sons con­cerned use the texts only in their ori­gin­al lan­guage.

³ The Fed­er­al Chan­cellery may de­cide that de­crees and an­nounce­ments is­sued by the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion and by or­gan­isa­tions and per­sons un­der pub­lic or private law in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 13 para­graph 2 are pub­lished only in the of­fi­cial lan­guage of the per­sons con­cerned, provided these are solely of loc­al sig­ni­fic­ance.

⁴ The trans­la­tion of doc­u­ments re­lated to con­sulta­tion pro­ceed­ings is gov­erned by the le­gis­la­tion on the con­sulta­tion pro­ced­ure³¹.³²

⁵ The pub­lic­a­tion of texts in Ro­man­sh is gov­erned by Art­icle 11 of the Lan­guages Act of 5 Oc­to­ber 2007³³.³⁴

⁶ Texts of par­tic­u­lar im­port­ance or in­ter­na­tion­al in­terest that are pub­lished on the pub­lic­a­tions plat­form may also be pub­lished in oth­er lan­guages, in par­tic­u­lar Eng­lish.³⁵

¹ The Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall pub­lish in the Fed­er­al Gaz­ette and in the AS Fed­er­al As­sembly en­act­ments in the three of­fi­cial lan­guages in the fi­nal ver­sion ap­proved by the Coun­cils.

² In do­ing so, it is only au­thor­ised to add in­form­a­tion on the dead­line for re­quest­ing a ref­er­en­dum, the ex­piry of that dead­line and the entry in­to force, to com­plete miss­ing AS, BBl and SR ref­er­ences and to make format­ting changes.

¹ For fed­er­al en­act­ments, agree­ments between the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons and agree­ments between can­tons (Art. 2 and 4), the ver­sion pub­lished in the AS is au­thor­it­at­ive. If a text is pub­lished by ref­er­ence, the ver­sion to which ref­er­ence is made is au­thor­it­at­ive.

² The ver­sion pub­lished on the pub­lic­a­tions plat­form is au­thor­it­at­ive.

³ The au­thor­it­at­ive ver­sion of in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies and de­crees un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law is de­term­ined by the pro­vi­sions there­of.

¹ The texts pub­lished on the pub­lic­a­tions plat­form may be ob­tained in prin­ted form.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the con­di­tions by which peri­od­ic­al edi­tions of texts pub­lished on the pub­lic­a­tions plat­form are pro­duced and dis­trib­uted in prin­ted form.

³ It shall de­term­ine the min­im­um num­ber of prin­ted cop­ies of the texts pub­lished in the AS and Fed­er­al Gaz­ette that may be made avail­able, and where they shall be de­pos­ited.

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the meas­ures re­quired to guar­an­tee the au­then­ti­city, in­teg­rity and the safe­keep­ing of texts pub­lished on the pub­lic­a­tions plat­form and the smooth op­er­a­tion of the pub­lic­a­tions plat­form; in do­ing so, it shall take ac­count of the state of the art.

¹ Pub­lic­a­tions un­der this Act may con­tain per­son­al data; in par­tic­u­lar, they may also con­tain sens­it­ive per­son­al data in terms of Art­icle 5 let­ter c of the Data Pro­tec­tion Act of 25 Septem­ber 2020⁴¹ where this is re­quired for a pub­lic­a­tion provided for in a fed­er­al act.⁴²

² Texts that con­tain sens­it­ive per­son­al data may not be made pub­licly avail­able on­line for longer or con­tain more in­form­a­tion than their pur­pose re­quires.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine any fur­ther meas­ures re­quired in or­der to en­sure the pro­tec­tion of sens­it­ive per­son­al data in on­line pub­lic­a­tions; in do­ing so, it shall take ac­count of the state of the art.

The fol­low­ing may be in­spec­ted at the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery and at the of­fices des­ig­nated by the can­tons:

a.

the con­tent on the pub­lic­a­tions plat­form; and

b.

en­act­ments pub­lished un­der the ex­cep­tion­al pro­ced­ure that have not yet been in­cluded in the AS (Art. 7 para. 4).

¹ Con­sulta­tion of the pub­lic­a­tions plat­form and in­spec­tions in terms of Art­icle 18 are free of charge.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the fees for the pro­vi­sion of prin­ted texts and elec­tron­ic data un­der this Act.

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may make third party sup­pli­ers sub­ject to spe­cial con­di­tions, in par­tic­u­lar in re­la­tion to the use of data.

¹ The Fed­er­al Chan­cellery man­ages the pub­lic­a­tions plat­form.

² It shall carry out the oth­er tasks un­der this Act un­less oth­er ad­min­is­trat­ive units are re­spons­ible.

The Pub­lic­a­tions Act of 21 March 1986⁴⁸ is re­pealed.

The fol­low­ing fed­er­al acts are amended as fol­lows:

…⁴⁹

¹ This Act is sub­ject to an op­tion­al ref­er­en­dum.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the date on which this Act comes in­to force.

Com­mence­ment date: 1 Janu­ary 2005⁵⁰