Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late for an oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion scheme.

²In do­ing so, it shall ad­here to the fol­low­ing prin­ciples:

a.

the oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion scheme, to­geth­er with the Old-age, Sur­viv­ors' and In­valid­ity In­sur­ance, en­ables the in­sured per­son to main­tain his or her pre­vi­ous life­style in an ap­pro­pri­ate man­ner.

b.

the oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion scheme is com­puls­ory for em­ploy­ees; the law may provide for ex­cep­tions.

c.

em­ploy­ers shall in­sure their em­ploy­ees with a pen­sion in­sti­tu­tion; if re­quired, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall make it pos­sible for em­ploy­ees to be in­sured with a fed­er­al pen­sion in­sti­tu­tion.

d.

self-em­ployed per­sons may in­sure them­selves on a vol­un­tary basis with a pen­sion in­sti­tu­tion.

e.

for spe­cif­ic groups of self-em­ployed per­sons, the Con­fed­er­a­tion may de­clare the oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion scheme to be com­puls­ory, either in gen­er­al terms or for in­di­vidu­al risks only.

³The oc­cu­pa­tion pen­sion scheme is fun­ded from the con­tri­bu­tions of those in­sured, whereby em­ploy­ers must pay a min­im­um of one half of the con­tri­bu­tions of their em­ploy­ees.

⁴Pen­sion schemes must sat­is­fy the min­im­um re­quire­ments un­der fed­er­al law; the Con­fed­er­a­tion may provide for na­tion­al meas­ures to re­solve par­tic­u­lar dif­fi­culties.