Federal Act
on Value Added Tax
(Value Added Tax Act, VAT Act)

¹ If a sup­ply is ex­empt from the tax un­der this art­icle, do­mest­ic tax is not pay­able on the sup­ply.

² Ex­empt from the tax are:

1.

the sup­ply of goods, un­less provided for use or ex­ploit­a­tion, that are trans­por­ted or dis­patched dir­ectly abroad;

2.⁴⁶

the pro­vi­sion for use or ex­ploit­a­tion, in par­tic­u­lar the leas­ing or char­ter­ing of goods, provided the goods are pre­dom­in­antly used abroad by the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply it­self;

3.⁴⁷

the sup­ply of goods that were demon­strably sub­ject to cus­toms con­trol on Swiss ter­rit­ory in con­nec­tion with a trans­it pro­ced­ure (Art. 49 CustA⁴⁸), a cus­toms ware­hous­ing pro­ced­ure (Art. 50–57 CustA), a tem­por­ary ad­mis­sion pro­ced­ure (Art. 58 CustA), or in­ward pro­cessing pro­ced­ure (Art. 59 CustA), provided the pro­ced­ure was con­cluded in the prop­er man­ner or with sub­sequent ap­prov­al from the Fed­er­al Of­fice for Cus­toms and Bor­der Se­cur­ity (FO­CBS);

3^bis.⁴⁹

the sup­ply of goods which be­cause of stor­age in a bon­ded ware­house (Art. 62–66 CustA) were demon­strably sub­ject to cus­toms con­trol on Swiss ter­rit­ory and which have not ret­ro­spect­ively lost this cus­toms status;

4.

the move­ment or ar­ran­ging for the move­ment of goods abroad for reas­ons un­re­lated to a sup­ply of goods;

5.

the trans­port or dis­patch of goods in con­nec­tion with the im­port of goods and all re­lated sup­plies as far as the des­tin­a­tion to which the goods are to be trans­por­ted at the time the tax debt is in­curred un­der Art­icle 56; if no tax debt is in­curred, the de­cis­ive time is gov­erned by Art­icle 69 CustA by ana­logy;

6.

the trans­port or dis­patch of goods and all re­lated sup­plies in con­nec­tion with the ex­port of goods re­leased for free cir­cu­la­tion un­der cus­toms law;

7.⁵⁰

trans­port ser­vices and an­cil­lary lo­gist­ic activ­it­ies, such as load­ing, un­load­ing, trans-ship­ment, clear­ing or tem­por­ary ware­hous­ing:

a.

in which the place of sup­ply of the ser­vice un­der Art­icle 8 para­graph 1 is on Swiss ter­rit­ory, al­though the ser­vice it­self is ex­clus­ively sup­plied abroad, or

b.

which are sup­plied in con­nec­tion with goods sub­ject to cus­toms con­trol;

8.

the sup­ply of air­craft to air­lines that carry on air trans­port and charter busi­ness com­mer­cially and whose turnovers from in­ter­na­tion­al flights ex­ceed those from do­mest­ic traffic; the re­fur­bish­ment, main­ten­ance and ser­vi­cing of air­craft which air­lines have ac­quired as part of a sup­ply of goods; the sup­ply, main­ten­ance and ser­vi­cing of goods built in­to these air­craft or of goods for their op­er­a­tion; the sup­ply of goods for the main­ten­ance of these air­craft and ser­vices that are destined for the im­me­di­ate needs of these air­craft and their loads;

9.

the ser­vices of in­ter­me­di­ar­ies act­ing ex­pressly in the name of and for ac­count of oth­ers, provided the brokered sup­ply is either ex­empt from the tax un­der this art­icle or is ef­fected ex­clus­ively abroad; if the brokered sup­ply is ef­fected both on Swiss ter­rit­ory and abroad, that part of the broker­age that relates to sup­plies abroad or sup­plies that are ex­empt from the tax un­der this art­icle is ex­empt from the tax;

10.

the sup­ply of ser­vices in their own name by travel agents and or­gan­isers of events, to the ex­tent they make use of sup­plies of goods and ser­vices by third parties that are provided abroad; if these sup­plies by third parties are provided both on Swiss ter­rit­ory and abroad, only that part of the ser­vice of the travel agent or of the or­gan­iser that relates to sup­plies abroad is ex­empt from the tax;

11.⁵¹

the sup­ply of goods un­der Art­icle 17 para­graph 1^bis CustA to per­sons de­part­ing abroad or ar­riv­ing from abroad by air.

³ A dir­ect ex­port un­der para­graph 2 num­ber 1 is con­sti­tuted if the good sup­plied is ex­por­ted abroad or to an open cus­toms ware­house or bon­ded ware­house without be­ing used on Swiss ter­rit­ory. In seri­al trans­ac­tions, the dir­ect ex­port ex­tends to all sup­pli­ers in­volved. The good sup­plied may, pri­or to ex­port, be pro­cessed or fin­ished by agents of the non-tax­able cus­tom­er.

⁴ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may, in or­der to safe­guard com­pet­it­ive neut­ral­ity, ex­empt trans­port in cross-bor­der air, rail or bus traffic from the tax.

⁵ The Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Fin­ance (FDF) shall reg­u­late the con­di­tions by which do­mest­ic sup­plies of goods are ex­empt from the tax if be­ing ex­por­ted in tour­ist traffic and shall spe­cify the evid­ence re­quired.