Ordinance
on Value Added Tax
(Value Added Tax Ordinance, VAT Ordinance)

(Art. 107 para. 1 let. a VAT Act)

¹ In­sti­tu­tion­al and in­di­vidu­al be­ne­fi­ciar­ies are en­titled to claim re­lief from VAT.

² In­sti­tu­tion­al be­ne­fi­ciar­ies are:

a.

be­ne­fi­ciar­ies un­der Art­icle 2 para­graph 1 HSA¹²⁴ who are ex­empt from the in­dir­ect taxes in ac­cord­ance with pub­lic in­ter­na­tion­al law, an agree­ment con­cluded with the Fed­er­al Coun­cil for ex­emp­tion from the in­dir­ect taxes or a de­cision of the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of For­eign Af­fairs (FD­FA) un­der Art­icle 26 para­graph 3 HSA;

b.

be­ne­fi­ciar­ies un­der Art­icle 2 para­graph 1 HSA dom­i­ciled abroad, to the ex­tent they are ex­empt from the in­dir­ect taxes in ac­cord­ance with their found­a­tion deeds, a pro­tocol con­cern­ing the priv­ileges and im­munit­ies or oth­er pub­lic in­ter­na­tion­al law agree­ments.

³ In­di­vidu­al be­ne­fi­ciar­ies are:

a.

heads of state and gov­ern­ment while ac­tu­ally ex­er­cising an of­fi­cial func­tion on Swiss ter­rit­ory and per­sons in their en­tour­age who en­joy dip­lo­mat­ic status;

b.

dip­lo­mat­ic rep­res­ent­at­ives, con­su­lar of­fi­cials, and per­sons in their en­tour­age, provided they en­joy the same dip­lo­mat­ic status as the former on Swiss ter­rit­ory;

c.

high of­fi­cials of in­sti­tu­tion­al be­ne­fi­ciar­ies un­der para­graph 2 let­ter a who en­joy dip­lo­mat­ic status and the per­sons in their en­tour­age, to the ex­tent they en­joy the same dip­lo­mat­ic status on Swiss ter­rit­ory provided they are ex­empt from in­dir­ect taxes on the basis of an agree­ment between the Fed­er­al Coun­cil or the FD­FA and the in­sti­tu­tion­al be­ne­fi­ciar­ies in ques­tion or on the basis of a uni­lat­er­al de­cision of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil or of the FD­FA;

d.

del­eg­ates to in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences, who en­joy dip­lo­mat­ic status, if the in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence they are at­tend­ing is it­self ex­empt from the in­dir­ect taxes in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 let­ter a;

e.

per­sons car­ry­ing out an in­ter­na­tion­al man­date un­der Art­icle 2 para­graph 2 let­ter b HSA, who en­joy dip­lo­mat­ic status on Swiss ter­rit­ory and are ex­empt from the in­dir­ect taxes on the basis of a de­cision of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil and the per­sons in their en­tour­age, provided such en­joy the same dip­lo­mat­ic status.

⁴ Swiss cit­izens have no claim to tax re­lief.

⁵ Re­lief from VAT is ef­fected by tax ex­emp­tion at source un­der Art­icles 144 and 145 and, in ex­cep­tion­al cases, by re­fund un­der Art­icle 146.