Federal Act
on the Amendment of the Swiss Civil Code
(Part Five: The Code of Obligations)

¹ The surety is re­leased as soon as the prin­cip­al ob­lig­a­tion is ex­tin­guished for whatever reas­on.

² Where the same per­son is both prin­cip­al debt­or and surety, the cred­it­or re­tains the spe­cial priv­ileges con­ferred by the con­tract of surety.

³ Any surety giv­en by a nat­ur­al per­son is ex­tin­guished once twenty years have elapsed from the date on which the con­tract was entered in­to. This does not ap­ply to con­tracts of surety in fa­vour of the Con­fed­er­a­tion or its pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions or in fa­vour of a can­ton for the per­form­ance of pub­lic law ob­lig­a­tions such as cus­toms du­ties, taxes and the like, and for freight charges, or to con­tracts of surety for the per­form­ance of of­fi­cial and civil ser­vice ob­lig­a­tions and for peri­od­ic, re­cur­rent ob­lig­a­tions.

⁴ Dur­ing the fi­nal year of this peri­od, the cred­it­or may re­sort to the surety even where a longer dur­a­tion was agreed for the con­tract of surety, un­less the surety has pre­vi­ously ex­ten­ded the con­tract or re­placed it with a new one.

⁵ The con­tract of surety may be ex­ten­ded by means of a writ­ten de­clar­a­tion by the surety for an ad­di­tion­al peri­od of no more than ten years. However, the writ­ten de­clar­a­tion is val­id only if done no earli­er than one year be­fore the con­tract ex­pires.

⁶ Where the prin­cip­al ob­lig­a­tion be­comes pay­able less than two years be­fore the con­tract of surety ex­pires and the cred­it­or was un­able to give no­tice to ter­min­ate it soon­er, un­der a con­tract of surety of any type the cred­it­or is en­titled to re­sort to the surety without pri­or re­course to the prin­cip­al debt­or or the pledges. However, the surety has a right of re­course against the prin­cip­al debt­or even be­fore the prin­cip­al ob­lig­a­tion be­comes pay­able.