Ordinance
to the Federal Act on the Privileges, Immunities and
Facilities and the Financial Subsidies
granted by Switzerland as a Host State
(Host State Ordinance, HSO)

¹ Per­sons who are called to act in an of­fi­cial ca­pa­city at an in­sti­tu­tion­al be­ne­fi­ciary must as rule per­form their of­fi­cial du­ties on a full-time basis. This is without pre­ju­dice to the spe­cial pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing hon­or­ary con­suls un­der the Vi­enna Con­ven­tion of 24 April 1963²⁰ on Con­su­lar Re­la­tions, and those gov­ern­ing per­sons whose du­ties are lim­ited to a spe­cif­ic man­date, such as law­yers en­gaged in pro­ceed­ings be­fore in­ter­na­tion­al courts or ar­bit­ra­tion tribunals.

² Per­sons who are called to act in an of­fi­cial ca­pa­city at an in­sti­tu­tion­al be­ne­fi­ciary may, by way of ex­cep­tion, be au­thor­ised by the rel­ev­ant can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies to carry out a sec­ond­ary gain­ful activ­ity for up to ten hours a week, provided that they are liv­ing in Switzer­land and the activ­ity con­cerned is not in­com­pat­ible with the per­form­ance of their of­fi­cial du­ties. The de­cision of the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall be taken in agree­ment with the FD­FA.

³ Teach­ing a spe­cial­ised sub­ject may, in par­tic­u­lar, con­sti­tute an ac­cept­able sec­ond­ary activ­ity, but any activ­ity of a com­mer­cial nature, inter alia, shall be deemed in­com­pat­ible with the per­form­ance of the per­son’s of­fi­cial du­ties.

⁴ Per­sons who are called to act in an of­fi­cial ca­pa­city at an in­sti­tu­tion­al be­ne­fi­ciary and who en­gage in a sec­ond­ary gain­ful activ­ity do not en­joy priv­ileges or im­munit­ies of any kind in re­spect of that activ­ity. In par­tic­u­lar, they have no im­munity from crim­in­al, civil and ad­min­is­trat­ive pro­ceed­ings or from ex­e­cu­tion of any judg­ment or sen­tence arising in re­la­tion to the sec­ond­ary gain­ful activ­ity.²¹

⁵ Such per­sons are sub­ject to Swiss law in re­la­tion to the sec­ond­ary gain­ful activ­ity; in par­tic­u­lar, un­less oth­er­wise provided for un­der a bi­lat­er­al con­ven­tion on so­cial se­cur­ity, in re­la­tion to the sec­ond­ary gain­ful activ­ity they are sub­ject to the Swiss le­gis­la­tion on:

a.

old-age, sur­viv­ors‘ and in­valid­ity in­sur­ance;

b.

ac­ci­dent in­sur­ance;

c.

loss of earn­ings com­pens­a­tion;

d.

fam­ily al­low­ances;

e.

un­em­ploy­ment in­sur­ance; and

f.

ma­ter­nity in­sur­ance.²²

⁶ In­come from the sec­ond­ary gain­ful activ­ity must be taxed in Switzer­land un­less a bi­lat­er­al double tax­a­tion agree­ment provides oth­er­wise.²³