The Swiss emailing law | The law and emailing in Switzerland

Two laws, two different jobs

People researching Swiss email rules often read the data protection act, find no consent requirement for marketing, and conclude that Switzerland is permissive. That conclusion is wrong, and it is expensive. Swiss data protection law governs how you handle the data. A separate act governs whether you may press send — and that one demands prior consent.

Consent comes from unfair competition law

The rule that actually governs your campaign is Article 3(1)(o) of the Federal Act on Unfair Competition (UCA, SR 241). It treats mass advertising by electronic means as unfair when it is sent without the recipient's prior consent, when the sender is concealed or misrepresented, or when there is no free and straightforward way to refuse further messages.

That framing matters. Unsolicited commercial email is treated in Switzerland as a wrong against fair competition rather than as a mere nuisance — which is why breaching the rule is a criminal matter, prosecuted by cantonal authorities, and why competitors as well as recipients can act on it.

The data protection layer underneath

The revised Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP, SR 235.1) came into force on 1 September 2023, replacing the 1992 Act. It governs how you collect, store, secure and disclose the personal data behind your list: transparency when you collect, data security, records of processing for larger or higher-risk operations, and controlled rules for sending data abroad. It does not, by itself, decide whether your campaign may be sent.

What a compliant Swiss campaign looks like

Ask before you send, and make what the subscriber is agreeing to unmistakable — a double opt-in is the cleanest way to prove it later. Record when and how each consent was given, because being able to show it is your problem rather than the complainant's. Identify yourself correctly in every message, with a valid address the recipient can reply to. And make leaving easy: a free, one-click way out of every message, honoured promptly.

There is a limited exception for messages to your own existing customers about your own similar goods or services, where you obtained the address in the course of that relationship and the customer can refuse at any time. The boundaries are narrower than most marketers assume — one past purchase is not a licence for an open-ended newsletter programme — so treat it as a genuine exception and take advice before building a large campaign on it.

If you also email the European Union

Swiss rules govern your Swiss sending, but they may not be the only rules you are under. If you offer goods or services to people in the EU, or monitor their behaviour, the GDPR reaches that processing through its own extraterritorial provisions, so many Swiss businesses operate under both regimes at once. The practical consequence is usually to follow whichever requirement is stricter. Data transfers themselves are the easy part: the European Commission recognises Switzerland as providing an adequate level of protection, so personal data moves between the EU and Switzerland without Standard Contractual Clauses.