The setup in 30 minutes
List shared costs (rent, insurance, groceries, kids, subscriptions you both use). Add 10% buffer. Split the total proportionally to net incomes – 60/40 incomes means 60/40 contributions. Standing orders right after payday; the rest stays personal.
Why proportional beats 50/50
Equal splits with unequal incomes quietly build resentment: the lower earner sacrifices a far bigger share of their freedom. Proportional contributions make the SACRIFICE equal, not the francs – which is what fairness feels like in practice.
The monthly 30-minute money date
Once a month, three questions over coffee: What went well? What surprised us? What do we change? A shared hub gives both partners the same numbers – no interrogations, no spreadsheet gatekeeper.
Track these costs in your own budget: create your free Swiss budget in BudgetHub – in English, with Swiss categories built in.
Marriage changes the tax picture – sometimes badly
Married couples in Switzerland are taxed jointly: incomes are added together, which pushes the household into a higher progressive bracket. For two similar salaries this produces the well-documented «marriage penalty», sometimes several thousand francs a year compared with two individual filings.
The effect runs the other way when one income is much smaller. Either way, it is worth calculating before rather than after – cantonal tax calculators make this a fifteen-minute exercise, and it belongs in the same conversation as the wedding budget.
Unmarried couples file separately, but should be aware of the reverse asymmetry: no automatic inheritance rights, no survivor's pension by default, and no joint liability. What married couples receive by law, cohabiting couples must arrange deliberately.
Pension gaps in part-time households
When one partner reduces their workload for childcare, three things shrink simultaneously: salary, occupational pension contributions and – below the entry threshold – occupational cover altogether. The gap builds silently over years and becomes visible only at retirement or separation.
The practical compensation is to fund a pillar 3a for the part-time partner out of the shared budget, and to consider pension fund buy-ins later. Treating it as a shared cost rather than a personal saving is the point: the reduction benefits the household, so the compensation should come from the household.
AHV splitting applies to married couples for the years of marriage, but it does not repair occupational pension gaps. Assuming it does is a common and expensive misunderstanding.
What to write down – and review once a year
One page, both partners informed: all accounts and where access details are kept, insurance policies with their beneficiaries, pension fund and 3a institutions, ongoing obligations such as loans or leases, and any vested benefits accounts from previous employers.
Beneficiary clauses in particular go stale. After marriage, a birth, a separation or a move, the person named on a policy from years ago may no longer be the person intended – and the policy pays as written, not as assumed.
For cohabiting couples this page is not administration but protection: without a will and explicit beneficiary designations, the surviving partner may receive nothing from assets they helped build.