Ending your lease in Switzerland: dates, deadlines and the letter

Ending a Swiss lease is a question of dates: the notice period and the termination dates in your lease decide when you can leave, and the letter has to reach the landlord in time. Miss the deadline by a day and you pay rent until the next possible date. Work out your dates below, then draft the letter.

[Name(s) of all tenants]
[Address]

Registered mail
[Landlord / agency]
[Landlord address]

[Place], 29.10.2026

Termination of the lease — [address and floor of the flat]

Dear Sir or Madam,

I / We hereby terminate the lease for the flat above, observing the contractual notice period, as of 28.02.2027.

Please confirm receipt of this notice in writing and propose a date for the handover inspection. Please transfer the rental deposit, after the inspection, to the account I / we will provide.

Yours faithfully,

[Signature(s) of all tenants]

How termination works

• The lease decides. Landlord and tenant are free to agree which termination dates apply and how long the notice period is, as long as it is at least three months for a flat (Art. 266a and 266c CO). Look for a clause such as “terminable with three months’ notice to the end of any month except December”.
• Local custom fills gaps. Only if the lease says nothing do the usual local dates apply. Among the cantons of this site, only Vaud publishes them officially: 1 April, 1 July and 1 October, each at noon (RULV Art. 35). For Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Zug, Bern, Lucerne and St. Gallen there is no official list — check the lease, or ask the conciliation authority.
• Late is not void. A termination that arrives too late takes effect on the next possible date (Art. 266a para. 2 CO). You do not need to challenge anything; it simply moves.

The letter

Termination must be in writing (Art. 266l CO). Practical points:

• Every tenant signs. If two people signed the lease, both sign the termination.
• Family home: if the flat is the home of a married couple or registered partners, the tenant can terminate only with the other’s express consent (Art. 266m CO) — the calculator’s letter adds a line for that signature.
• Registered mail, early. What counts is when the letter reaches the landlord, so post it with time to spare and keep the receipt.
• Ask for the handover date and say where the deposit should be paid back — the move-out guide has a checklist for the day itself.

Leaving early with a replacement tenant

If you need to move out before the next termination date, you are released from the lease if you propose a replacement tenant the landlord can reasonably accept: someone solvent and willing to take over the lease on the same terms (Art. 264 CO). Zurich’s courts add the practical yardstick: for flats, rent should not exceed a third of the replacement’s net income — the affordability calculator checks it — and a single suitable candidate is enough. The risk that the candidate is suitable and really willing to sign stays with you.

In Vaud, the RULV spell out the procedure: notify the landlord in writing with the date you will hand back the flat, and present at least one solvent person willing to take over the lease on the same terms from that date (Art. 34).

If you find no one, you owe the rent until the lease could end under the contract or the law — minus what the landlord saves or earns by re-letting (Art. 264 CO).

If your landlord terminates

• Official form. A landlord must terminate on the form approved by the canton, which explains how to challenge it; for a family home, it must be sent separately to each spouse or partner. Otherwise the termination is void (Art. 266l–266o CO).
• 30 days. To challenge the termination, or to ask for an extension of the lease if moving out would cause hardship, apply to the conciliation authority within 30 days of receiving it (Art. 272–273 CO). Conciliation in tenancy disputes costs no court fees.
• Protection against retaliation. A termination given because you asserted claims in good faith — for example a rent reduction — can be challenged (Art. 271a CO).