r/SwissFIRE • u/EconomiadeVerdad • 12d ago
ChubbyFIRE wealth level depending on residence canton
Hi there, I'm a 28M Spanish guy, and my wife and I recently decided to move within ~2 years to Switzerland for good (already started learning German and so on).
I know that there's no such a thing as a magic undisputed wealth number to be considered as ChubbyFIRE, but I'm curious how this approximate level can vary from canton to canton because of taxes, cost of living, home prices... Has someone any data about it?
Danke und LG.
12
u/swissmoneydude 12d ago
FIRE numbers always depend on spending which heavily depends on your lifestyle. I'd guess anything above 5m could mostly be seen as chubby, but it also depends on how old you are.
5
u/orange_jonny 12d ago
Of course I’m not gonna list all the cantons with different “Chubby” levels, but a few pointers to get you going:
The usual hotspots (Zurich / Geneva / Bern / Basel) are all very bad. E.g geneva has close to 1% wealth tax and even Zurich is 0.5%, not to mention house prices are insane.
Zug is nice for income, but for just sitting on 10M (which is chubby territory for Switzerland) you want central Switzerland. NW, OW, SZ and even some Gemeinden in Luzern are with the lowest wealth taxes and some have (comparatively) affordable housing.
If you don’t care about lakes or closiness to Zurich or big cities, just pick something in mountain NW/OW/Schwyz.
If you don’t care about nature, kanton Luzern on the non-lake side is very cheap and still good wealth taxes.
0
u/acacio 12d ago
Wealth tax is NOT 1%.
Above 90k (tax free) assets are assessed at 60-80% of market value and then:Zurich applies a progressive basic tax rate. It starts at 0.05% and scales up to a maximum of 0.30% for net wealth over CHF 3.3 million
5
u/Confident-Reward-120 12d ago
Where or where do you find information that says assets are added at 60-80% of real value? I am really really curious
6
u/orange_jonny 11d ago
He asked chat-gpt, and chat-gpt fumbled and combined multiple sources (taxation of real estate) with general wealth tax.
Trust me, I have around that figure, aint nobody giving discounts on wealth tax
1
u/Confident-Reward-120 11d ago
Yeah I totally agree The Swiss are into monetary accuracy! No shirking
1
u/blablamehbla 9d ago
It's stupid. If there was a 30% discount on the asset value they would simply make the tax rate 30% lower. Not have a convoluted multi step calculation. It takes a special kind of stupid from OP to not realize they were posting gibberish.
10
u/orange_jonny 12d ago
Mate are you asking ChatGPT stuff?
This is all a bunch of gibberish. Specifically in Zurich they don’t magically asses your assets as 60% lol.
And the marginal tax rate is bigger than 0.50%, def not 0.35%. Just enter 10M wealth and check it out: https://swisstaxcalculator.estv.admin.ch/#/calculator/income-wealth-tax
3
u/kulashaker28 12d ago
For 2 adults, I would say you need at least 200K CHF per year for it to be considered chubby, including taxes and social security (if you live in cantons like ZUG, LU, NW, OW, SZ). I see your rational for moving (avoiding Spanish wealth/solidarity tax and capital gains tax), but remember that coming from Spain, the transition is going to be tough (cultural differences). You may want to try it for a year at first, realize your investments while there to reset, and then decide what to do next. Just make sure you do not risk being classified as professional investor by the tax authorities (no trading or advanced investment instruments).
3
3
u/summerFIREinCh 10d ago
We live in Basel, spending 150k per year with 1 kid at kita age. We have cleaning lady, babysitter, kita, travel 2-3 times a year intercontinental and own holiday home in the south, pay for grandparents for some big family trip once in a while. Depends on the set up, you might not need so much to chubby fire, in our case, 150k is good level, at 4% swr, it’s 3.75m
1
u/EconomiadeVerdad 10d ago
Nice insights, ty! Are you paying mortgage all the way, just interests keeping principal at 65%, or renting?
2
u/summerFIREinCh 10d ago
We don’t pay back principal and our saron margin is super good. So mortgage cost very very very low considering we live in EFH in a good location. Thats part of the reason we can spend generously on other things and still keep spend sane
1
u/EconomiadeVerdad 9d ago
Thank you! I hope you both enjoy your child and your FI, sure you deserve it well.
1
u/summerFIREinCh 7d ago
Thank you. We enjoy Spain very much and have a holiday home near Valencia, a big part of me pursuing fire is to have time enjoy the beach and life style in Spain. :)
1
u/EconomiadeVerdad 7d ago
Glad to hear that! You should go a little bit south to La Manga del Mar Menor, we have a holiday home there... check some photos out in Google :)
2
u/Designer-Beginning16 12d ago
In Ticino you don’t need so much to Chubby FIRE. I would say the number starts at CHF 4M in Lugano.
2
u/ForeignLoquat2346 12d ago
les than 1M forget about it
survival level is between 1-2M
5M is a reasonable amount
gt than 10M is chubby fire almost everywhere in Switzerland.
2
2
u/blablamehbla 9d ago
What is the point of this post? How much do you have today in assets? Accumulating ChubbyFIRE amounts of assets is usually reserved for specialists that earn a lot of money. People in that group can usually make similar amounts in other regions.
1
u/EconomiadeVerdad 9d ago
With your last sentence I guess you mean the accumulation phase. However, I'm thinking about the FI phase.
1
u/blablamehbla 9d ago
It's going to be about the same in all regions for that. Some regions have lower rents and other costs of living but they are generally economically weaker and have higher taxes (especially on wealth) in return.
So just pick a place where you'd like to live in Switzerland, and model out the costs there for the type of life you'd want to live. It's going to be the same more or less anywhere, unless you're looking at 20M+ wealth at which point cantons with high wealth taxes will start looking noticeably worse.
1
1
u/sintrastellar 8d ago
If just for FI, look up lump sum taxation and real estate prices per canton. That will determine where the best will be. Italy would probably be better if you’re just trying to minimise costs.
2
u/InfinityNo1 12d ago
Switzerland is possibly one of the worst countries for FIRE.
You take your mothly expenses x 250 = FIRE. Switzerland monthly expenses are likely the highest in the world.
Assuming for a family of four:
Healthcare: 1500 CHF (Allgemein, not Privat)
Rent: 2500-3000 CHF (calculating with CHF 3000 as 'chubby')
Phone, Internet for four: 400 CHF
Food: 1500 CHF
Clothes, anything else: 500 CHF
Chubby / Leisure: 1500 CHF
Total: 8400 * 250 = 2.1M CHF
Not calculating any additional Savings, big Holidays, big spendings and so on
5
u/Still-Hand2478 12d ago
Uh hello…zero capital gains tax says hi….
1
u/AvidSkier9900 11d ago
AHV based on virtual income (if you’re not working) says hello back.
3
u/Still-Hand2478 11d ago
AHV contributions if you’re not working is based on wealth and is approx CHF 8k for 4m in taxable wealth. And pillars 2 and 3 are not part of taxable wealth. Not a FIRE showstopper at all.
1
u/suddenly_kitties 11d ago
You also have essentially 0 CGT in places like Greece, Czechia, Croatia, Cyprus, etc., where all the expenses on this list are between 30-50% of the cost. Switzerland is great for your accumulation phase as well-paid professional, but I would rather FIRE elsewhere.
1
u/Still-Hand2478 11d ago
Agreed that it’s great for accumulation. But if you have a family and have grown roots in CH it’s also attractive, and very possible, to stay in CH.
3
u/swissmoneydude 12d ago
First time I've seen monthly x 250. I usually use yearly x 25.
And don't forget the taxes.
1
u/InfinityNo1 12d ago
shoot yeah taxes lol.
So assume 10k/m 120k/yr aka 3M for FIRE.Same thing in Asia is at around 600-800k
1
u/EconomiadeVerdad 12d ago
Thanks a lot for the breakdown, I know it isn't easy to establish there comfortably, but from my point of view this move is true generational wealth. Grossly pessimistic about Spanish (and EU in general) future.
3
2
1
1
u/heubergen1 12d ago
ChubbyFIRE is $2.5M - $6M, if you want to live a certain lifestlyle in Switzerland you have to tell us about it. You can FIRE with less than 1M CHF if you're frugal and a family might need 5M.
1
u/blablamehbla 9d ago
How can you chubby fire at 2.5m? That's 100k a year, optimistically.
1
u/heubergen1 9d ago
That's the range from the sub (and it's in usd).
1
u/blablamehbla 9d ago
Oh wow that's really quite low. I imagine the guideline there is based on a single person. Even a couple would not feel very luxurious on that in most metropolitan areas of the US and most of Switzerland.
1
u/vouvoyer 12d ago
I think in FIRE thete are less differences than in accumulation stage. E. i pay 45% marginal tax in VD and could likely save 50k or more moving canton. But there is no capital gains tax in Switzerland, and income tax on dividends will be modest for most. So you have wealth taxes but these are progressive and usually around 0.3-0.8% marginal so the difference between cantons is not massive IMO. Living costs vary, buut a lot of that difference exists between cities and a small mountain village rather than at cantonal levels.
Also, FIRE levels will heavily depend on children. I don't think it is realistic on CH until the children have left the nest and you don't have health insurance etc.
1
u/OkBeyond8244 11d ago
Interesting. If I wanted to chubbyFIRE I would not move to Switzerland. If you come from Switzerland, okay, I get you want to stay. But if you have passive income, Switzerland is the one country on the planet where your chubbyFIRE by international standards turns into anorexicFIRE. I think it's a terrible choice. Maybe OP focused too much on low taxes and overlooked cost of living.
1
u/EconomiadeVerdad 11d ago
Yeah. Places like Thailand are nice if you want a paradise-like life, but to grow children up you must consider other qualitative issues. That's one strong reason to choose Switzerland.
1
u/OkBeyond8244 11d ago
I love Switzerland, it's great. But people come here for high salaries. Entrepreneurs operate here if they must to the extent they cannot offshore business functions to cheaper places. Investors come here for distinct purposes, e.g. Norwegian wealth tax can be foregone if you pay moderate wealth tax in Switzerland. Swiss stay here because they value their local traditions, rightly so. Expats often complain about how hard it is to integrate, even with language skills, the Swiss are a closed-off society. I agree that schools are good here. But you could easily get a private school abroad and the tuition would be paid for by the cost of living savings. ChubbyFIRE makes me think of house staff like maids, chef, driver. But this is VERY rare in Switzerland. It makes me think of "chubbier/richer than the locals" - but Switzerland is the one place where everyone is chubby/rich in absolute terms. It makes me think of rich cuisine and culture, I don't consider raclette and schwingen very CHUBBY 😆. But if chubby for you is the public school for all children, then okay...
1
u/EconomiadeVerdad 11d ago
Well, the last PISA put Switzerland the 8th country in maths, 13th in science and 19th in reading. Meanwhile, Spain was 27th, 28th and 29th. That improvement is chubby 😬
But yeah I totally get your point and I'm aware of the drawbacks. It is just that if we reach FIRE, we feel that going to a third-world country would be such a waste of that situation.
1
u/OkBeyond8244 11d ago
Most people derive happiness from "having more money than the neighbors". It doesn't matter how much they have in absolute terms. If you have more than the neighbors, you can get the better location houses, the better schools, etc. Going to Switzerland puts you back because here your chubbyFIRE must really be world record OBESE to get your plot on the lake shore... In the end money isn't everything. Culturally, going from Spain to Switzerland seems like a step down on the cultural ladder👇🏼.
1
u/mysticalsnowball 12d ago
This is a complex question and heavily depends on what you want to do here and where you want to do it. Are you able to share further details?
1
u/EconomiadeVerdad 12d ago
Yep, I think the messiest part is to quantify what "chubby" is. Let's say it is to have a net income from liquid assets that is 10x (?) the usual family expenses (taking into account children as well), including average mortgage payment.
3
1
u/oskopnir 11d ago
The FIRE number is usually calculated based on the level of yearly expenses you want to maintain indefinitely. Saying net income of 10x family expenses doesn't make much sense in the context of FIRE calculations. You have to determine how much you intend to spend per year indefinitely, then divide by the safe withdrawal rate and you'll have your number.
-1
u/Helpful-Staff9562 12d ago
Its all about how much you spend there is no magic number. For someone who seconds 20k a year 1m is very chubby fire
6
u/tzt1324 12d ago
20k are the expenses of a dog in Switzerland
0
u/Helpful-Staff9562 12d ago
Mine is a random example is you dont think it was we have bigger problems here
16
u/lacrima_79 12d ago
Well at least you are looking at 6-8 Mil. CHF to be chubby in Switzerland.