Understanding the Swiss E-Tax Statement

What is the eSteuerauszug?

The eSteuerauszug (electronic tax statement) is a standardized digital document that contains all the information about your financial assets — securities, dividends, interest, and capital gains — in a format that can be automatically imported into your canton's tax software. It follows the official Swiss eCH-0196 standard, which was developed to eliminate the need for manual data entry during tax filing.

Think of it as a machine-readable version of the paper tax statement your bank sends you every year. Instead of manually typing hundreds of positions into your tax return, you simply upload the eSteuerauszug file and your canton's software fills in everything automatically.

How does it work?

The eSteuerauszug is a PDF file that contains embedded structured data in the eCH-0196 XML format. When you upload this file into your canton's tax software, the software reads the embedded data and automatically populates your tax return with all your investment positions, dividends received, withholding taxes, and year-end valuations.

The process is straightforward: you receive the eSteuerauszug from your financial institution (or generate it via eTaxify), open your canton's tax software, find the import function, and upload the file. Within seconds, all your financial data appears in the correct fields — no manual entry required.

Which cantons accept the eSteuerauszug?

Since 2024, all 26 Swiss cantons support the automatic import of the eSteuerauszug into their tax software. This was a gradual rollout — early adopters like Zurich and Bern implemented it years ago, while the remaining cantons followed. Today, the eSteuerauszug is universally accepted across Switzerland. You can verify the current status on the official eSteuerauszug website.

The gap: foreign brokers

Most Swiss banks and financial institutions already provide the eSteuerauszug to their customers as part of their annual tax documentation. If you hold your investments with a Swiss bank, you likely receive this file automatically every January.

However, foreign brokers like Interactive Brokers, DEGIRO, and Coinbase do not offer the Swiss eSteuerauszug. They have no obligation to support a Swiss-specific format, which means their customers in Switzerland are left to manually enter all their investment data into the tax software — a tedious process that can take hours for portfolios with many positions.

Benefits of the eSteuerauszug

Thanks to your financial institution's eSteuerauszug, you save considerable time: instead of spending hours manually transcribing positions, valuations, and dividend payments from broker statements into your tax return, the entire process takes just seconds. This eliminates transcription errors, ensures completeness, and saves significant time during the already stressful tax filing season.

For investors with diversified portfolios across multiple asset classes — stocks, bonds, ETFs, options, and crypto — the time savings compound dramatically. A portfolio with 50+ positions that would take an afternoon to enter manually can be imported in a single click.

Your eSteuerauszug — powered by eTaxify

eTaxify was built to solve exactly this problem. Simply upload your broker report from Interactive Brokers or any other supported foreign broker, and we generate a fully compliant eCH-0196 eSteuerauszug within minutes — identical to the one your Swiss bank would provide.

The result imports seamlessly into your canton's tax software with a single click, just like a native eSteuerauszug. No manual data entry, no transcription errors, no wasted afternoons. You get the same effortless tax filing experience that Swiss bank customers have always enjoyed.