Some information on administrative stuff after arriving in Switzerland 🏢

WARNING: It’s a dense piece of text!

Hello again!

Thought it would be good to write down about some important adminstrative things one might need to do upon arrival, and also some “trivial” things that we also would wonder about. Best to write it down now as well, before I forget! It is also nice to have another source of information; a lot of the googling I was doing beforehand was limited to Reddit or really old exchange reports (from like 2004!)

Small disclaimer: Keep in mind that I’m writing from the perspective of a Waterloo student on exchange at EPFL, so some parts of the process could be different for you! Processes and procedures can change over time as well, so take all this with a few grains of salt.

If you want a look at what pre-exchange things look like, check my other timeline post which covers most of what might happen. I do elaborate a bit more on pre-exchange here below as well.

Some other pre-exchange elaborations

You’ll wait what feels like a looooong time after confirming your match with Study Abroad before you hear back from them. Don’t worry about it! Try and be present with whatever you have going on instead of worrying about it :)

Is housing guaranteed?

For W22, F22, and W23, it was guaranteed (although they are purposely ambiguous on your EPFL acceptance letter.) Not all exchange students were guaranteed housing for this term, but everyone from Waterloo was, so that’s good! What does guaranteed mean though?

FMEL—Fondation Maison Étudiants Lausanne— is an external student housing organization that works (I think) with EPFL and UNIL. They’ll send you an email to ask you to fill out your preferences (keyword: preferences) for room type and budget, but it is possible that some room types are no longer available. For the Waterloo people on exchange for Fall 2022, we all tried different combinations to optimize the room styles/prices we wanted, but we’ve concluded that it is pretty random. The catch with guaranteed is that whatever they end up offering you, you have to take, otherwise you won’t get housed. So if your budget is let’s say 600 CHF, but they give you a place that is 800 CHF, you have to take it, otherwise it won’t be guaranteed. So keep that in mind!

Oh no, someone submitted 3 photos but I submitted 4 for the visa application!

Many of us from Fall 2022 submitted different variations of the instructions listed on the Swiss Consulate website, but we all got our visas, so don’t despair if someone did something slightly different. There are some things to note though that might be helpful:

• check “multi-entry” on the visa application so that you can enter and exit without issue if you don’t have your residence permit yet
• the visa application should be free as a student, so you don’t need to send any payment with it

Otherwise, the instructions should be pretty clear :)

FMEL deposit, they want money, ahhh what?

They ask for a deposit while you are still abroad, once you’ve confirmed your housing. It’s a wire transfer from the bank, and shouldn’t be too complicated. Not sure what they do with the deposit; I’d assume they return it after we leave, but that remains to be seen 🤷‍♂️

Tip: Extra pictures

Would recommend you bring a few extra pictures of yourself in the passport/visa size to Switzerland, same as the one you used to apply for your visa. You may need it for certain applications, and it’s helpful to have them on you right away.

General overview

Great, a general overview now of the topics I want to cover:

• Residence permit (attestation, feeeeeees, biometrics)
• Insurance
• Bank account & rent
• Transportation (SBB, TL)
• Phone plan
• EPFL/Waterloo stuff

Residence Permit

This is probably the most important administrative task. Switzerland is part of the Schengen Area (but not the EU), and as a Canadian citizen you can enter the Schengen Area visa-free for up to 90 days. Since the exchange is longer than 90 days, you will need to obtain a residence permit to continue your stay.

Before coming to Switzerland, you would have already applied for and received a visa (a large sticker in your passport, see the previous timeline post). From what I understand, this visa is for your initial entry to Switzerland, and is a temporary thing before you get your residence permit card.

Some more background

But wait, some background!

Switzerland is divided up into 26 cantons (an equivalent to a province or state.) EPFL is located in the canton of Vaud. Within each canton there are districts, which you can think of as “regions”. Vaud has 10 districts. Within these districts, there are municipalities, also called “commune” (perhaps that is just the French word for municipality.)

So even though EPFL is called École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, it is technically located in the municipality of Écublens, which is located in the Ouest Lausannois district, which is in the canton of Vaud. So strictly speaking, it isn’t in the municipality or district of Lausanne (which both exist), but it is close enough. (There is likely some more historical context that I am currently ignorant of)

Now that we have a better conception of these structures, the explanation of the residence permit will hopefully make a little more sense...

Back to the residence permit

When you arrive in Switzerland, you are supposed to declare your arrival within the first 8 days at the administrative office of the commune in which you will be living in. Depending on the commune, it can be called some variation of Office de la Population (OFPOP) or Service de la Population (SPOP) or Contrôle de des Habitants (although apparently they are phasing out this name.)

Note: There seem to be people who have not declared their arrival within 8 days, or mentioned something about it being 14 days... the point being that things can vary, but it would be best to just declare your arrival at the commune office within the first few days of arriving. Pretty sure it is 8 days, but you should check!

What does this look like? Well in Switzerland, it is a federal state, so there are many things that can vary from commune to commune and canton to canton. Same with the residence permit process—slight differences in fees, processes (email or letter mail), timings. This is all to say that when you talk with other exchange students and they told you about receiving an email from the Population Office, it could very well be that you will receive a physical letter instead. (If you are in the same commune though, maybe you should double-check then 😆)

I will speak to the process at Crissier, since my residence was located there. If you are living in an FMEL residence, they have a page that lists which commune you are part of: https://www.fmel.ch/check-in

Screenshot from Dec 12, 2022 from the FMEL website.

Crissier

Initial registration

All the information is found on the commune’s website. It is in French, so if you aren’t able to understand it, hopefully Google Translate will work! I also emailed them to clarify some questions I had, and they responded in reasonable time. I only communicated in French with them, but I’m pretty sure they will be able to speak English as well, since they are a population office that handles foreigners 😆

Helpful commune website here: https://www.crissier.ch/crissier-officiel/services-communaux/office-de-la-population/je-suis-un-etudiant-de-nationalite-etrangere/

These were the documents I brought (all photocopies):

• birth certificate (proof of singleness- if you are married, then marriage certificate)
• Enrollment letter from EPFL (this is one that you would print off from EPFL’s IS-Academique site, it has start and end dates of the semester. This is not the initial acceptance letter that you received.)
• Passport (with your visa inside)
• Lease agreement (can be printed off the FMEL online portal)
• A photo (same dimensions as when you applied for your visa)

Make sure to also ask for an “attestation”, which is your temporary residence permit. Without this sheet, you won’t be able to open a bank account. When I went, I had to come back that same afternoon to get the sheet, but I heard others got the attestation immediately.

I paid an initial fee of 137 CHF, and then 15 CHF for the attestation. Their fees are listed here: https://d3cqfvbrfyyzhx.cloudfront.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Tableau-Emoluments-commune-pour-site-internet.pdf

I also elaborate more on the fees below.

Biometrics

Around one month (~4 weeks) after doing the initial registration, I received a letter in the mail to do biometrics for the residence permit. There is a link and a code to register for an appointment online, and from my understanding this is all done in the same place in Lausanne (Centre de Biométrie).

Receive the card!

It takes around 1-2 weeks to receive the card; I got it pretty quick, around 8 business days later. Had to go to the post office to sign/ID check to pick it up.

And now you can legally stay in Switzerland, and enter beyond the 90 days!

Fees

What would Switzerland be without its prices!

These are the fees I encountered, which can vary between communes:

• 137 CHF - some combination of federal, cantonal, and commune taxes (paid at registration)
• 15 CHF - to get the attestation (embossed letter) (paid at registration)
• 95 CHF - some entry authorization fee, charged by the canton and the federation (received the invoice in the mail)
• 20 CHF - cost to take biometrics (received the invoice in the mail)

Not sure that the invoices come at set times, so just make sure you check your mailbox at least once a week, maybe a bit more frequently in the first few weeks when you arrive for other mail stuff.

Insurance

So everyone in Switzerland is obligated to have their own private insurance coverage. I don’t know the specifics of the system (and won’t get into them), but all you need to know is that you’ll need some kind of insurance.

I need insurance????

What does that mean for you? Well, you probably don’t want to purchase a Swiss health insurance, so you would want to apply for an exemption, meaning that you have an existing health insurance you want to use—this needs to be approved as “equivalent” by the health authorities.

So, one way to do this as a Waterloo student, is actually through Studentcare, the insurance offered through WUSA. It is sufficient to meet the Swiss requirements (as of Fall 2022, not sure how things may change in the future.) It only covers emergency things though, but if you are only here for one term and aren’t injury-prone, it will probably do for you.

The process

I got a letter asking for proof of health insurance coverage a few days after I registered at the commune, but some people got theirs later (and some people also did it through email, so who knows!) Once you get it, if you purchased insurance through WUSA, you can send an email to Studentcare for a “Conditional Proof of Coverage”, which you would forward back to the health authorities. They will likely send you another letter/email asking you for a copy of your “health insurance card”, which is just your health card. Once you send that in, they should respond a few weeks later with an approved exemption, and you are good to go! No need to pay for Swiss health insurance.

That being said, if you do want to purchase a more comprehensive coverage plan, there are many providers you can use. Some of the common ones that exchange students/foreign students use are listed on this website from ETH Zurich, such as Swisscare.

It is also possible that you might have coverage through a parent or something; you’d probably follow a similar procedure to obtain an exemption as mentioned above.

Banking & Rent

Always wanted a Swiss bank account? Well now is your chance. The bigger Swiss banks (UBS, Credit Suisse) are an option, the cantonal bank (BCV) is also another option, and you can also open an account with the post office bank office (PostFinance)–yes, the post office has its own bank.

Edit (March 11, 2023): Turns out Credit Suisse closed their branch at EPFL at the beginning of March this year, so this isn’t an option anymore! There is a UBS in Renens, and also in Lausanne there should be a UBS and Credit Suisse.

Which bank?

Credit Suisse is located on campus, so that might be convenient for most students. I have heard of students also opening with UBS. BCV and PostFinance, not as much, but still an option.

Should I open a bank account?

Do you have to open a bank account? No, you don’t have to—I know many others who didn’t, and they got by just fine. I would recommend it though, since it makes things a bit easier, such as withdrawing cash, paying rent, and doing Swiss e-transfers (they do it through an app called TWINT- I think it’s better than our Canadian e-transfer system). If you don’t open a bank account, I think you need to go in person to a post office with the bill and pay there. They might have restrictions on the kind of card you can pay with (it might be only debit or something, I have no idea), but that can be a minor inconvenience if you don’t want to set up a bank account.

Okay, I decided to open an account. What next?

I opened with Credit Suisse on campus; it was free to open the account. Money can be sent to your account immediately, but to get things like online banking and online payments set up will take 1-2 weeks, usually on the shorter end of that spectrum.

If you are thinking of doing an international money transfer to your Swiss bank account from Canada, this makes it a lot easier, they give you the details you’ll need to make the transfer, and it’s pretty fast (around 2 business days for the money to show up.) I think this is different from a wire transfer, but I could be wrong. Anyways, with your account, you can also set up TWINT, which is like e-transfer but you can use it to pay in grocery stores, restaurants, etc. in addition to transferring money to other people, which is convenient. The Swiss also have QR-code bills here, and so with a bank account all you have to do is scan the QR code to make the payment for rent for example (and other invoices you might receive from your residence permit.)

FMEL Rent

For your first month of rent, you have extra time to pay FMEL back, so don’t worry if they send you an invoice that’s due 2 days after you arrive. For future months, if you have a bank account, then just scan the QR-code to pay—tada, done!

Transportation

Trains

You will most definitely want to purchase a half-fare card (demi-tarif in French, halb-abo in German), as this gives you 50% discount on all train tickets. Sounds like a steal? Well not really, because virtually all Swiss people have this, so you aren’t really gaining anything (more so losing if you choose not to purchase it.) The Swiss railway service is called SBB/CFF/FFS, those being the German, French, and Italian names respectively.

If you are flying into Geneva or Zurich, you should be able to purchase one at the airport/train station near the airport. It is 120 CHF for a whole year, but you will recoup the price very quickly. For instance, Lausanne to Zurich is 74 CHF at full price, 37 CHF half price. If you go there and back, with the half-fare you already save 74 CHF. Crazy!

They will first issue you a temporary half-fare card (flimsy paper) that you will need to keep on you all times when riding the train. They will also ask for a passport/visa-sized photo of you, and then mail you your SwissPass around 1-2 weeks later. The SwissPass is just an ID with all your information and subscriptions (like the half-fare.) Once you receive the SwissPass, you won’t need the temporary card.

I may choose to talk more about the transportation in another post, since there is a lot that can be said about it in Switzerland (many good things!), but would highly recommend downloading the SBB app—I have used a few other railway network apps in Europe, and the SBB app is superior in so many ways. You’ll see once you download it 😉

In Lausanne

TL (Transports publics de la région lausannoise) is the local transportation service in the Lausanne area. Depending on where you live, you may or may not use the metro and/or bus regularly. Chances are though that you will use it a fair bit, and so at that point it will be easier to purchase a monthly pass. For most of the FMEL residences, you’ll be in the zone 11/12 Lausanne area, which is 52 CHF per month. There are some residences that are in a further zone, so you might need to purchase a zone extension.

If you have already purchased a half-fare with SBB and they’ve set up the SwissPass for you, then the TL monthly pass can be added directly to your SwissPass. If you didn’t set up a SwissPass yet, then they’ll set up one for you (you can see that the SwissPass is an all-in-one kind of deal.)

Some tips with transportation

Edit (June 4, 2023): There used to be something called the seven25, which allowed people under 25 years old to travel as if they had a GA pass from 7pm to 5am (to 7am on weekends). It was originally 39 CHF per month, or 390 CHF per year. Now they have a “Night GA” (see here) , which is only 99 CHF per year, same function as the seven25. If this had come out earlier, I would have definitely gotten it, so be sure to check it out!

If you have puchased the monthly pass for the zone 11/12 area, it covers any transportation within those two zones—including trains! So for example, Renens to Lausanne is covered under the monthly pass. This means that sometimes, you can save a bit of money if you purchase tickets to Renens for example instead of Lausanne, even if your destination is Lausanne, because the portion of the train which you take from Renens to Lausanne is covered under the monthly pass.

Another tip! If you are going to something that is a bit further, like IKEA in Allaman, and you have the monthly pass, it is cheaper to buy a zone extension ticket (Mobilis Extension Ticket) on the SBB app instead of a full “point-to-point” ticket! This is because the point-to-point might include 6 zones, if you are doing Lausanne to Allaman: 11, 12, 26, 30, 31, 33. However, you have the monthly pass, which already covers zones 11 and 12! So you only need to pay for the extra zones of 26, 30, 31, 33. That means you pay 3.70 CHF instead of 5.60 CHF.

Another tip! If you are still in the Lausanne zones, such as going to IKEA (don’t ask why I seem to keep mentioning IKEA), the zone tickets are based on time validity (the SBB app will show you when you purchase the ticket.) This means, as long as you embark and disembark within that 2-hour time validity, you don’t need another ticket when you return.

Zone extension, 4 zones (2 already covered under monthly pass	Individual, 6 zones

Phone Plan

There are many phone plans you can get; some people already have roaming international plans, or Europe plans that include Switzerland (remember that Switzerland is not part of the EU!!) I didn’t, so I went with Swype by Yallo. 20 CHF per month, unlimited calls, texts and data (capped at 4G) in Switzerland. It was very easy to set up, and if your phone is capable of eSIM, then you’ll be all done within 5 mins.

There are also some other plans that provide data-only, but it can be helpful to have a Swiss phone number, especially for banking.

EPFL, Waterloo things

Course registration? eh you can figure that out ;)

Waterloo also has an arrival form you should fill out once you arrive, you likely will get an email about it. If not, here it is! https://uwaterloo.ca/international/students/arrival-notice-form

Conclusion

Well, that was an incredibly long and dense post. It is quite rambly, but hopefully provides a little more insight into what you might expect, administratively, during your first few weeks in Switzerland. To reiterate, this is just my own experience—information should be taken with many grains of salt, and official sources should always be consulted first. My intention is just to alleviate some worries or stress one might have when trying to figure things out upon arrival; hopefully this additional viewpoint lessens that burden by a bit.

More posts to come. Have a good exchange!

See you around