Step 4 · Planning ahead
A stroke, or an illness that moves faster than anyone expected: it takes very little to lose the ability to say what you want. Most English speakers start looking for a power of attorney at that point. Swiss law answers with two documents of its own, and they cover completely different ground. Here is how to make each one hold.
Updated on August 12th, 202612 minute read
Practical information
This is not legal advice: the templates on this page are a starting point. As soon as there is a substantial estate, a business or a complicated family situation, have a notary or a lawyer in your canton read your documents.
The confusion is constant, including among people who have their affairs in order. An advance directive (Patientenverfügung / directives anticipées) concerns your body: which medical treatments you accept and which you refuse. The Swiss Civil Code calls it a patient decree, and many readers coming from the UK or the US know it as a living will. An advance care directive (Vorsorgeauftrag / mandat pour cause d'inaptitude) concerns everything else: your accounts, your bills, your home, your paperwork. One is addressed to doctors. The other is addressed to your bank and to the authorities.
Doing one and not the other leaves half the problem open. The two also obey opposite rules of form, and that is where most documents fail.
Advance directive
Advance care directive
A third term gets in the way, above all for readers who arrive from the UK or the US: the power of attorney. In Switzerland that is an authorisation you grant while you still have capacity of judgement, signed at the bank or at a lawyer's office, and it belongs to a different part of the law. The document the Civil Code built for the moment when that capacity is gone is the advance care directive, with its own form rules and its own validation by the protection authority. The FAQ at the foot of the page sets the two side by side.
Most people deal with both Swiss documents in one go, often on the same day. This page takes the advance directive first, then the advance care directive in full, then the rules the two share, from the valid form down to the templates.
Anyone capable of judgement can set down in advance which medical treatments they accept and which they refuse, for the day they can no longer say so. There is no minimum age tied to majority: what counts is capacity of judgement at the moment of writing.
People generally settle resuscitation, artificial life support, artificial feeding and hydration, pain relief, where they would like the end of life to happen, and their attitude to palliative care. You can also appoint a therapeutic representative (représentant thérapeutique / vertretungsberechtigte Person), the person who will decide in your name and to whom you can give instructions. American readers know the same role as a healthcare proxy.
The doctor has to follow your directive. It can be set aside only where it breaches the law or where there are serious doubts that it expresses your free will, and the doctor must then record the reasons in your file. That is a real protection, and it is what separates a legal document from a conversation at the kitchen table.
Without a directive, who decides
The law sets a precise order: the spouse or registered partner, if they share your household or assist you regularly, then the person who lives with you and assists you, then your descendants, your parents, your brothers and sisters. For those last three, only if they assist you regularly and in person. A child who lives far away has no automatic say, which takes many families by surprise.
This document appoints in advance the person, or the firm, who will handle your affairs if you lose capacity of judgement. It entered Swiss adult protection law in 2013, at articles 360 and following of the Civil Code, and it covers three areas you can hand over together or separately: personal care, the management of your assets and your representation in legal relations with third parties.
It does nothing at all while you are well. When the day comes, the child and adult protection authority (KESB / APEA) checks that the document is valid in form, that the person appointed is suitable and accepts the task, then issues a document setting out their powers. That document is what the bank will ask for. Depending on the canton, the authority is an administrative body or a court; in several French-speaking cantons the role sits with the justice de paix, the cantonal magistrate for adult-protection matters.
Without one, your spouse cannot simply step in. The law grants a right of representation limited to ordinary administration: paying the regular bills, dealing with the post, keeping daily life running. Everything the Civil Code treats as extraordinary asset management — terminating a lease, selling a property, renewing a mortgage, dividing an estate — needs the authority's consent.
Where nobody can represent the person, the authority establishes a deputyship and appoints a deputy, who may be a professional the family has never met. Keeping the decision inside the family is the first thing an advance care directive is for. It is also something you do for your relatives: it spares them the trip to the authority at a point when they already have plenty to carry.
The law splits the directive into three parts, which you can hand over separately or as a block.
The decisions that touch you as a person. Where you live and who looks after you, a possible move to a care home (EMS / Pflegeheim), everyday life, the post.
The administration of your income and your wealth. Bills, accounts, securities, property, taxes.
How you are represented towards third parties. Banks, insurers, authorities, the landlord, contracts.
In practice all three parts usually go to the same person, with a substitute named in case the first one falls through. Nothing stops you splitting them: your daughter for personal care, a fiduciary (a Swiss accounting and administration firm) for the assets.
The concrete instructions are what count. Should the flat be kept as long as possible? What happens to the animals, or to the business? Are there assets that have to stay untouched? A directive that names a person and says nothing else leaves that person guessing.
When the day comes, the person you appoint takes on real work, sometimes for years: bookkeeping, dealings with the authorities, accounts to render to the KESB / APEA. Closeness alone is not the criterion. The person also needs time on their hands and a certain ease with paperwork.
And above all, ask them first. A directive handed to someone who turns it down on the day is worth nothing, because the person you appoint has every right to decline. Learning that you have been appointed on the same day you learn a relative has been taken to hospital is two shocks at once.
Name a substitute as well, in case your first choice cannot or will not take it on. If you have nobody around you, or would rather not put this on anyone, a professional can be appointed, a fiduciary or a lawyer, for a fee you can set in the directive itself.
This is where most documents fall down. The two texts require the opposite of each other, and an advance care directive that is perfectly drafted but typed on a computer is worth nothing at all. The law allows it exactly two forms, and there is no third one.
Advance directive
Advance care directive
The notarised form has two concrete advantages. It spares you copying several pages out by hand, which gets painful faster than you would think, and the notary establishes your capacity of judgement at the moment of signing, which makes a later challenge much harder to bring. Unlike a will by public deed, no witness is needed.
Neither document has to be in a national language. The Civil Code fixes the form, the date and the signature, and says nothing about the language, so a text written in English is valid. A translation into the language of the region where you live is still worth attaching, because in an emergency a hospital reads what it can read.
A document nobody can find is a document that does not exist. Each of the two has its own official channel, and the two channels are not the same.
Have the existence of the directive and its place of deposit noted on your health insurance card. The law provides for this and the doctor has to check the card in an emergency. Give a copy to your family doctor and to your therapeutic representative, and keep the original at home, somewhere visible.
Ask a civil registry office (Zivilstandsamt / état civil) to record its existence and its place of deposit in the central federal database, Infostar. The office records neither the content nor the validity, only the fact that the document exists and where it is. Whenever the authority learns of an incapacity, it checks that database as a matter of course.
Keep the original somewhere findable, at home or at the notary's office, with a copy for the person you appointed and another for the substitute. Some cantons also offer deposit with the adult protection authority or with a notary's office, for a small fee.
Tell two people you trust that these documents exist and where they are. Do not put them in a bank safe-deposit box, which opens too late.
Far less than people imagine, and sometimes nothing at all.
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Advance directive (free templates from the FMH, Pro Senectute, the Swiss Red Cross and many hospitals) | Free |
| Handwritten advance care directive (nothing to pay, only your time and a pen) | Free |
| Entry in the civil register (cantonal fee for recording the place of deposit) | About CHF 75 |
| Advance care directive as a public deed (cantonal scale; more where property or a business is involved) | CHF 200 to 600 |
| Full support (review of your situation, both documents drafted together) | On request |
Set against what a deputyship run by the authority costs a family in time and friction, that is not much. Full support usually covers an inventory of what needs to be dealt with (accounts, property, a business, animals), the choice of the person you appoint and of a substitute, the entry in the civil register, and making all of it consistent with an existing will or with funeral pre-planning already arranged.
Describe your situation in a few lines (canton, what needs to be covered) and we pass your request to a professional who works on advance arrangements, who gets back to you. No obligation.
Some requests are forwarded to Funere's commercial partners. We may be remunerated when an order goes ahead, which never changes the price you pay. Always compare several offers before committing.
For a straightforward advance directive, the free templates are more than enough: the FMH publishes a short version and a detailed one, Pro Senectute publishes the Docupass folder, which brings the two documents together, and several university hospitals put their own forms online, on their own sites. Professional help earns its keep when there is a business, property or a blended family, or when you want to settle the advance directive, the advance care directive and your will in one go.
Two templates, two very different uses. The first is printed out, filled in by hand, dated and signed. The second is never printed out to be filled in: it is copied word for word in your own hand, or it goes through a notary.
Advance directive template
I, the undersigned, first name, surname, born on date, resident at address, in full capacity of judgement, make this advance directive for the event that I am no longer able to express my wishes.
I appoint as my therapeutic representative first name, surname, relationship, telephone, who is to decide on medical treatment in my name, in accordance with the wishes set out below. Failing that, substitute.
In the event of an illness or injury whose outcome would probably be fatal, or of severe and lasting brain damage: what you accept and what you refuse, for example resuscitation, artificial ventilation, artificial feeding and hydration.
I wish my pain to be relieved, even where that shortens my life. Keep or delete.
Where I wish to be cared for: at home, in hospital, in a care home. Religious or spiritual support: yes, no, details.
This directive cancels and replaces any directive I have made before.
Done at place, on date. Signature: handwritten signature
Print or download the template, fill it in by hand, date it and sign it. No witness, no notary. Then have its existence and its place of deposit noted on your health insurance card, and give a copy to your family doctor.
Mind the form
Do not print the template below in order to fill it in: it would be void. Copy it out in full in your own hand, or have a notary draw it up as a public deed. The downloadable version is there as an aide-memoire while you write.
Advance care directive template
I, the undersigned, first name, surname, born on date, resident at address, capable of judgement, make this advance care directive within the meaning of articles 360 and following of the Civil Code.
For the event that I become incapable of judgement, I appoint first name, surname, date of birth, address to act for me. If that person cannot or will not accept the task, I appoint substitute.
I entrust to them my personal care, the management of my assets and my representation in legal relations with third parties, with power to do everything useful to that end, in particular specify, for example manage the bank accounts, pay the bills, deal with the insurers and the authorities, decide where I live and who cares for me.
Particular instructions: for example staying at home as long as possible, what happens to the home, the animals, the business, assets that are to stay untouched.
The person appointed is entitled to reimbursement of expenses and to fair remuneration: specify or delete.
This directive cancels any earlier one.
Done at place, on date, written in full in my own hand. Signature: handwritten signature
A printed, typed or photocopied advance care directive has no value, even signed. Once the text is copied out, dated and signed, ask a civil registry office to record its existence and its place of deposit in the register, and tell the person you appointed.
Does the advance care directive take effect on its own?
No. When the loss of capacity of judgement occurs, the KESB / APEA examines the document: the form, the validity, whether the person you appointed is up to the job. At the end of that validation, the authority issues that person a document setting out their powers, and only then can they act. One more reason to get the form right.
Legal framework: Swiss Civil Code, articles 360 to 369 for the advance care directive, 370 to 373 for the advance directive, 374 and 378 for the right of relatives to act as representative. Fees and the competent authorities are set by the cantons. This page is general information and does not replace individual legal advice.