Factoring in Switzerland (Forderungsverkauf): Selling Your Invoices for Immediate Liquidity

Your invoices run to 30, 60 or 90 days, but rent, salaries and AHV fall due now. Factoring closes that gap: you sell your receivables to a factor and the money is there at once.[3]

What factoring is and how the sale works

Factoring raises short-term liquidity: the nominal receivables from your deliveries and services are sold to a factoring company.[4] You receive an advance improving your cash position, or a credit line proportional to the receivables sold, with or without the default risk as agreed.[1]

Your routine barely changes: deliver, invoice, assign the claim. With pre-financing every invoice is paid at once,[3] and the factor earns the spread between the client’s payment and the purchase price it paid you.[5]

It is not a bank loan secured by your book debts: the KMU Portal separates factoring from assigning receivables as mere collateral,[1] and sold outright, the claims shorten your balance sheet and raise the equity ratio.[2]

Not every invoice qualifies: claims must rest on fully completed services.[2] Manufacturers, traders and service providers of many industries use it at home and abroad.[2]

The variants you will be offered

The first question is risk: where the factor takes over the default risk the trade is echtes Factoring; without that transfer it is unechtes Factoring, and a defaulting client stays your problem.[2]

The second is transparency: in the offene variant the client is informed of the sale and pays the factor directly, with the assignment notice on the invoice; in the stillen variant it stays undisclosed. In Switzerland the open assignment dominates.[2]

The Code of Obligations explains why: a claim may be assigned without the debtor’s consent,[6] but the assignment agreement must be in writing,[6] and until the client learns of it, payment made in good faith to you, the former creditor, releases it from the debt.[6]

Providers package these blocks: full-service factoring adds complete debtor management and is the most chosen form; bulk or in-house factoring keeps the debtor bookkeeping with you; maturity factoring skips the pre-financing; export factoring covers cross-border business.[2]

What factoring costs

Budget two components: a fee for the default risk and debtor management, typically 1.0 to 3.0 percent of the invoice amounts depending on workload and risk,[2] plus interest at the usual bank current-account rates.[2]

The fee is deducted from the payout and combines the interest for the liquidity advanced with the default risk assumed.[4]

The KMU Portal sets a benchmark: from CHF 1 million annual turnover, fees of 0.5 to 2 percent of turnover can be justified, and factoring should never cost more than your debtor management, arrears handling and default losses.[1]

Weigh that against less tied-up capital, early-payment discounts, protection against bad debtors, ongoing credit checks and a leaner balance sheet.[2] For young, fast-growing businesses unwilling to fund rising turnover with bank loans, it can be worth the fee.[1]

VAT, invoicing and the go or no-go decision

For VAT payers the sale changes nothing in the supply: under ESTV practice, selling or assigning the receivable leaves the supply relationship between you and your client untouched, and VAT is owed on the full face value of the claim, not the discounted price the factor paid.[5]

Timing follows your accounting: agreed considerations are taxed when you issue the invoice, collected considerations when you receive the purchase price from the factor.[5]

One trap matters: while the factor carries the losses, the ESTV accepts no VAT reduction for unpaid factored invoices unless the loss is definitive, for instance after the debtor has been deleted from the commercial register or the claim has prescribed.[5] Clear factored write-offs with your fiduciary first.

The cheapest liquidity is still the invoice that goes out immediately and is chased consistently: facturio adds a SIX-compliant QR-bill to every invoice, sends reminders automatically and matches incoming payments by reference, so shorten your collection cycle first, let factoring cover the rest. Sources: [1] KMU Portal, Factoring; [2] Factoringverband, FAQ; [3] Factoringverband; [4] Swiss Bankers Association; [5] ESTV, MWST-Info 04 Steuerobjekt; [6] Code of Obligations, Art. 164-167.