If you want to open a Swiss bank account for a company (corporate account), you have three options:

1. If your company is incorporated in Switzerland, you can open any account.
2. If your company is incorporated outside of Switzerland, you can open a Classic Swiss bank account, an Internet banking account or a Swiss numbered account only if you will maintain a balance exceeding USD 200,000 on your account. (See below why)
3. If your company is incorporated in a reputable jurisdiction outside of Switzerland, we can open you a Swiss postal account for a set-up fee of $800 (personal Swiss postal accounts cost $459). Go to the bottom of the account description page to see a list of restricted countries where companies cannot open Swiss postal accounts.

Corporate accounts require extensive documentation about the company and all documents have to be authenticated according to the bank's exact instructions. Each country requires different documents, so contact us beforehand. Corporate accounts typically take several weeks to be set up and we cannot describe the set-up process as straightforward.

Please be advised that we need information about both the company's business and its beneficial owners.

We charge $800 to open corporate accounts, no matter the type of account.

Keep in mind that in many instances a personal accounts gives you a better solution if all you need is to be able to cash cheques for your work as a consultant - you can endorse those cheques.

Why these restrictions ? Swiss banks cannot make money on "in-and-out" business - accounts used mainly for payment traffic. Moreover, corporate accounts require higher scrutiny for the proper due diligence to be applied. The only way banks can maintain corporate accounts in a cost effective way is by applying high minimum balance standards. We understand that this is inconvenient and would prefer, as brokers, that these restrictions would not exist. But they do and we have to work with it. Other solutions

Please bear in mind that incorporating a Swiss company is a long process that requires CHF.100,000 cash just for the capital, so it's hardly a solution if you just want a bank account. In any case, we do not incorporate Swiss companies for the purpose of opening an account.