BAAR. Baar will send a CHF 100 local voucher to each of 25,540 residents in December, drawn from a surplus the commune did not expect to have. The money is not cash. It is a digital “Baarer franc”, a voucher for shops that belong to the town’s trade association, posted as a personal QR code and valid for two years. People who moved in after 10 June do not qualify.
The decision is older than the envelopes. On 10 June, 293 voters at the communal assembly spent close to an hour and a half on the 2025 accounts, which closed with a surplus of CHF 55.5 million. The accounts themselves were approved unanimously. What to do with the surplus was not. The Centre party proposed a voucher of CHF 15 for every resident. The Social Democrats proposed CHF 100. That amendment passed by 138 votes to 127. The communal council had not wanted a payout at all.
Who gets the letter, and where it can be spent
The cut-off is precise. Mayor Walter Lipp said the 25,540 recipients are the people who were registered as living in Baar at 5pm on 10 June 2026. At CHF 100 each, the face value is CHF 2.554 million. Moving to Baar now will not put you on the list. The letters go out by A-Post Plus. Each one carries a QR code that works on paper, so a smartphone is not required, though the code can also be loaded onto a phone.
The shops are a list, not a map of the town. A business can take the vouchers if it belongs to the Baar trade association and is willing to accept them. Migros and Coop are out, because they are not members. The association has been asking local firms whether they will take part, and the commune plans to publish the list. Whether the vouchers can be used for communal services such as the Lättich indoor and outdoor pool is still being checked. A restaurant and a baker will see the money sooner than a painter or a fireplace fitter, because people spend CHF 100 on lunch more often than on a chimney. Residents can split the sum across several shops and several visits.
Why it is a voucher and not a refund
A direct payment was not worked up, because the motion that passed specified Baarer francs rather than a transfer into a bank account. The design does two jobs at once: it returns a slice of the surplus to residents, and it steers that slice into the till of a member business. Shops are not charged a commission. The commune pays them the full value of what customers redeem, through the e-guma system, instead of sending them to redeem paper vouchers at the cantonal bank as before. Anything still unspent after two years expires, and the commune is not charged for it.
The Baarer Zytig put the extra cost of going digital, including the system, printing and postage, at CHF 172,000, on top of the CHF 2.554 million of vouchers. That is the price of a scheme the council voted against and a narrow assembly majority voted for. Most of the CHF 55.5 million is not in these envelopes. The assembly also directed a larger sum into the drainage accounts rather than into extra depreciation. The December letter is the part residents will be able to hold. It buys goods in Baar. It does not cut a tax bill, and it does not arrive for anyone who was not on the register at five o’clock on 10 June.