BERN. Switzerland’s political parties declared a combined income of CHF 24.6 million for 2025, about CHF 1 million less than the year before, according to figures published on Monday by the Swiss Federal Audit Office. Nine parties reported. The Ticino Lega did not.
The Social Democrats reported the largest income at CHF 7.9 million, ahead of the Radicals on CHF 4.8 million, the People’s Party on CHF 3.8 million and the Centre on CHF 2.7 million. The Greens declared CHF 1.8 million and the Green Liberals CHF 1.2 million. Three further parties came in below the million mark.
Among the four parties of government, the trend points in opposite directions. The Social Democrats and the People’s Party reported less than in 2024; the Radicals and the Centre reported more. The shifts are small in absolute terms and large in what they suggest about donor confidence two years before the next federal election.
The register exists because of transparency rules that took effect in stages from 2023. Parties represented in the Federal Assembly must disclose their income by the end of June each year, and the Audit Office publishes the data, as reported, by the end of August. The office does not audit every franc, and it is not authorised to discuss the findings of the material audits it does perform.
What the register captures is a slice of political money, not the whole meal. Donations below the declaration thresholds, the resources of cantonal sections, and the spending of campaign committees formed around single issues all sit outside the headline figure. Voters looking at CHF 24.6 million are seeing the visible part of the iceberg.
The timing is awkward, and deliberately so. The publication lands in the middle of the most expensive referendum campaign of the year, in which the declared budgets around the 27 September votes alone come to nearly CHF 8 million. Campaign committees disclose separately from parties, which means the full cost of September will never appear in a single document.
The Lega’s absence will draw a formal note and, if past practice is a guide, little else. The reporting duty carries no meaningful sanction beyond embarrassment, and embarrassment, in Ticino politics, has never been in short supply or much of a deterrent.
Next year’s register will be the more interesting document. It will cover 2026, the year of the neutrality campaign, the food initiative and the run-in to the federal elections, and it will show whether political money in Switzerland is rising with the political temperature. The register shows what the law demands. The law demands less than voters might assume.