BERN. The Federal Council has rejected the popular initiative for protection against abusive rents, concluding at the end of last week that binding rent rules would be costly to run and would deter investment in new housing. In its place, the government sent parliament an indirect counter-proposal that it says delivers what the initiative only promises: clear, transparent and comprehensible rules on how rents are set.
The initiative, launched by tenant and consumer organisations, demanded hard instruments against rents that outrun costs, including tighter limits on increases after a change of tenant. The government concedes part of the diagnosis. Its own statement admits that the current rules are complex and sometimes opaque. It parts company with the cure, warning that the initiative would weigh on housing investment at the very moment Switzerland needs every flat it can build.
A statistical rent instead of a cap
The counter-proposal builds on the idea of a statistically based comparative rent: a reference value for each dwelling, calculated from objective criteria such as location, size, age and standard, which landlord and tenant could both consult before a rent is fixed or raised. Where an agreed rent departs clearly from the reference, the landlord would have to show why. The administration argues that this changes the balance of information without freezing the market, and that it can be in force years before any constitutional amendment could take effect.
The Tenants’ Association answered within hours. Its urgent appeal to the Federal Council, opened around International Tenants Day, passed 100,000 signatures at the weekend and calls on the government to defuse this time bomb and to stop what it describes as an attack on tenants immediately. The association marked the day with its own figures: over the past 20 years, Swiss rents have risen by 32 per cent, even as mortgage and interest rates fell for much of the period.
The raw number explains why the initiative frightened landlords. In a country where around 64 per cent of residents rent their homes, the highest share in Europe, a constitutional promise of affordable rent is not a niche demand. Advertised rents in Zurich alone rose 4.1 per cent last year, the fastest since 2017, and the scarcity debate has already shown how quickly housing turns political, as the fight over short-term rentals from Lucerne to Valais made plain this month.
Who says what
Homeowner and landlord associations welcomed the rejection, arguing that Switzerland’s housing shortage is a supply problem: vacancy rates near zero in the cities, planning disputes that run for years and construction costs that have outrun inflation. A cap on the price, their argument runs, does not build a single flat, and every franc of legal risk makes the next rental project harder to finance.
The left and the tenants reply that the counter-proposal repeats the self-regulation that has failed for two decades. A comparative rent without teeth, they say, is a brochure, not a protection. The initiative’s committee must now decide whether to withdraw in favour of the counter-proposal or take the question to the people.
What happens next
Parliament will debate the initiative and the counter-proposal together, most likely in the winter session. If both chambers recommend rejection and the committee holds firm, a national ballot would follow in 2027 at the earliest. Between now and then, every household budget squeezed by premiums and rent at once is a campaign argument, and the 100,000 signatures gathered in a matter of days suggest the tenants intend to use them.