This is part of a multi-post series about how it has been to move to Switzerland. See the intro post here for all of the others in the series.

It is difficult to predict how complex an international move will be. And on reflection, it’s hard to remember all of the things someone needs to do in order to fully move to a country. Ryan Prater had a good blog about what to do when moving to Germany. There are some differences between Switzerland and Germany, and I have a slightly different set of recommendations than his.

What to do before moving

There are a lot of things to do before moving. So, don’t move too quickly. ;)

The main steps are:

Figure out what visas you need. File the paperwork to get them. Decide which stuff is going with you. Decide which stuff goes in the trash. Decide which stuff (like a car) is going to family members & how they’ll get it. Sell the other stuff. Get out of your lease or figure out what you’ll do with your place if you own it. Get your financial stuff in order. — more on this in How moving affects your finances Research the rental market in the new country. Research expected cultural differences. Find online forums for immigrants in your new country. While you’re still in your country, visit everywhere and everyone you’ll want to see within a year. You might not be coming back for a while. Get married in your country if its relevant/beneficial/responsible.

I did most of that stuff within 2 months of accepting the job offer. Thanks to my sister for selling the car! And thanks to my husband for cutting the lease and sorting most of the stuff to move to Switzerland. To say goodbye, we decided to do a last fun cross-country road trip in early April. So, we turned it into a fun cross country road trip in early April to get his car to them. It was super nice to be in South Dakota in April this year. Where it was a brisk 17F/-8C.

Enjoying Sioux Falls, SD in April

Conveniently, we decided I’d move right after winter holidays. We took this time to visit my family for 10 days, then extended family for a week, then go back to California to get married, then fly out.

Getting married in California is better than in Switzerland because:

The certificate is in English. This might come in handy later in life. California laws allow for more flexibility in how we choose our married names. There might be residency requirements in your new country that you can’t pass unless you are married already.

For preparations to legally immigrate to Switzerland, I didn’t need to file any paperwork, but my husband needed to apply for a visa to enter with an intent to stay permanently for the purposes of family reunification. This portion took about 2 months to get the visa. Thankfully, he was staying in America for a little bit longer, so it was ok.

I found that englishforum.ch was a good forum of English speakers in Switzerland. This answered a lot of my questions about what to expect in my new land. And, it helped after I had moved. It also helped with understanding what to expect about the Swiss culture. There are also some YouTubers who are from the US and Canada that talk about their experiences moving to Switzerland. I found those helpful to understand what to expect.

Homegate.ch is the most popular website to buy or rent in Switzerland. I spent some time before moving to see what to expect a rental would cost in Zurich so I was prepared for when I came.

Now that I was done with those things on the list above, I just needed to move. Then, I received a new list of TODO items :).

What to do right after moving

Now you’ve gotten out of the transatlantic flight. You have a long list ahead of you. Just try to breath, and do one thing on the list at a time. This list took about 5 months for me. The last thing to be completed was buying furniture. Upon completion, I finally felt that Zurich was my city. This is to say, plan on being uncomfortable for about half a year straight. It is a little bit much, but I assure you, it gets less uncomfortable over time.

A relatively exhaustive list of things you need to do before you start to feel settled:

Get to your temporary apartment. Register at your local Kreisburo. Find out each 35L/8 Gallon trash bag costs ~2 CHF. Find your local recycling bins so you don’t have to pay for throwing away glass or aluminum. Find out a normal entree at a restaurant costs ~25 CHF. Find a local grocery store. Get a bank account. Get a SIM card. Start looking for your permanent apartment. Explore the city. Go to work. Sign a lease for your apartment. Figure out how to pay for deposit/rent through these things called orange slips. Find the equivalent Swiss places to shop from what your favorite were in America. Find out there is no Switzerland Amazon. Try to time your move-in with a mattress delivery. Sleeping on the floor is no fun. Reregister at your new local Kreisburo for your permanent apartment. Buy a measuring tape with meter marks. Buy & build furniture. Figure out how to recycle cardboard. Break down cardboard. Store it in your cellar so you don’t have to look at it while waiting for recycling day. Receive any shipment you sent yourself from America. Research & buy health insurance options within 3 months of moving. Transfer your driver’s license to a Swiss one within a year of moving. Find some way to learn German. Explore Switzerland as a gift to yourself for achieving so much.

If you are thinking about moving to Switzerland, now that you’ve read this, your list of things to do should be a little bit shorter. Now you know everything here is expensive: the trash bags and restaurant food especially.

Registering at government offices

Kreisburos are neighborhood government offices. You need to be registered to your closest one, so the country knows to who you pay your Cantonal taxes and can make sure you are ok with your immigration. I’m not 100% sure all of the roles that the Kreisburo has, but the biggest one is, when you immigrate, they take in all of your documents like passport, lease agreement, and work contract, and some money, then they give you a residency permit paper in a couple weeks in the mail. You need to do this within 2 weeks of moving. Don’t delay in reregistering when you move to a new Kreis.

For new registrants to the office, they give you a welcome package. The welcome package gives you information about an English speaking welcome party, plus a calendar. I thought the calendar was useless because I can get one on my computer or phone at any time. But, it turns out that calendar is actually the neighborhood recycling calendar. It shows the day for paper and cardboard recycling collection for your neighborhood. Thankfully, there is a website with the calendar here. So, it’s not that bad if you lose it, I just have to search every time I want an answer now.

When my husband moved here and registered at the Kreisburo, they made him an appointment in the Migrationsamt (immigration office) 2 weeks after the registration. They didn’t explain which kind of permit he should get, so I was worried that he wouldn’t get the same as me, Permit B with work authorization. But, when he went to the Migrationsamt, they just wanted some biometrics such as fingerprints and a picture, and then they shipped him a Permit B with work authorization in a card. This is to say, even though they don’t explain all of the next steps, the internal systems for immigration in this country are very good and will get you the correct permit.

Overall, the paperwork portion of immigration was a 10/10 in quality and 10/10 in smoothness. Would recommend. Super exceeds expectations.

Health Insurance

First off, Switzerland does not have nationalized healthcare. But, everyone living in Switzerland is mandated to buy insurance for themselves. You have to choose within 3 months of moving, and if you don’t choose by then, your Kreisburo will sign you up for one. Plus, when you buy insurance, the coverage is backdated to your move date and you have to pay for that coverage even if you didn’t end up using it in those 3 months. Notice, the person has to buy their own insurance. It isn’t common, or maybe even possible, for an employer to buy health insurance for their employees. This is very different from what I was used to in the US. It is very disorientating, you have to learn about how to weigh the pros and cons of each plan. But, I figured it out in < 2 months, and so can you! Here are some tips.

For the basic insurance, the insurer can determine your premiums based only on 3 aspects of you: your date of birth, your gender, and your zip code. They don’t know anything about your preexisting conditions, and therefore, you aren’t charged any differently if you have any. You have to buy this first, and if you want to add any more coverage, you can always buy more later. You can change these choices in the late part of the year to be effective in January. You can try out and see the monthly premium for your insurance at comparis.ch. For someone my age in Zurich choosing the highest deductible plan, 2,500CHF, it looks like the general price is between 250–300 CHF (about 250–300$).

At first, the company not determining and buying health insurance for you was pretty weird. But, my manager put it well: this means that insurance is one less thing to worry about when you’re deciding if you want to change your job or take a break from working. You don’t have to keep a suboptimal job because they have a good health insurance, and you don’t have to be scared to take a job from a small business that wouldn’t be able to offer a good health insurance plan.

Thankfully, I haven’t had to use the health system much, but when I have, I have had nothing but good appointments. Switzerland’s healthcare system is very highly ranked across the world. They are consistently rated better than the US system, and I can say that so far I agree. My doctor was able to piece together a couple of small things I’ve collected over the years into one condition with its side effects. From that, she was able to tell me what to do to treat the issue more holistically. This was amazing because I’ve had this problem for years, and no one before was able to put it together.

How to shop

Something that took me by surprise here: there exists some part of the planet that don’t have a Target OR an Amazon. This is honestly really hard when you no longer know where to go to buy a coffee maker, sheets, or clothes. It took me about 2 months to figure out some of the equivalent shops for what I was used to in America. Here are some conversions if you’re interested. Comment if you know of a different set of equivalent American and Swiss stores.

Food

HEB, Kroger, Safeway -> Co-op, Migros

Trader Joe’s -> None

WholeFoods, or Sprouts -> None

Clothes

H&M -> H&M

JCPenney -> Manor

Macys -> Globus

Target -> None

Furniture

Ikea -> Ikea

General online shopping -> home24, Pfister

Everything

CostCo -> No way

Amazon -> Kind of Galaxus, but they don’t make as great of delivery guarantees.

Only in Switzerland

Dedicated home electronic stores -> Fust

Another thing: there seems to be a regulated time to have sales to be allowed only in January and Summer. The lack of sales combined with the high prices in Switzerland mean that things are generally very expensive to buy in Switzerland. The impact on me so far: I haven’t bought as much in Switzerland as when I was living in America.

Getting rid of waste in Switzerland

Once you’ve shopped or moved, there is inevitably packaging and other waste you have to get rid of. This is a lot harder in Switzerland than in America. Generally, municipalities regulate the trash bags that are accepted by the trash collectors. They tend to be very expensive. For example, in Zurich, 10 35L bags are 22 CHF, or about $22. This means that you might want to figure out how to recycle anything you can because it’s free. In Zurich, the cardboard pickup comes once a month. It is different for each zip code, and so you need to check the pick up time on the Zurich waste calendar. After we received our furniture and boxes we sent to ourselves, we looked at the calendar, and the pick up was in 3 weeks. So, we had to fold the boxes down and put them in the basement. Below is about how much cardboard you’d expect to recycle on your first go. But, please don’t forget to break down your boxes and tie them with a coord before putting them on the street.

Artist’s rending of what your first cardboard recycling will look like. (not our pile)

Recycling glass, plastic, and metal is a little bit easier. You just find your local recycling area, and bring the recycling there. But, you have to be careful. The outside containers are mostly for glass and metal. Inside grocery stores, you can find plastic and battery recycling. I’ve had my disappointing days where I accidentally thought I could recycle metal in a grocery store, then had to walk around with empty metal cans for my shopping. Hopefully, now you won’t make the same mistake.

Overall, I appreciate how Switzerland makes people work for their trash. It makes me be more conscious of how much trash I am creating in the world. But, at the same time, I’m still not sure if this is very sustainable. This system relies on everyone in the city being aware and care about how to recycle. This is a lot of work to ask of people when you think about it. I’m not sure how implementing a system like this would work in a big American city.

All in all, there is a lot of things to learn about before and after you move to a new country. If you’re moving from America, or to Switzerland, hopefully you found this helpful!

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