Swiss housing: who owns the buildings – and what the data omits
Natural persons own 66.7 percent of recorded buildings. For apartment buildings the picture differs – and Zurich and Valais are still missing.
66.7 percent of recorded Swiss residential buildings belong to natural persons. But the figure describes buildings, not dwellings – and it leaves out Zurich and Valais.
As of 31 December 2025, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) records 1,455,794 buildings with residential use in 24 cantons. A single-family house and an apartment block with 40 dwellings each count once. Legal persons hold 12.4 percent. Communities of owners account for 14.3 percent; these include, for example, communities of heirs and simple partnerships, meaning associations without their own legal personality. For 6.0 percent, at least two owner types are registered. The FSO lists them as "mixed". A further 0.7 percent remain unknown. Because the individual values are rounded, the sum comes to 100.1 percent.
The single-family house shapes the overall picture
The high share of private owners is largely explained by the building structure. Single-family houses make up a large part of the stock. 75.5 percent of them belong to natural persons; legal persons hold just 3.5 percent.
Apartment buildings are distributed differently. Natural persons own 55.0 percent, legal persons 21.0 percent. For a further 14.5 percent, at least two owner types are recorded; they count as "mixed".
The difference is even clearer for buildings that mainly serve other purposes but partly contain residential space – for instance hotels, care homes, hospitals or administrative buildings with dwellings. Here 52.3 percent are owned by legal persons and 36.7 percent by natural persons.
A building is not the same as a share of dwellings
This way of counting is the most important caveat. The statistic says who owns buildings, not how many dwellings the respective groups control. An apartment building with many rental dwellings carries the same weight as a single detached house. The 66.7 percent therefore allows no conclusions about a home-ownership rate or about a share of the rental housing supply.
The pooled category "legal persons" also requires care. The overview chart does not distinguish between real estate companies, cooperatives, insurers or public authorities. According to the methodology, the FSO assigns legal units to a sector using the official NOGA industry classification.
The private share ranges from 38.5 to 84.7 percent
The differences between cantons are large. In Appenzell Innerrhoden, 84.7 percent of recorded buildings belong to natural persons, in Ticino 83.7 percent. In Basel-Stadt, by contrast, the figure is 38.5 percent. There the share of legal persons reaches its highest value at 31.6 percent; Geneva follows with 27.3 percent.
Communities of owners weigh heavily in particular in Basel-Landschaft at 36.9 percent, in Aargau at 29.5 percent and in Bern at 27.9 percent. These contrasts do not automatically prove differing market power. The FSO points to the building stock as well as cantonal framework conditions in the housing market, taxes and the economy as possible influences. Which factor explains what share cannot, however, be determined from the published cross-sectional data.
A slow shift, not a takeover
From data year 2020 – the first available value of the register-based statistics – to 2025, the national distribution changed only moderately. The share of natural persons fell from 67.5 to 66.7 percent, while that of legal persons rose from 11.5 to 12.4 percent. For apartment buildings, the share of natural persons fell from 56.6 to 55.0 percent; legal persons increased from 19.8 to 21.0 percent. Both data years exclude Zurich and Valais, so the geographical basis is the same. This is a shift of a few percentage points, not evidence of a nationwide "takeover" of the housing stock.
For the series, the FSO links data on residential buildings from the Federal Register of Buildings and Dwellings via the parcels with owner information from the land registers. Missing details are not extrapolated but reported as "unknown". According to the FSO, the results are not directly comparable with the 2000 census: data sources, survey methods and the objects considered differ.
Zurich and Valais are missing from the dataset
Zurich and Valais remain excluded. According to the FSO, their current data are not yet sufficient or cannot yet be reliably linked to the Federal Register of Buildings and Dwellings. The statistic therefore delivers a more precise picture than a survey, but not yet a fully national one.
Debates about the rental market, housing supply or the power of large owners additionally require figures at the level of dwellings. It would also have to become clearer which legal persons stand behind the buildings. The next step is thus named: include the two missing cantons and evaluate ownership at the level of dwellings. Only then can it be assessed how strongly individual groups actually shape the housing market.
Sources
All FSO sources were retrieved on 16 September 2026.
- FSO: Buildings by owner type and building category – 2025 (published on 15 September 2026)
- FSO: Buildings by owner type and canton – 2025 (published on 15 September 2026)
- FSO: Methodology of the statistics on owner types of buildings
- FSO: Explanations and comparability of owner types
- FSO: Results of the first register-based statistics 2020 (published on 19 May 2022)
