Last Sunday, Swiss voted to scrap one of the country’s most peculiar taxes: imputed rent, known as valeur locative or Eigenmietwert. Across the country 58% voted in favour of abolishing it. However, across French-speaking Switzerland, every canton voted against the plan. By contrast, in German-speaking cantons, with the exception of Basel-City, abolition won strong support.
For decades homeowners have had to declare as taxable income a notional rent they would have paid had they been tenants in their own homes. At the same time, they could deduct mortgage interest and maintenance. The idea, first used in Basel-City in 1880, became one of the country’s most unpopular levies.
The referendum result was clear enough—58% in favour of abolition—but the map showed a familiar fissure. German-speaking cantons backed the change, in some cases by overwhelming margins. In French-speaking Switzerland, by contrast, voters rejected it.
Two forces largely explain the rift: language and differences in home-ownership rates.
Nineteen of the 20 German-speaking cantons voted to scrap it; five of six French-speaking cantons wanted to keep it—true to the regions’ usual political leanings and differences in campaign framing.
Home-ownership is low nationwide—only 36% of homes are owner-occupied—but it varies sharply by canton. The result broadly tracked those rates. 16 of the 19 cantons with above-average home-ownership backed abolition, while five of seven with below-average ownership opposed it.
The outliers also fit the pattern once their quirks are noted. Basel-City (Basel-Stadt), the only German-speaking canton to favour retention, has the country’s lowest ownership rate (about 16%). Zurich, with one of the lowest rates (~27%), still voted to abolish—its imputed rents are unusually high. Valais, Switzerland’s most owner-heavy canton (~54%), rejected abolition—second homes are plentiful there and the reform is likely to blow a hole in local tax revenue.
In short: German-speaking Switzerland saw the measure as relief from a disliked tax on imaginary income; Romandy, with its larger population of renters and left leaning politics, saw it as a tilt in favour of a minority of wealthier owner-occupiers.
Home-ownership rates come from the Federal Statistical Office and are for 2023. They range from 16% in Basel-City to 54% in Valais. Geneva (18%) and Zurich (27%) are in the middle but towards the lower end. Broadly, the average rate of home ownership in urban regions is around 25%, compared to around 45% in rural areas.
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