Investing for Children in Switzerland: Accounts, Funds, Law

Anyone investing money for a child in Switzerland settles two questions before getting to products: whose name is the money in, and when will it be needed? If it sits in an account held by the child, the parents manage it under the rules of the Civil Code, and at 18 the child decides over it. The time until the money is needed determines which form of investment is realistic.

Investing money for children means building assets for a person under 18, whether in a children’s or youth savings account, a fund savings plan or a savings insurance policy. Legally, the money becomes the child’s property as soon as it is held in the child’s name or was given to the child. Articles 318 ff. of the Civil Code (CC) then apply.

The most important facts in brief

• The child allowance (Kinderzulage) is at least CHF 215 a month in 2026, paid until the child turns 16. The training allowance (Ausbildungszulage) is at least CHF 268, paid until 25 at most. The cantons may pay more (Art. 3 and 5 FamZG, as at 1 January 2026).
• Parents manage a child’s assets. They may use the income for maintenance, upbringing and education. The capital itself they may touch only as far as it is needed for those purposes and the child and adult protection authority (KESB) permits it. At 18 the assets pass to the child (Art. 318 to 320 CC, Art. 326 CC).
• Bank deposits are protected up to CHF 100,000 per customer and bank, children’s deposits included (esisuisse; Art. 37a and 37h BankG).
• Only people with income subject to OASI contributions can pay into pillar 3a, the tax-privileged tied pension savings. A child’s earned income is exempt from contributions until the end of the year in which the child turns 17 (Art. 7 BVV3; Art. 3 AHVG; BSV).
• Gifts to children are exempt from tax in most cantons. Appenzell Innerrhoden, Neuchâtel and Vaud levy a tax or apply a threshold (ESTV, legislation as at 1 January 2025).

How much money should I put aside each month for my child?

There is no fixed rule. Working backwards from the goal tells you more. If you want CHF 30,000 by the child’s 18th birthday and start saving at birth, you need about CHF 139 a month without interest. At an assumed return of 3 percent a year, it would be about CHF 105.

The table shows what a fixed monthly amount turns into after 18 years, or 216 payments. It is an illustration, not a forecast.

Assumptions: payment at the end of each month, effective annual rate converted to a monthly rate, constant return after costs, before tax, rounded to CHF 100. The interest on a savings account can change at any time. A fund savings plan fluctuates in value and can end up below the amount paid in.

What stands out in the calculation is time. Someone who starts only at the tenth birthday needs about CHF 313 a month without interest to reach the same CHF 30,000, more than twice as much as from birth. In this example the starting date changes the result more than the interest does.

The child allowance offers a yardstick. It is paid from the month of birth to the end of the month in which the child turns 16 (Art. 3 para. 1 let. a FamZG). Over that period the federal minimum of CHF 215 adds up to just over CHF 41,000. Many cantons pay more: Bern CHF 250, Zug CHF 330, Zurich CHF 268 for children over twelve (BSV, types and rates of family allowances 2026, in German). The allowance is meant for the child’s needs (Art. 9 FamZG) and counts as taxable income (BSV, in German).

Account in the child’s name or the parents’ own securities account?

Both are possible, and the consequences differ. Money in an account or securities account held by the child as a rule counts as the child’s property. The parents manage it but may not use the capital for their own purposes, and at 18 it passes to the child. Money that parents set aside for the child in their own name stays their property until they give it away.

What the CC says about children’s assets

The rules are in Art. 318 to 327 of the Civil Code (CC). These six matter most for saving:

• Management: As long as they hold parental responsibility, the parents have the right and the duty to manage the child’s assets (Art. 318 para. 1 CC). If careful management is not assured, the KESB steps in (Art. 324 CC), and the parents are liable for handing the assets back like agents (Art. 327 para. 1 CC).
• Income: They may use interest and other income for the child’s maintenance, upbringing and education and, where fair, for the household. Any surplus goes into the child’s assets (Art. 319 CC).
• Capital: The parents may touch the remaining assets only if that proves necessary to cover maintenance, upbringing or education, and only in the amounts the KESB allows (Art. 320 para. 2 CC). Lump-sum settlements, damages and similar benefits are an exception: they may be used up in instalments for current maintenance (Art. 320 para. 1 CC).
• Earmarked gifts: If someone gives the child money with the express condition that the income must not be used up, or as savings or for interest-bearing investment, the parents may not use up the income either (Art. 321 para. 1 CC). Grandparents or godparents can also stipulate at the time of the gift that the parents do not manage the money (Art. 321 para. 2 CC).
• The child’s own earnings: What the child earns from their own work, for example as an apprentice, the child manages personally (Art. 323 para. 1 CC).
• Majority: At 18 the parents’ management ends. They hand over the assets against an accounting (Art. 14 and 326 CC).

In practice this means that an account in the child’s name is not a reserve for the parents. If you later need the money for your own mortgage or a cash squeeze, you cannot simply fall back on it. And from the 18th birthday the child alone decides whether the money goes into studies or into a car.

Saving in the parents’ own name

If parents put the money aside in an account or securities account of their own, it remains their property. They decide when and in what form the child receives it, for example as a contribution to training at 20 instead of a free sum at 18. The price: for the child, nothing is legally secured, and if the account holder dies, the money forms part of the estate.

Taxes: parents are taxed on the child’s assets

While the child is a minor, the choice makes little difference for tax. Income and assets of children under parental responsibility are attributed to the holder of parental responsibility. For cantonal and communal taxes, only the child’s earned income and real estate gains are taxed separately (Art. 3 para. 3 StHG), and for direct federal tax only the earned income (Art. 9 para. 2 DBG). Interest on a youth savings account therefore belongs in the parents’ tax return.

Children’s and youth savings accounts: what do banks offer?

Children’s and youth savings accounts are savings accounts in the child’s name that banks run on their own terms. They differ mainly in the interest rate, the balance up to which that rate applies, the age limit and the rules on withdrawals. What decides the choice is the purpose of the money.

What Germany calls a Kindersparbuch is, in Switzerland, a children’s or youth savings account. When comparing two offers, these questions to the bank help:

• Interest and cap: Does any preferential rate apply to the whole balance or only up to a certain amount, and what rate applies above it?
• Age limit: Up to what age does the account run on these terms, and into which product is it moved afterwards?
• Withdrawals: Are there limits or notice periods for larger withdrawals?
• Costs: Are there fees for account management, card or statements? More under fees when investing.
• Access for the child: From what age does the child get a card or app of their own, and with what limits?
• Payments by third parties: Can grandparents or godparents pay in directly, for instance by standing order?

An interest comparison stays a snapshot, since banks can change their rates at any time. Background: interest rates in Switzerland.

How well protected is the money in a child’s account?

If a bank with a FINMA-authorised office in Switzerland goes bankrupt, deposits are protected up to CHF 100,000 per customer and bank. Esisuisse (in German), the body behind deposit protection, states expressly that children count among the protected customers. What matters is who is the bank’s contracting party. Several accounts of the same customer at the same bank are added together. The legal basis is Art. 37a para. 1 BankG, which gives these deposits up to CHF 100,000 preferential treatment in bankruptcy, and Art. 37h BankG, which regulates protection by the banks themselves. The banks fund it jointly, and the law sets their contributions at a total of 1.6 percent of the protected deposits, at least CHF 6 billion (Art. 37h para. 3 let. b BankG).

Securities in a securities account are not covered by deposit protection, because in the bank’s bankruptcy they are not distributed to creditors. They remain the customer’s property and are segregated, meaning they are taken out of the bankruptcy estate and handed to the customer (Art. 37d BankG).

Fund savings plan and child’s securities account: what does a long horizon change?

A fund savings plan regularly invests a fixed amount in an investment fund or ETF. Unlike a savings account, its value fluctuates, at times sharply and over several years. The longer the money is not needed, the more time there is to sit out swings. That is no protection against losses, not even over 15 or 18 years.

A fixed date such as the start of an apprenticeship or of studies shortens this horizon: if a market slump falls in the year before, there is no time left to sit it out.

What matters in practice:

• Diversification: A broadly diversified fund or ETF spreads the risk over many holdings, which a single share does not. Background in the articles What are ETFs? and diversification.
• Costs: Ongoing fund costs, custody fees and issue commissions arise every year and reduce the result over the whole term.
• Regularity: A fixed monthly amount buys more units when prices are low and fewer when they are high. That spreads the entry point but does not protect against losses.
• Who owns the securities account: A securities account in the child’s name as a rule counts as the child’s property, with the same consequences as for a savings account.

More on the time factor in the article Long-Term Investing.

Savings insurance for children

Savings insurance combines saving towards a fixed date, such as the start of training, with insurance cover, for example on the death of the parent who pays the premiums. Anyone who cancels such a contract early receives the surrender value, provided the contract has one (Art. 90 VVG). This is the amount the insurer pays out on cancellation before the agreed date. On request, the insurer must calculate it within four weeks (Art. 92 para. 1 VVG). Before signing, it is worth asking how high this value is in the first years.

Can you open a pillar 3a for a child?

Not for a child without income of their own. Pillar 3a contributions are made by employees and self-employed persons (Art. 7 BVV3), and according to the BSV (in German) this requires income subject to OASI contributions. Pillar 3a is the tied, tax-privileged form of private pension savings. So parents cannot open a 3a account for a toddler to use the tax advantages of tied pension provision.

For young people in an apprenticeship, age matters. A child’s earned income is exempt from OASI contributions until 31 December of the year in which the child turns 17 (Art. 3 para. 2 let. a AHVG). From the following year, an apprentice’s pay can meet the condition. How much may be paid in depends on whether the young person belongs to a pension fund. With a pension fund, the maximum in 2026 is CHF 7,258. Without one, it is 20 percent of earned income, at most CHF 36,288 (Art. 7 para. 1 BVV3; BSV). Details in the article on the pillar 3a maximum amount.

Gifts to children: tax and inheritance law

Gifts to children are exempt from gift tax in most cantons. The canton of residence of the donor is responsible, and for real estate the canton where it is located. Under inheritance law, a child may have to account for larger gifts when the estate is divided, whereas usual occasional gifts do not count.

Gift tax by canton

The Federal Tax Administration summarises the cantonal rules in its dossier on inheritance and gift taxes (in German). For gifts to children, the position at 1 January 2025 is as follows:

Source: ESTV, Dossier Steuerinformationen, Erbschafts- und Schenkungssteuern, sections 2 and 6.2. The law currently in force in the canton governs. The terms are explained in the glossary entry on inheritance and gift tax.

Collation in the estate

What parents give a child as an endowment, through a transfer of assets or by waiving a debt generally has to be accounted for when the estate is divided (collation), unless the parents expressly provided otherwise (Art. 626 para. 2 CC). Usual occasional gifts at a birthday or Christmas are not included (Art. 632 CC). Whether a larger gift should count as an advance on inheritance can be put in writing. That can spare siblings a dispute over how to interpret it later.

How compulsory portions and statutory succession interact is explained in the guide Inheritance in Switzerland.

Reading tip: Next Generation Wealth: Preparing and supporting wealth inheritance

How do children learn to handle money?

An account does not yet teach a child how to handle money. That works better when the child takes part in decisions and sees their consequences.

• Pocket money with a fixed amount on a fixed day: a purchase today postpones the next one.
• Saving goals with a time frame, such as a bike next spring, plus a look at the account balance once a month.
• Their own pay from an apprenticeship: the young person manages it personally. If they live with their parents, the parents can ask for a reasonable contribution to their keep (Art. 323 CC).
• A securities account of their own as a demonstration: a fund savings plan shows that values fall and rise and that nobody knows in advance when.

Further reading: investing money in Switzerland.

Frequently asked questions about investing for children

How much money should I put aside each month for my child?

There is no fixed amount. It is easier to work backwards from the goal: to reach CHF 30,000 by the 18th birthday, saving from birth takes about CHF 139 a month without interest, or about CHF 105 a month at an assumed return of 3 percent a year. If saving only starts at age ten, it takes about CHF 313 a month without interest. The figures are an illustration, not a forecast.

What do banks offer in children’s and youth savings accounts?

Banks run children’s and youth savings accounts in the child’s name, each with its own terms. You can compare the interest rate and the balance up to which it applies, the age limit and the follow-on product, withdrawal limits, fees, and the age at which the child gets a card of their own. Deposits are protected up to CHF 100,000 per customer and bank by the deposit protection scheme, children’s deposits included.

Who owns the money in a child’s account?

The child. If an account is held in the child’s name and the money was given to the child, the balance as a rule counts as the child’s property. The parents manage it and may use the income for the child’s maintenance, upbringing and education. They may touch the capital itself only as far as this is necessary for those purposes and the child and adult protection authority (KESB) permits it (Art. 318 to 320 CC). At majority the parents hand over the assets against an accounting, and from then on the child alone decides how to use them (Art. 326 CC).

Can I open a pillar 3a for my child?

Not for a child without income of their own. Only people who earn income subject to OASI contributions, as an employee or as a self-employed person, can pay in (Art. 7 BVV3; BSV). A child’s earned income is exempt from OASI contributions until 31 December of the year in which the child turns 17 (Art. 3 AHVG). For apprentices, pillar 3a therefore becomes an option from the following year at the earliest.

Is there state support in Switzerland for saving for children?

The state supports families through two channels that are not tied to a savings product. In 2026, family allowances are at least CHF 215 a month as child allowance and CHF 268 as training allowance, and many cantons pay more. For direct federal tax, you can deduct CHF 6,800 per child from income, and the cantons have child deductions of their own. The allowances themselves count as taxable income.