Unemployment and pension for Swiss cross-border workers

Full unemployment: France pays

Have you lost your job in Switzerland entirely? You come under your country of residence, France: you register with France Travail (the French public employment service) and receive the French unemployment allowance, calculated on your Swiss salary. This is the European coordination rule, which Switzerland applies through the agreement on the free movement of persons, and which has not changed for it. The regulation puts it this way:

Two changes are often mentioned. Here is where they stood on 20 October 2026. First, the French unemployment insurance agreement of November 2024 provided for a coefficient intended to reduce the allowance of cross-border workers. It was not approved by the government: the Swiss salary is taken into account as it is. Second, a European revision will give responsibility for benefits to the country of employment after 22 weeks of uninterrupted work, if that country’s conditions are met. Voted through by the European Parliament on 7 July 2026 and adopted by the Council on 28 September 2026, it does not apply yet: it must be published, then the states will have several years to implement it. For Switzerland, nothing changes until it adopts the revision: according to the Unédic (which manages French unemployment insurance), this will depend on the adoption of the “Bilatérales III” agreements. Reading this page long after its date? Check this point: it is the one that can change.

Partial unemployment: Switzerland pays

Is your contract continuing? Then the rule changes. Reduced hours, bad weather, temporary lay-off (chômage technique): as long as you remain an employee, the country where you work pays you, so Swiss unemployment insurance, through your employer. The contract must still exist; how long the suspension lasts does not matter. Dismissal with release from work during the notice period is not partial unemployment: at the end of the notice period, the contract ends, and you come under France.

The U1 document: ask for it early

For France Travail to know about your periods of work in Switzerland, you need the portable document U1, often written “PD U1”. It lists your periods of work in Switzerland over the last three years. Switzerland issues it in two steps: your employer fills in the attestation de l’employeur international (international employer’s certificate, form 716.052), then you request the document from the unemployment fund (caisse de chômage, form 716.053), according to the Swiss unemployment insurance portal. Ask for it as soon as your contract ends.

Register without waiting for the U1. According to France Travail, you can register online without it, and a missing document should not delay your registration.

From Switzerland, 3949 cannot be dialled: France Travail publishes a number for calls from abroad, +33 1 77 86 39 49. See also the numbers of French bodies to dial from Switzerland.

Conditions, amount and duration

These are the French rules for the allowance, applied to the Swiss salary, according to service-public.gouv.fr (in French).

• To be entitled: at least six months of work in the last twenty-four months, or in the last thirty-six months from the age of 55, and registration within twelve months of the end of the contract. Since 1 April 2026, five months are enough if you have never received unemployment benefit.
• The amount: the higher of two calculations, 40.4% of the daily reference wage plus EUR 13.18, or 57% of that wage, with a minimum of EUR 32.13 a day. Above EUR 4,857.81 gross a month of reference wage, the allowance falls by 30% from the seventh month, with exceptions, notably for age.
• The duration: 548 days before the age of 55, 685 days at 55 and 56, 822 days from 57. After a rupture conventionnelle (termination by mutual agreement), for a contract that ended on or after 1 September 2026, it is capped at 15 months before 55, and at 20.5 months from 55.
• The first payment: a waiting period of seven days, to which a deferral may be added if you received severance pay above the legal minimum, capped at 150 days.

In 2025, according to the figures published by the Unédic in July 2026, 27,800 recipients who had worked in Switzerland were receiving benefits, with an average allowance of more than EUR 2,100 net a month.

Health insurance while unemployed

When France pays your benefits, you also come under French health insurance, even if you were insured in Switzerland while in work. This is Article 11(3)(c) of Regulation 883/2004. The right to choose reopens when you take a job in Switzerland again: see LAMal or Sécurité sociale.

Pensions: three pillars, and two countries

The Swiss pension system rests on three pillars, which the Federal Social Insurance Office (in French) describes as follows (our translation):

• The AVS (Swiss old-age and survivors’ insurance), the state scheme, “covers basic needs”.
• Occupational pensions, the second pillar, “should make it possible to maintain one’s previous standard of living to a large extent”.
• Private pension provision covers the rest.

With the AVS 21 reform, in force since 1 January 2024, the reference age is 65 for men. For women, it rises in steps: 64 years and 6 months for those born in 1962, 65 for those born from 1964 onwards. Women born from 1961 to 1969 are entitled to compensation measures, according to the 2026 AVS memento (official information leaflet).

A 13th AVS pension is added from December 2026: it is paid every year in December, with no application needed, and is worth one twelfth of the year’s pensions, according to the AVS (in French).

The AVS pension is not paid automatically: you have to apply for it. The official memento recommends doing so three or four months before the reference age. The procedure depends on your career. Did you also pay contributions in France? You apply to your French pension fund (caisse de retraite), which starts the procedure in all the countries concerned. Was your whole career in Switzerland? You apply directly to the Caisse suisse de compensation (Swiss Compensation Office), in Geneva.

The second pillar, when you leave Switzerland

For a French resident covered by compulsory old-age insurance in a European Union country, the mandatory part of the second pillar cannot be withdrawn in cash when leaving Switzerland. It stays in Switzerland, in a blocked account called a vested benefits account (compte de libre passage). It is paid at retirement, at the earliest five years before the reference age. Only the part above the legal minimum, known as the extra-mandatory part (surobligatoire), can be paid without examination. The official liaison body is the occupational pension guarantee fund, the Fonds de garantie LPP (in French): it is the reference. The taxation of these savings and the review of your compulsory insurance status are decided case by case. This page gives no advice on how to use them.

Tax on the AVS pension

According to impots.gouv.fr, on its page for retirees from Switzerland, “Retraités de Suisse” (in French), a pension that has not been taxed in Switzerland, for example some first-pillar AVS benefits, is declared in France on form 2047 as a private-sector pension, then carried over to the income tax return. The nationality rule only concerns pensions from a Swiss public employer: they are taxed in Switzerland if you are a Swiss national, with a tax credit in France.

Combining the two careers

Your French quarters of contributions and your Swiss years add up to open your entitlement. Then each country pays its share, in proportion to the periods you completed there. A single application, made in the country where you live, starts the procedure everywhere. On the French side, the most favourable calculation is used.

The limits of this page

Four points have no official answer that we have been able to read: this page does not settle them.

• The cap on the allowance: service-public writes 70% of the reference wage, France Travail 75%.
• The taxation of second-pillar capital.
• The Swiss franc conversion rate used by France Travail.
• The case of a cross-border worker who does not return home every week, who is subject to other rules.

For all of this, France Travail, your pension fund and the Cleiss are the reference.