Swiss QR-bill: what it is, the 2025-2026 deadlines, how to create one

A QR-bill is an invoice with a standard payment part at the bottom. The payment part (148 × 105 mm, A6 landscape) sits to the right of a receipt (62 × 105 mm); together they form a strip of 210 × 105 mm across the bottom of an A4 page. The Swiss QR Code in the payment part measures 46 × 46 mm and has a Swiss cross in the middle.

The QR code holds the same data as the text printed next to it: account, payee, amount, currency, reference and message. Your customer scans it with their banking app instead of typing an IBAN and a reference. Only two currencies are allowed, Swiss francs (CHF) and euros (EUR), and the data map onto the ISO 20022 payment messages used by Swiss banks.

According to SIX, the QR-bill has been in circulation since June 2020 and definitively replaced the Swiss payment slips on 1 October 2022. The old red and orange slips are no longer processed.

Not by law. The QR-bill is a standard set by SIX for the Swiss payment system, and since October 2022 it has been the only payment slip that Swiss payment traffic processes. No Swiss law requires you to attach a payment slip to an invoice.

In practice, most customers expect one: without it, they have to type your IBAN, the amount and any reference by hand, which is slower and more error-prone. If you do attach a payment slip, it has to be a QR-bill that follows the SIX rules, otherwise the payment may not go through.

What the invoice itself must contain is a different question: for VAT-registered businesses, it is set by Article 26 of the Federal VAT Act. This guide covers the payment part only.

A structured address (type S) puts street, building number, postcode, town and country in separate fields. The old unstructured (combined) address put the street and the town in free lines. The switch happens in steps, and for an old QR-bill what counts is the bank of the person who pays. The table below gives the dates.

Swift and the European Payments Council (EPC) suspended their own November 2026 deadline for structured addresses in summer 2026. The Payments Committee Switzerland (PaCoS) kept the Swiss date: the discontinuation of unstructured addresses in Swiss payment traffic continues as planned (SIX).

If you still send QR-bills with unstructured addresses, for example old templates for rent or instalments, replace them now. A QR-bill created today with a current tool is already structured.

The payment part uses fixed headings. In English, SIX prescribes: Currency, Amount, Account / Payable to, Reference, Additional information and Payable by, or “Payable by (name/address)” with an empty box when the payer is not printed. The receipt on the left repeats the account, reference, payer, currency and amount, and adds an acceptance point; the additional information is not printed on the receipt.

The additional information (the unstructured message, for example an invoice number) and the billing information share a maximum of 140 characters. If the amount is left blank, a box is printed for the payer to fill in by hand.

Only Swiss (CH) and Liechtenstein (LI) IBANs can be used. A QR-bill can be issued in English, French, German or Italian, and also in Romansh under guidelines 2.4; the issuer chooses the language.

Most freelancers and small businesses need nothing more than their normal IBAN. It goes with a Creditor Reference (ISO 11649, starting with RF) or with no reference at all; you then recognise the payment from the additional information, such as the invoice number.

A QR-IBAN is a separate account number issued by your bank for automatic reconciliation. You recognise it by its institution ID (QR-IID) at positions 5 to 9: a number from 30000 to 31999. It can only be used with a QR reference of 27 digits (26 digits plus a check digit).

The rule: QR-IBAN with QR reference; normal IBAN with RF reference or none. A QR-IBAN with an RF reference, or a normal IBAN with a QR reference, is rejected. From 14 November 2026 (guidelines 2.4), QR-IBAN and QR reference are for invoices in CHF only: in euros, only an IBAN with an RF reference or an IBAN with an unstructured message remain possible.

On paper: the payment part with receipt must be on white, perforated paper of 80 to 100 g/m², with a perforation between the invoice and the payment part, and another between the payment part and the receipt. This also applies when the payment part is enclosed separately. Recycled, FSC and TCF papers are allowed; coated or glossy paper is not, and the back of the payment part must stay blank (SIX guidelines 2.3, chapters 3.1 and 3.3).

By email: a PDF needs no perforated paper. It must show lines around the payment part and the receipt, each with a scissors symbol or the words “Separate before paying in” (chapter 3.7). Your customer pays in e-banking or mobile banking; the lines show where to cut if they print it to pay by post or at a post office counter.

Before sending your first QR-bill, scan it with your own banking app. It takes ten seconds and it is the test that counts.

For a one-off payment request, a free generator is enough. Our free Swiss QR-bill generator (fele-facture.ch/en/qr-bill-generator) creates the payment part and receipt as a PDF, without an account, and your input is not kept: the PDF is built in memory, sent back, then forgotten. SIX also lists free generators from PostFinance, UBS and Raiffeisen on its QR-bill page. A generator gives you the payment slip alone: no invoice lines, no VAT, no client list.

If you invoice every week, invoicing software saves the typing. Fele-facture creates invoices; it is not a payment app, and your customer pays through their own bank. You create the invoice by voice, by photographing a handwritten work order, or by typing, and the QR-bill is generated with a structured address. The app interface is available in English, French, German and Italian.

Prices: the Free plan creates 5 invoices per month without the QR payment slip (voice and photo included); Independent costs CHF 15/month or CHF 150/year, with the QR-bill included and 25 invoices per month; Unlimited costs CHF 29/month or CHF 290/year. A full 48-hour trial without a card starts when you enter your IBAN.

Data: stored in Frankfurt (Supabase database on AWS eu-central-1, Vercel server functions in the fra1 region). Voice transcription and AI reading of dictations and photos use services based in the USA.