A market closed to foreigners with one clear way in — designated resort zones.
Switzerland stands apart here: it is the only market on this page where a foreigner is, by default, allowed nothing. The federal Lex Koller restricts acquisition of residential property by "persons abroad", and across most of the country a non-resident simply cannot buy an apartment. Permits are issued against cantonal quotas, not against a buyer’s intent.
There are three narrow exceptions: holiday homes inside specifically designated resort zones, subject to an annual quota and a floor-area cap; purchase by a holder of a valid Swiss residence permit; and commercial property, which falls outside the restriction entirely. Andermatt is its own case — the resort holds a permission to sell to foreign buyers outside the general quota, which is precisely why its properties reach a non-resident audience at all.
The practical order of work is therefore inverted. First establish whether you qualify for a permit at all, then discuss the property: a significant share of Swiss offers circulating internationally is aimed at buyers who will not clear that bar. The permit regime is checked against the law as it stands on the day of the transaction, and that is work for a Swiss notary.
The motive here is the European motive in its extreme form: not yield but jurisdiction and preservation. Rent to price is lower than Dubai, running costs are higher, and the exit is unhurried.
The caveat: The right to buy matters more than the property: without a quota or a permit the transaction does not happen at all.
What we filmed on location — projects, rules and the things a brochure leaves out.
0:15 Fifteen seconds on a Swiss development accepting cryptocurrency, and the two things that actually decide whether a foreign buyer can complete there.
WatchWritten breakdowns of subjects the English channel has not filmed.
The country says no on all three of the usual tests — yield, liquidity and status. What it says yes to, and the case in which buying here is a decision rather than an impulse.
The only market here where a foreign purchase is limited by federal statute rather than by price. Who needs a permit, what the quota covers, why the property cannot be let out, and the one project that sits outside all of it.
Portfolio core
UAE satellite
The Gulf, but not Dubai
Early entry, long horizon
Coastal living and relocation
Fast entry and status
Status inside the EU
Living and letting, not status
Europe close by, a soft entry
An operating business
Resort letting and wintering
Cheap entry
Jurisdiction and residency
Jurisdiction and education
Long horizon
Lex Koller: resort zones by quota, or with a residence permit. The title is a property of the specific project, not of the country as a whole: what the contract says outranks the word "freehold" in a brochure, and that is the first document to read. The detail is in the write-up above.
Capital preservation. A market closed to foreigners with one clear way in — designated resort zones. That answers "what job does this market do", which is a different question from "where is the yield highest": markets on this list run on different currencies, different liquidity and different exit horizons, and a single percentage cannot be compared across them.
The right to buy matters more than the property: without a quota or a permit the transaction does not happen at all. We put that in writing rather than in the small print, because it is usually the thing that decides whether the market suits a particular buyer at all.
Andermatt, POST Hotel & Residences by ELIE SAAB, Stabio Garden Living. That is what we have been to and filmed. Where we have not been, the page carries ownership law and market structure and says nothing about the buildings — we do not rewrite other people's reviews as our own visits.
Because we hold no transaction database for this market, and passing a third-party market summary off as our own analysis is not something we do. We compute figures only where we hold live stock — in Dubai, where medians and entry prices are recalculated nightly and published on the district pages. Here you get the rules, the role of the market and what we have seen for ourselves.
Tell me the budget, the horizon and what the purchase is for. Where the answer is Dubai I will say so with numbers from our own stock; where it is not, I will say that too.
Switzerland does not sell residence. It negotiates it, canton by canton, through an agreed annual tax on a notional basis — and the agreement is with a specific commune, not with a country.
A school comes up in almost every conversation about Swiss property. That is not accidental — but Switzerland separates three things that other countries connect.
The Swiss system surprises almost every arriving owner: the state treats living in your own house as income. The mechanism is called imputed rental value.
The only market on this list where a foreigner’s purchase is limited not by tax or by price but by a direct federal prohibition with exceptions.
Swiss rates are among the lowest in the world, but a bank lends a non-resident less and asks for more. The deposit, amortisation down to two-thirds of value, the affordability rule and the first mortgage nobody repays.
The country’s three flagship Alpine addresses run on different rules — cantonal language, buyer type, second-home restrictions and how accessible each one actually is to a non-resident. Why supply stays tight everywhere.
In Switzerland, a foreigner buys under a cantonal quota and permit. The resort of Andermatt got a special regime instead: homes in the project sell to non-residents with no quota at all. Why, and what it means for a buyer.
An international stability study ranks the UAE second worldwide, ahead of Canada, Germany and Japan. GDP per capita rivals Western Europe, and the country’s sovereign wealth funds hold trillions of dirhams in assets.
The number explains less than the structure does. There is no single pot: several independent institutions with separate mandates, and that arrangement is what makes the capital behave the way it does.
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