The maximum pillar 3a contribution in 2026 is CHF 7,258 for a person affiliated to an occupational pension fund, and 20% of earned income, at most CHF 36,288, for a person who is not. The Federal Tax Administration confirmed this on 17 November 2025: the ceilings are unchanged from 2025. The maximum payment is also the maximum deduction. The amount paid may not be rounded.

On 5 October 2026 the same office set the next year. From 1 January 2027 the smaller deduction rises from 7,258 to CHF 7,373, and the ceiling without a second pillar rises from 36,288 to CHF 36,864. Those two figures do not apply to a payment credited in 2026. The pillar 3a page remains the advice page. This article is about the ceiling, the tax year, and the buyback of gaps that opened in 2026.

Two ceilings, depending on the second pillar

Article 7 of the ordinance on tax-deductible contributions to recognised forms of pension provision, OPO 3, sets two contributions. The small contribution is for employees and self-employed people affiliated to a second-pillar pension institution. The large contribution is for those who are not. Voluntary affiliation opens the small contribution, not the large one. The test is whether a pension institution exists, not the self-employed label on its own.

The small contribution is a franc amount. In 2025 and in 2026 it is CHF 7,258. The large contribution is a percentage: 20% of income from gainful activity, with a franc ceiling. That ceiling is CHF 36,288 in 2025 and in 2026. A person whose 20% of earned income stays under CHF 36,288 cannot pay the ceiling. That person can pay 20% of that income. A person whose 20% exceeds CHF 36,288 stops at CHF 36,288. Pillar 3b is unrestricted saving. It does not open this deduction.

The Federal Social Insurance Office ties these francs to the upper LPP limit, the maximum annual salary insured in compulsory occupational pensions. Its schedule of amounts from 1 January 2026 leaves that limit at CHF 90,720, as in 2025, because the minimum old-age AVS pension was not adjusted for 2026. The Federal Tax Administration circular describes the small deduction as 8% of that upper limit, and the cap on the large deduction as 40% of the same limit. Eight per cent of CHF 90,720 is CHF 7,257.60, published as CHF 7,258. Forty per cent is exactly CHF 36,288. The pillar 3a ceiling moves when that upper limit moves. It does not move on its own.

The official series, from 2022 to 2027

The Federal Tax Administration table publishes the deduction, which is also the payment limit. The 2025 maximum is the same as the 2026 maximum. The previous step up was in 2025. The next one is dated 1 January 2027.

Tax year With a second pillar Without a second pillar, ceiling
2027CHF 7,373CHF 36,864
2026CHF 7,258CHF 36,288
2025CHF 7,258CHF 36,288
2024CHF 7,056CHF 35,280
2023CHF 7,056CHF 35,280
2022CHF 6,883CHF 34,416

The Federal Social Insurance Office page, published on 10 February 2026, still says “CHF 7,258 from 2025” and “CHF 36,288 from 2025”. It has not absorbed the 5 October 2026 release. The two texts read together: CHF 7,258 covers 2025 and 2026. CHF 7,373 starts on 1 January 2027. A payment of CHF 7,373 credited in December 2026 exceeds that year’s limit. The excess is not a 2026 deduction.

The administration adds that rounding the amounts paid is not allowed. CHF 7,258 means CHF 7,258, not CHF 7,300. The same rule will apply to CHF 7,373 in 2027. The “without a second pillar” column is a ceiling, not an automatic right to that amount. The 20% rate remains the rate in the ordinance.

The large contribution is not a flat amount

The income used as the base is income from gainful activity subject to AVS, not investment income, not a pension, not a pension withdrawal. For a self-employed person without a fund, 20% is calculated on that earned income. Earned income of CHF 80,000 opens CHF 16,000, not CHF 36,288. Earned income of CHF 200,000 opens CHF 40,000 before the cap, so CHF 36,288 in 2026 and CHF 36,864 in 2027.

An employee whose salary stays under the LPP entry threshold, CHF 22,680 in 2026, is in principle not affiliated to the compulsory second pillar. That person may then fall under the large contribution, still limited to 20% of income. That is not the case of an employee affiliated by an employer above that threshold, nor of a self-employed person who has chosen to affiliate. The pension-fund certificate, or its absence, decides before the tax form.

Two spouses or registered partners do not share one ceiling. Each deducts according to their own affiliation, if each reports income subject to AVS, and if the policy or the agreement is in their name. A spouse with no earned income does not pay against the other person’s ceiling.

Who may pay in 2026

There must be gainful activity, employed or self-employed, whose income is subject to AVS. The Federal Social Insurance Office also includes people living abroad who work in Switzerland and are in the Swiss social-security system, people receiving Swiss unemployment daily allowances, and partially disabled people who still have AVS-liable earned income. Without that income there is no pillar 3a contribution, and therefore no ceiling to reach.

Contributions can continue until five years after the AVS reference age, if the person is still working. In the year the activity ends, the full article 7 contribution remains possible, but the payment must be made while the activity still exists. A bank foundation or an insurer may no longer accept a contribution once the activity has ended. The year’s ceiling is not a right that can be used in the following January, after work stopped in December.

The recognised form is either a tied pension policy with an insurer, or a tied pension account with a bank foundation. The choice between the two does not change the ceiling. It changes the payment constraint and the cover. That choice is on the page pillar 3a, insurance or bank. This article does not repeat it.

Buying back missing years

Since 1 January 2025 a contribution gap can be bought back. The first possible buyback falls in tax year 2026, and it concerns 2025. Years before 2025 are closed, even if the person paid nothing. The window looks back at most ten years, and it cannot cross 2025.

Three further conditions apply. The person had to be entitled to contribute in the gap year, so there was income subject to AVS in Switzerland that year. The person must still be entitled in the buyback year. In the buyback year they must already have paid the whole ordinary contribution open to them: CHF 7,258 if they have a second pillar in 2026, or 20% of income within the CHF 36,288 limit if they do not.

The buyback itself is capped, each year, at the small contribution. In 2026 that is CHF 7,258, on top of the ordinary contribution. That buyback cap does not rise to CHF 36,288 for a person without a second pillar. The circular says so: the buyback stays tied to 8% of the upper limit, whether or not the person is affiliated at the time of the buyback. Only one buyback per tax year. The gap of a given year can be filled only once. It cannot be split across several buybacks. A single buyback can, however, make up gaps from several years, within that CHF 7,258 limit. The buyback does not have to go back into the same policy or the same agreement as the ordinary payments of the year being filled.

The amount is deductible in the same way as the ordinary contribution. In 2026, a person with a second pillar who has paid their CHF 7,258 and who catches up 2025 can therefore deduct CHF 14,516, if the 2025 gap was at least CHF 7,258. That total is not a new ordinary ceiling. It is the 2026 ordinary contribution plus a capped buyback. After a pillar 3a old-age benefit has been withdrawn, a buyback is no longer allowed. It remains possible at the latest five years after the reference age, as long as the activity continues.

The date that counts is the credit date

The deduction follows the year in which the contribution is paid into a recognised form. An order given on 30 December that is credited only in January falls into the following year, with that year’s ceiling. In 2026 the credit must therefore arrive before the end of the calendar year. Foundations often publish an internal date, earlier, to absorb public holidays. That internal date is not 31 December in the ordinance. The foundation’s statement is what the tax attestation relies on.

The attestation must let the tax office see the ordinary contribution and, in the case of a buyback, the buyback date, its amount and the year of the gap. A transfer without a recognised attestation does not create the deduction. The deduction applies to federal direct tax and to cantonal and communal taxes, within the ordinance. It reduces income. It does not set the rate at which the capital will be taxed on withdrawal. That rate is cantonal, and it is not inside the ceiling.

Several accounts do not multiply the ceiling

Opening three pillar 3a accounts does not give three times CHF 7,258. The ceiling is the taxpayer’s, for the year. Payments into every account and every policy are added together. Going above CHF 7,258, for an affiliated person, leaves the payment limit. The point of several contracts is elsewhere: later, staggering withdrawals that are added together for tax if they fall in the same year. It is not a way to enlarge the 2026 deduction.

A buyback and an ordinary contribution may be paid to two different institutions. Their sum must still respect both ceilings: the ordinary one according to affiliation, the buyback according to the small contribution. A person who already paid CHF 7,258 in March cannot, in November, treat a new payment of CHF 7,258 as a second ordinary contribution. If it is a buyback, the attestation must say so, and the gap conditions must be met.

When the balance can be paid out

The balance cannot be withdrawn freely. The Federal Social Insurance Office sets the old-age window: at the earliest five years before the AVS reference age, at the latest five years after. An early payment remains possible to buy into a second-pillar institution, for a full disability pension if the disability risk is not insured, when moving to self-employed activity or setting up on one’s own, on a permanent departure from Switzerland, or to buy a home for one’s own use or repay a mortgage.

Benefits are taxed, as second-pillar benefits are. Reaching the ceiling each year increases the capital that will later be paid out. It does not state the cantonal tax in francs. After an old-age withdrawal, the buyback door closes. Planning a 2026 payment without looking at a withdrawal already set for the same year mixes two operations that the ordinance keeps apart.

Finwise, an insurance brokerage in Geneva, can put the question against the pension-fund certificate, the AVS-liable income and the payments already credited in 2026. Basic advice is free of charge. The official ceiling is short. The frequent mistake is to take CHF 36,288 without the right to it, or to credit in January a payment that was still meant for the year before.

  1. Affiliation to a second pillar: CHF 7,258 in 2026. No affiliation: 20% of earned income, at most CHF 36,288.
  2. The credit must arrive in 2026. CHF 7,373 and CHF 36,864 start on 1 January 2027.
  3. A 2026 buyback requires the ordinary contribution already paid in full, a gap from 2025 at the earliest, and stays capped at CHF 7,258.
  4. Several accounts are added together. They do not multiply the ceiling.
  5. Each spouse or partner with AVS income has their own ceiling, on a contract in their name.

Check my 2026 ceiling See pillar 3a

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Further reading