Verleumdung in Switzerland: Art. 174 StGB and Why Truth Is No Defence

Switzerland's most serious insult offence is Verleumdung, punished under Art. 174 StGB. It applies only when the person who made or spread an accusation already knew it was false. That single element is what separates Verleumdung from the far more common Ehrverletzung charge under Art. 173 StGB, and it is also what makes Verleumdung genuinely hard to prove.

This page works through what the knowledge element requires, why truth can never be raised as a defence once that element is met, how the aggravated planmässig form raises the penalty, and how Verleumdung relates to the wider honour and reputation offences covered on our Swiss defamation and honour law hub.

Information last verified on 21 July 2026. This page provides general legal information about Swiss law and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

What Verleumdung Actually Requires

Art. 174 Ziff. 1 StGB punishes two closely related acts, provided both are done wider besseres Wissen, meaning the person already knows the accusation is false. The first is directly accusing or casting suspicion on someone, in front of a third party, of dishonourable conduct or of other facts capable of damaging their reputation. The second is spreading someone else's such accusation, which is its own, independently punishable act rather than a lesser form of participation.

The penalty under Ziff. 1 is a custodial sentence of up to three years, or a Geldstrafe. Art. 174 does not attach its own figure to that Geldstrafe, so the general default in Art. 34 Abs. 1 StGB applies instead, setting any unquantified Geldstrafe at a minimum of three and a maximum of 180 Tagessätze.

Why Truth Is Never a Defence

Art. 173 gives an accused person two ways out. Proving the statement is actually true, or proving they had serious grounds to believe it true in good faith, both make the accused not punishable under Art. 173 Ziff. 2. Art. 174 contains no equivalent provision at all.

This is not an oversight. It follows directly from how the offence is defined: Verleumdung already requires the speaker to have known the statement was false at the time they made it, so a truth defence is not available even in principle. A person cannot simultaneously have known a statement was false and also prove that it was true.

The only route Art. 174 Ziff. 3 offers is retracting the statement as untrue before the court, which can reduce the sentence and gives the injured person a formal document recording the retraction. That is mitigation of the penalty, not a defence to guilt, and it is a materially different remedy from the Entlastungsbeweis available under Art. 173.

Proving What Someone Actually Knew

Knowledge of falsity is a state of mind, so it is rarely proven by a direct admission. In practice, a complainant typically has to point to circumstantial evidence: an earlier correction the speaker plainly saw and ignored, messages or documents showing the speaker already had the true facts, or a prior statement by the speaker that contradicts the accusation they later made.

This evidentiary burden is the practical reason Verleumdung complaints are less common than the search demand behind the word suggests. Establishing what someone believed at a past moment is simply harder than establishing what they said out loud, which is all Art. 173 requires.

Why Most Real Cases Are Charged Under Art. 173, Not Art. 174

For someone who feels they have been lied about, this is not necessarily bad news. Art. 173 still criminalises the accusation itself, still exposes the speaker to a Geldstrafe, and still gives the injured person a formal court finding under Ziff. 5 if the truth proof fails or the statement is shown to be false.

Art. 173 Ziff. 3 also removes the truth defence in a narrower set of cases: where the accusation was made predominantly to disparage the target, without protecting a public interest or another justified reason, especially where it concerns private or family life. A reader who assumes truth always wins under Art. 173 should know that Ziff. 3 can bar the accused from even attempting that proof.

The Aggravated Form: A Planned, Systematic Campaign

Art. 174 Ziff. 2 raises the penalty further where the offender acted planmässig, meaning systematically, with the aim of undermining a specific person's good reputation. The custodial range becomes one month to three years, and the Geldstrafe floor rises from the ordinary three Tagessätze to at least 30, while the 180 Tagessätze ceiling still applies through the same Art. 34 default.

A single knowingly false accusation can already meet Ziff. 1. What turns it into the Ziff. 2 aggravated form is a pattern: repeated posts, messages or statements over time, aimed specifically at destroying the target's standing rather than a one-off remark made in anger.

Accusations Made to Other People, Not to an Authority

Art. 174 covers an accusation made or spread to any third party: a colleague, a group of neighbours, an online audience. It does not depend on the accusation reaching, or being directed at, a public authority such as the police or a prosecutor.

An accusation aimed specifically at getting a public authority to open an investigation against someone raises different questions entirely, governed by separate provisions this page does not cover. The word Verleumdung itself also labels differently structured offences in other legal systems that happen to use the same German term, so a search result written for a different country's law should never be relied on for a Swiss case.

Written Statements, Images and Online Campaigns

Art. 176 StGB equates a written, pictorial or gesture based accusation with a spoken one, for both Art. 173 and Art. 174. This is the provision that brings an online review, a social media post, a message in a shared group chat or a repeated series of posts within the same offence as something said aloud.

A single false review naming someone, made by a reviewer who already knew the claim was false, can meet Art. 174 Ziff. 1 on its own. A campaign of repeated posts across weeks or months, aimed at the same person and intended to wreck their standing with a shared audience, is the paradigm case for the planmässig aggravated form in Ziff. 2.

The Deadline to Complain, and the Outer Limit on Top of It

Verleumdung, like üble Nachrede and Beschimpfung, is prosecuted only on complaint. Art. 31 StGB gives the person entitled to complain three months to file a Strafantrag, and the clock starts on the day they learn the identity of the person responsible, not the day the statement was made.

That distinction matters most for anonymous online accusations, where the speaker's identity may only surface well after the post itself. Missing the three month window permanently closes the criminal route for that statement, regardless of how serious it was.

Art. 178 StGB adds a separate, absolute four year limitation period for honour offences generally. The two clocks do not substitute for each other: filing within three months of learning the offender's identity does not extend the case past the four year outer limit, and the four year limit does not revive a complaint right already lost to the three month clock.

A Worked Example

Consider a person who posts in a shared professional group chat that a former business associate stole client funds. Suppose messages between them from weeks earlier show the poster already knew, from the associate's own accounting records, that no funds were missing at all.

That earlier knowledge is what turns the post into Verleumdung rather than üble Nachrede: the poster made the accusation wider besseres Wissen, already knowing it was false. If the same claim is then repeated across several more messages over the following weeks, aimed at the same person and intended to damage their standing with the group, that repetition can move the conduct from the ordinary Ziff. 1 range into the planmässig aggravated form under Ziff. 2.

The three month Strafantrag clock in this example starts once the target learns who is responsible, which here may be almost immediate since the poster used their own name in the group. Had the same post instead come from an anonymous account later unmasked as that associate, the three months would only begin once the target actually learned the identity behind the account, not when the post first appeared.

The Civil Route Runs Alongside the Criminal Complaint

A criminal complaint is not the only option, and it does not have to come first. Art. 28 ZGB lets a person ask a court to stop a threatened infringement of their personality rights, remove an existing one, or have it declared unlawful, independently of any criminal case.

Art. 49 OR allows a court to award Genugtuung, a monetary sum for the infringement, where the infringement is unlawful and its severity justifies compensation that has not already been made good another way, such as through a published correction. No fixed amount is set in the statute itself; a court decides case by case. Our Swiss defamation and honour law hub and the wider guide to Swiss law cover this civil track, and the related offences on this page, in more depth.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can truth ever be used as a defence to a Verleumdung charge in Switzerland?

No. Art. 174 StGB is defined by the speaker already knowing the accusation is false, so proving the statement is actually true is not logically available as a defence. The only mitigating step under Art. 174 Ziff. 3 is retracting the statement before the court, which can reduce the sentence but does not erase guilt.

What does wider besseres Wissen mean under Swiss defamation law?

It means the speaker already knew, at the time they made or spread the accusation, that it was false. This subjective knowledge requirement is what turns an accusation into Verleumdung under Art. 174 rather than the lesser üble Nachrede under Art. 173, which does not require proof of what the speaker knew.

How can someone actually prove that I knew a statement was false?

Knowledge is a state of mind, so it is normally shown through circumstantial evidence rather than a direct admission. Prior corrections the speaker ignored, contradictory earlier statements, or messages showing the speaker already had the correct facts are the kind of evidence that can support a Verleumdung complaint rather than the lesser üble Nachrede charge.

What is the difference between Verleumdung and üble Nachrede in Switzerland?

Both Art. 173 and Art. 174 punish accusing or casting suspicion on someone of dishonourable conduct, or spreading such an accusation, made to a third party. The difference is the speaker's state of mind: Art. 173 applies regardless of whether the statement turns out true or false, while Art. 174 applies only when the speaker already knew it was false, and that knowledge requirement removes the truth defence entirely.

What happens if a false accusation is repeated as part of a planned, systematic campaign?

That is the aggravated form of Verleumdung under Art. 174 Ziff. 2. Instead of the ordinary range of up to three years custodial or an unrestricted Geldstrafe, a systematic campaign to undermine someone's reputation carries a custodial sentence of one month to three years, or a Geldstrafe of at least 30 Tagessätze.

Does posting a knowingly false accusation online count as Verleumdung in Switzerland?

Yes. Art. 176 StGB equates a written, pictorial or otherwise recorded accusation with a spoken one, so a review, a social media post or a message repeated across a group chat can all qualify as Verleumdung if the other elements, including known falsity, are present.

Can retracting a false statement in court reduce a Verleumdung sentence?

Yes, but only as mitigation, not as a defence. Art. 174 Ziff. 3 lets a court reduce the sentence where the person withdraws the statement as untrue before the court, and the court issues the injured party a document recording that withdrawal.