Nebenkosten in Switzerland: What Landlords Can and Cannot Bill Tenants

Nebenkosten, the additional charges a landlord bills on top of rent for things like heating or hot water, are one of the most commonly misunderstood costs in a Swiss tenancy. The rule is simple to state and easy to get wrong in practice: a landlord can only bill a Nebenkosten item that was specifically agreed in the lease, and anything not agreed is treated as already included in the rent itself.

This page works through that rule under Art. 257a and Art. 257b OR, what counts as a chargeable cost in the statutory sense, and the accounting a landlord has to produce so a tenant can actually check the bill. It is part of our wider Swiss tenant law coverage, itself part of the broader guide to Swiss law.

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.

The rule that decides everything: Art. 257a OR

Art. 257a Abs. 1 OR defines Nebenkosten as compensation for services the landlord, or a third party, provides that are connected with the use of the rented property. That is a broad definition on its own, covering anything from heating to a shared cleaning service.

Abs. 2 then narrows it sharply. A tenant only has to pay Nebenkosten if this was specifically agreed with the landlord, and a cost that was never specifically agreed is deemed already covered by the base rent rather than billable on top of it.

This is the single rule that matters most on this page. A tenant handed a bill for a cost never named in the lease has a straightforward answer: that cost is not a valid Nebenkosten charge, because Art. 257a Abs. 2 OR presumes anything not specifically agreed is already covered by the rent being paid.

What actually counts as a chargeable cost: Art. 257b OR

Even a properly agreed Nebenkosten clause does not let a landlord charge whatever figure it likes. Art. 257b Abs. 1 OR defines the chargeable amount as the landlord's actual expenditure connected with use of the property, meaning real, incurred costs rather than an estimate, a round number, or a built in margin.

The statute names some examples of what this covers: heating, hot water and similar operating costs, along with public levies that arise from the use of the property. These are examples the statute itself gives, introduced with the word wie, meaning such as, so they illustrate the kind of cost involved rather than close off the category to only those items.

The operative test is not whether a cost appears on a familiar list. It is whether the cost is a real, actual expenditure connected with use of the property, and whether it was specifically agreed in the lease as something the tenant would pay on top of rent. A cost that fails either half of that test, real expenditure connected with use and specific agreement, is not a valid Nebenkosten charge.

The accounting a landlord has to produce

Because Nebenkosten track actual expenditure, a landlord has to account for them rather than simply naming a figure. The mechanics sit in the VMWG, the ordinance that supplies the accounting detail behind the OR's more general rule.

A landlord billing Nebenkosten on actual costs has to produce an itemized statement of them at least once a year, under VMWG Art. 4 Abs. 1. A landlord who instead bills a flat rate, a Pauschale, has to base that figure on the average of actual costs over the preceding three years, under VMWG Art. 4 Abs. 2, rather than picking a convenient round number.

Either way, the tenant is not required to simply accept the total on faith. Art. 257b Abs. 2 OR gives the tenant a right to inspect the underlying vouchers on request, and VMWG Art. 8 Abs. 2 confirms the same right of access to the original receipts behind the statement.

How to actually query a statement

A tenant reviewing a Nebenkostenabrechnung has a concrete checklist to work through rather than a vague sense that the total looks high. Compare every line item against the specific costs named in the lease itself, since a charge that never appears there fails the Art. 257a Abs. 2 agreement test regardless of how reasonable the amount looks.

Then request the original vouchers behind each remaining item and check whether the figures reflect real, incurred costs rather than a rounded estimate. If the landlord bills a flat rate, ask whether it was actually calculated from the preceding three years of real costs, since a flat rate is not a free pass to charge an arbitrary figure.

A worked example makes this concrete. A tenant is billed CHF 240 for garden maintenance that is never mentioned anywhere in the lease, alongside CHF 180 for heating that the lease does specifically list. The heating charge can be billed, provided the figure reflects real expenditure and the landlord can produce the vouchers behind it, while the CHF 240 garden charge cannot be billed at all, because it was never specifically agreed.

Where a Nebenkosten dispute goes

A tenant who disputes a Nebenkostenabrechnung, whether over an unlisted charge or the underlying figures themselves, takes the dispute to the Schlichtungsbehörde, the same conciliation authority that hears other tenancy disputes. This is a mandatory first stop rather than an optional step, and it applies here just as it does to a termination or an initial rent challenge.

There is no court fee for this kind of dispute under Art. 113 Abs. 2 lit. c ZPO, and neither side is awarded the other side's costs regardless of outcome. A lawyer is not required, though a party may bring one or a trusted person along for support, and Art. 204 ZPO requires both parties to appear in person at the hearing itself.

Our initial rent challenge page covers the Schlichtungsbehörde process itself in more detail, since the same body and much of the same procedure apply across every kind of tenancy dispute. A Nebenkosten dispute can also come up at the end of a tenancy, when a final accounting is settled alongside the move out itself, a process covered on our ending a tenancy page.

What this means for a tenant reviewing a bill

The Nebenkosten question is rarely about whether the landlord is entitled to bill something in principle. It is almost always about whether that specific item was specifically agreed in the lease, and whether the amount reflects a real, documented cost rather than a convenient number.

A tenant who keeps both questions separate, agreement and actual cost, has a clear basis for challenging a charge that fails either one, without needing to argue about whether the underlying service was worth having in the first place.