Swiss Tenants Protest Government’s Proposed Rent Reform

Swiss people protest high rents, Oct. 2026. X/ @almaplustv

October 13, 2026 Hour: 5:36 pm

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More than 100,000 signatures were submitted against a plan that tenants’ advocates say could worsen abusive rents.

On Tuesday, the Swiss Tenants Association (ASLOCA) submitted more than 100,000 signatures to the Swiss government in protest against an “outrageous” proposal to reform the rental pricing system, which would increase instances of abusive rents.

The government’s plan is a counterproposal to a popular initiative that ASLOCA wants to put to a national referendum. Launched in 2025, the initiative seeks to incorporate a definition of abusive rent into the federal Constitution and requires rental prices to be reviewed automatically and periodically.

The government opposes that text and proposed the counterproposal in late September. The alternative has now sparked outrage at ASLOCA and calls for a more flexible pricing system based on a range of different prices.

According to the tenants’ association, which is headed by Geneva Socialist Sen. Carlo Sommaruga, the government’s proposal would allow very high rents to be factored into subsequent statistics, potentially driving up benchmark rents with each update.

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“Tenants are already paying rents that are too high, and the Federal Council wants to ask them to pay even more. They will not accept it,” Sommaruga said in a statement.

According to Eurostat, around 58% of Switzerland’s population lives in rented housing, making the country the one with the highest share of tenants in Europe. Along with Germany, Switzerland is one of the few countries on the continent where renters outnumber homeowners.

Currently, the Swiss debate over rents is unfolding amid a clash between two segments of the population: retirees and tenants.

“Retirees’ pensions depend in part on the returns generated by the real estate portfolios held by their pension funds. These institutions are estimated to own one in six homes in Switzerland and exert a constant influence on real estate-related initiatives—as seen in Zurich last June, when voters rejected a proposal aimed at restricting the termination of rental contracts,” the Tribune de Genève explained.