Bern's second 2026 tax instalment, payable by 19.09.2026

Canton Bern's second instalment bill for 2026 cantonal and municipal taxes falls due on 20.08.2026 and is payable within 30 days, so by 19.09.2026. It covers 70 % of the tax expected to be owed for the 2026 tax year, less whatever you've already paid. Pay after that and default interest starts on the 31st day after the due date, at 4.00 % for the 2026 tax year. If the amount is set too high, the canton publishes a way to reduce it yourself. If the money isn't there, it runs a separate procedure for that. Both are below, with the sources.

On the scale of it: the Finance Directorate puts the wave at roughly 590'000 bills for around CHF 2.5 billion. Those two numbers come from its announcement of 03.08.2026 as carried by swissinfo.ch, and couldn't be found on the canton's own pages. Everything else here is on the cantonal tax administration's site, read on 03.08.2026.

Three bills, 40, 70 and 100 per cent

Your electricity supplier knows last year's consumption, charges part payments through the year on that basis, and settles at the end. Overpay and money comes back, underpay and you top up. Bern's instalment bill runs on the same pattern, for tax. The canton calls it exactly that: provisional payments on account, like a deposit, for the current tax year.

Cantonal and municipal taxes come in three of them a year, in May, August and November. They fall due on 20 May, 20 August and 20 November, each payable within 30 days.

The percentages are where people miscalculate. 40 %, 70 % and 100 % are cumulative targets, not three additional amounts. Each bill shows the target less what has already come in. On an expected CHF 6'000.00 of cantonal and municipal tax for 2026:

The CHF 6'000.00 is picked so the percentages come out round, not a Bernese average. Leave the May bill unpaid and the August one is correspondingly bigger: the full 70 %.

Two dates, not one

Coverage of the mailing gives 19.09.2026 as the payment date. The cantonal pages carry two dates, and the gap between them is what decides the interest.

• Due date 20.08.2026. From here the amount is owed.
• Payment window of 30 days, so to 19.09.2026. No interest accrues inside it.
• Interest starts on the 31st day after the due date, so on 20.09.2026.

Interest then runs until the payment reaches the tax administration. The canton is explicit that tax is a debt to be delivered, so what counts is arrival, not the date your account was debited. The calculation uses a 360-day year.

What a month's delay costs on CHF 1'800.00

Default interest for the 2026 tax year is 4.00 %. On the CHF 1'800.00 August bill from the table above:

• Arrives 19.09.2026: CHF 0.00
• Arrives 20.10.2026, 30 days of interest: 1'800 × 4.00 % × 30/360 = CHF 6.00
• Arrives 19.12.2026, 90 days of interest: 1'800 × 4.00 % × 90/360 = CHF 18.00

That's the whole arithmetic. It grows linearly with time and with the outstanding amount, so CHF 12'000.00 of unpaid tax over half a year comes to CHF 240.00.

The cantonal government sets the rates annually, and did so for the 2026 tax year on 20.11.2025:

The same rows looked different in 2025: advance-payment interest on cantonal and municipal taxes was 0.75 %, and default and refund interest on direct federal tax both stood at 4.50 %. These are figures for one named tax year, and the rate for yours is on the tax administration's interest page.

Direct federal tax runs separately in any case. It doesn't come in three instalments but as a single provisional bill, due on 1 March of the following year and payable within 30 days, and only where at least CHF 300.00 is expected for the tax year. So the August bill is cantonal and municipal tax, and nothing else.

Where the amount on your bill comes from

Your 2026 return hasn't been filed, there is no 2026 assessment, and yet a figure sits on the payment slip. The basis, in the tax administration's words, is an earlier assessment, a self-estimate or a provisional assessment. Its release on the first 2026 instalment of 04.05.2026 describes the same thing from the other side: the most recently filed return or the current assessment position, falling back on earlier years where the prior-year return isn't in yet.

Which also explains how an instalment can miss. A job change, a bonus, an adult child moving out, a house purchase: the canton knows about none of it until it's declared. The instalment works from the last picture it has.

That is why no objection procedure exists against an instalment bill. The canton says so plainly: you cannot lodge an objection against the instalment bills. The route opens at the final statement, within 30 days.

If the instalment is set too high

The canton is unusually accommodating here, and it's on its own page in as many words: if you expect lower taxable income in the current year, you may reduce the instalment bills on your own initiative and pay only the part likely to be owed for the tax year. No application, no form. The amounts of the three instalments can be split freely, through e-banking using the reference number or with additional QR bills ordered from the canton.

Not published: whether default interest accrues on the part of an instalment left unpaid after such a reduction isn't stated, either on the page about the bills or on the page about interest. One permits the reduction, the other lets interest run from the 31st day after the due date on outstanding amounts. On the published material, that gap is worth closing with the tax administration before reducing anything rather than inferring it from the two pages.

The settling up happens at the end regardless. The final statement shows the total income and wealth tax owed for the tax year, and both directions are covered:

• You paid instalments that were too high: the difference comes back with refund interest, 1.00 % for 2026.
• You were sent instalments that were too low: you pay the difference with the final statement, and the canton states that no default interest is owed in that case.

The second line is the reassuring one. An instalment the canton set too low isn't a mistake you end up paying interest on.

What if the money isn't there right now?

The canton separates two procedures, aimed at different situations.

A payment facility is the route for a liquidity problem: an extended deadline or part payments. The collection office responsible is named on your bill. Three points the canton makes itself, worth knowing before applying: there's no legal entitlement to one, default interest keeps running during a payment facility, and anyone in financial difficulty may be asked to submit a household budget. For the final statement and decision-based bills this application is the only route, since free splitting applies to the instalment bills alone.

A remission application aims at something else: a lasting financial hardship with taxes that have already become legally binding. It goes to your assessing municipality on the signed form. The canton attaches seven conditions that all have to be answerable with no, among them having sufficient means at the time of payment, other debts with other creditors, and having already received a payment order. It also recommends making part payments under reservation wherever possible while the application is pending. Where remission looks hopeless, the canton points back to the payment facility.

Both share one thing: the procedure starts with contact, not with a date going past.

Interest running the other way

Advance payments are open to private individuals in canton Bern, for cantonal and municipal taxes, and only while no tax arrears exist. A payment counts as an advance if it arrives before the current tax year's instalment bills fall due, and the canton accepts it within the amount presumed owed for the year. For 2026 it earns 0.25 %, calculated and capitalised at year end.

The cantonal government cut that rate from 0.75 % in November 2025 but deliberately kept it above zero because, in the cantonal government's view, payments made before an instalment falls due "should still be worthwhile in the current interest environment". On direct federal tax, no advance-payment interest is granted for 2026 at all.

And the tax return?

The instalment bill doesn't hang on the return currently open on your kitchen table, but on the last one you filed. What the return decides is the final statement, the settling up at the end. The two calendars live side by side, and the filing date doesn't move the payment date: how much time is left for the 2025 return in Bern and the six other cantons covered in full is in the deadline extension overview.

How much tax arises where you live depends heavily on the municipal multiplier. For the city of Bern the municipality page shows it, and the tax comparison covers every other Bernese municipality.

And if gathering the paperwork is the part that stalls every year, that's the stretch TaxWize covers, for the 2025 tax year in canton Bern too. You upload your documents, the extraction shows what's still missing, and the figures come back ready to transfer into the cantonal portal. Filing stays your step.

Sources

All cantonal pages were read on 03.08.2026.

• Tax bills (three instalments, 40/70/100 %, basis, reducing them, final statement, objection): sv.fin.be.ch
• Payment deadlines (due 20 May, 20 August, 20 November; direct federal tax 1 March of the following year): sv.fin.be.ch
• Interest types (start on the 31st day, 360-day year, debt to be delivered, rate tables for 2026 and 2025): sv.fin.be.ch
• Interest rates for the 2026 tax year, cantonal government decision of 20.11.2025: fin.be.ch
• Applying for a payment facility (no legal entitlement, interest keeps running, household budget): sv.fin.be.ch
• Applying for tax remission (conditions, assessing municipality, part payments under reservation): sv.fin.be.ch
• Making advance payments (conditions, amount, interest at year end): sv.fin.be.ch
• Questions and answers on paying tax (30 days, interest from the 31st day): sv.fin.be.ch
• Finance Directorate release on the first 2026 instalment, 04.05.2026 (calculation basis, 40 %, default interest): fin.be.ch
• Roughly 590'000 bills for around CHF 2.5 billion, Finance Directorate announcement of 03.08.2026 as carried by swissinfo.ch