Your commute and work costs: flat rate or actual receipts?

Almost every employee in Switzerland pays to go to work: a train pass, lunches out, the odd bit of equipment. The tax office lets you subtract a good part of those costs before it taxes your salary. Yet two things happen again and again: people assume they can deduct their car when they usually cannot, and they keep receipts they never needed. Here is how the three main work-expense deductions (Berufsauslagen) actually work in Zurich and Aargau, and how to know which option leaves you better off.

The tax office chips in for the cost of showing up

Think of work-expense deductions as the tax office quietly covering part of the cost of getting yourself to work. You do not get cash back. Instead these costs come off your salary before the tax is worked out, so you are taxed on a smaller income.

For an employee there are three big ones: getting there (the commute), eating lunch out when you cannot go home, and everything else (a flat rate). Take them in turn.

Getting to work: usually the train, not the car

Here is the rule that surprises people most. By default you deduct the cost of the cheapest reasonable public transport for your route, typically your GA or Streckenabo. Not the cost of running your car.

Your car (at a guide rate of about CHF 0.70 per kilometre) counts only if using it is genuinely justified, for example:

• there is no reasonable public transport for your route,
• it does not run at the hours you start or finish, or
• public transport would cost you a great deal of extra time.

If none of that applies, the deduction is capped at what the public-transport ticket would have cost, even if you actually drive. (This is the same logic that decides how your car shows up elsewhere in your return.) Commute by bicycle or on foot and you get a flat deduction of around CHF 700.

Then there is a ceiling, and this is the one place Zurich and Aargau clearly differ:

So your cantonal and municipal tax usually lets you deduct more for the commute than the federal level does. Aargau is more generous than Zurich here.

Worth checking: these caps and the per-kilometre rate are guide figures for 2025 and are reviewed periodically. Confirm the current figures for your canton and tax year before relying on them, and remember the car-versus-public-transport question depends on your specific route.

Lunch: the meal deduction

If you genuinely cannot get home for the midday meal, you can deduct the extra cost of eating out: a flat CHF 15 per working day, up to about CHF 3'200 a year. If your employer runs a subsidised canteen or contributes to your meals (it shows on your salary certificate), the deduction is halved to roughly CHF 7.50 per day, up to CHF 1'600. If you could realistically eat at home, there is no deduction. These flat amounts are the same in Zurich and Aargau.

Everything else: the flat rate vs. your receipts

For all the other small costs of working (a home workspace, tools, specialist literature), you have a choice, and it is worth understanding because most people get it wrong by overthinking it.

The flat rate is a no-questions-asked discount. Every employee can deduct a flat amount for these "other professional expenses": about 3 % of net salary, with a floor of roughly CHF 2'000 and a ceiling of roughly CHF 4'000. No receipts, no justification.

The alternative is to itemise your actual costs. That only makes sense if your real, documented expenses clearly exceed the flat rate, which for a typical employee they rarely do. So unless you have something substantial, such as a genuine dedicated home office, the flat rate usually wins and the shoebox of receipts is not worth the effort. Whether itemising beats the flat rate depends on your circumstances.

A worked example

Lara has a net salary of CHF 80'000, commutes to Zurich by train on a pass costing CHF 3'400 a year, and eats lunch out because she cannot get home midday (no canteen).

• Commute: CHF 3'400, the cost of her pass, comfortably under the Zurich cap.
• Meals: CHF 3'200, the full flat amount.
• Other expenses (flat rate): 3 % of CHF 80'000 is CHF 2'400, within the CHF 2'000 to CHF 4'000 band, claimed without a single receipt.

That is about CHF 9'000 of work-expense deductions. At a marginal tax rate of roughly 25 %, it takes around CHF 2'250 off her tax bill.

The figures here are guide amounts for 2025; your exact result depends on your canton, your municipality, your income and the limits in force for the year.

Where TaxWize helps

TaxWize asks how you get to work, how far, and what your pass costs, then applies the right Zurich or Aargau cap, checks whether a car commute is justified, and compares the flat rate against your actual costs so you take the larger one. The three deductions every employee has, settled in a few questions.