Deducting further education costs: the 2025 caps in seven cantons

Costs you carry yourself for job-related education or further education are deductible for tax year 2025, but not up to the same amount everywhere. Canton Zurich allows at most CHF 12'400, canton Aargau CHF 18'000, and the direct federal tax CHF 13'000 in every canton. So one course invoice produces two different deductions on the same tax return. Before any of that, whatever your employer, the federal government or a trade association paid comes off the invoice. And there's a condition at the very start that has nothing to do with money: you need a first upper-secondary qualification (Sekundarstufe II), or to have turned 20, and the costs of reaching that first qualification never count.

One invoice, two ceilings

The same receipt at two counters, each with its own limit, and both times it's your course. That's how the return is built. Canton and federation compute on different legal bases, and for the deductions that differ, the Aargau guide puts it plainly: the cantonal deductions are added back and «durch die bei der direkten Bundessteuer massgebenden Abzüge ersetzt», replaced by the deductions that govern the direct federal tax. It names further education costs as one of them.

Here's how far apart the cantons sit, across the seven cantons TaxWize covers in full for tax year 2025.

The federal column is the steady one. It applies wherever you live. The cantonal column moves, because each canton sets its own amount, so a move across a cantonal border changes the deduction for the same course.

Aargau is the outlier on the high side and the only one of these cantons above the federal ceiling. Before that its amount sat at CHF 12'000 as well; the increase took effect on 1 January 2025. Every figure here belongs to tax year 2025 and is adjusted periodically, so for another year the current values are in your canton's own guide.

What counts as job-related

The purpose decides, not the course title. The programme has to serve a current or a future professional activity, and retraining counts too. Canton Aargau names language and other technical courses and the master craftsman's exam as its examples. Whether that fits your own course depends on your circumstances, and it's the point a tax office will ask about.

Education you pursue out of private interest is out. Canton Bern names dance, painting and sports courses as its examples. The path to that first upper-secondary qualification is out too.

That first qualification is the entry ticket: an apprenticeship with a federal certificate or attestation, a Fachmittelschule diploma, a Matura. Without one, the age rule opens the way instead, from your 20th birthday on, for any job-related training that is no longer about reaching that first qualification. Retraining and costs of moving up count, in Aargau expressly regardless of what you currently do for a living.

What belongs to the costs is wider than the course fee. The Schwyz and Lucerne guides list it out: tuition and course fees, learning materials, travel, and extra costs for meals and accommodation away from home where they're connected to the training. One Aargau detail is worth reading twice. Technical literature, computing aids and a home study are already inside the flat deduction for professional expenses, so books and aids are separately deductible only where a course requires them.

Who pays has a say too. Employer contributions come off the invoice, and so do payments from unemployment or disability insurance and any scholarship. What's left is what you deduct. One direction gets forgotten regularly: in canton Zurich, federal contributions towards preparatory courses for federal examinations are declared as other income to the extent they exceed the actual costs claimed in the same tax period. Solothurn treats the federal contributions from the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation for federal examinations as taxable income and wants them declared in every case.

What Nina's course actually deducts

Nina lives in canton Zurich, files as a single person, and has a net salary of CHF 89'856 for 2025, alongside the usual other items (pillar 3a CHF 7'258, public-transport pass CHF 3'000). Her programme costs CHF 17'000 and her employer pays CHF 2'000, which leaves CHF 15'000 on her.

• Cantonal tax Zurich: deduction CHF 12'400, taxable income CHF 61'602
• Direct federal tax: deduction CHF 13'000, taxable income CHF 62'102

CHF 2'600 of what she paid no longer moves the cantonal column. The counter-test shows what that means: had she carried only CHF 12'000, her cantonal taxable income would sit at CHF 62'002. The last CHF 3'000 of her own money lowers it by CHF 400.

In tax francs, for the city of Zurich and with no church tax, those two variants are about CHF 99 apart. For CHF 3'000 of extra spending that is thin, and the two ceilings are the reason, not the tax rate.

Run the same figures in canton Aargau and the CHF 15'000 would be fully deductible cantonally, because the line there sits at CHF 18'000; the federal column would stay at CHF 13'000. Only that one item is comparable between the two, since their other deductions differ as well.

Which year does the invoice belong to?

Attending the course is not what decides. Zurich states it clearly: what matters for the timing of the deduction is «die Fälligkeit bzw. die Zahlung und nicht der Kursbesuch», the due date or the payment rather than the course. Bern goes by the invoice date, and allows partial invoices that carry no date of their own to be taken when they fall due.

This gets concrete as soon as a programme runs across New Year. Two invoices inside one tax year share one ceiling. Spread across two tax years, each year offers the full amount. And anything above the line is gone: none of the seven guides read here provides for carrying the excess into another tax year.

For Aargau practice the guide leaves the timing question open; the canton points to its own leaflet on education, further education and retraining costs, which was not read for this article. Whether any of this is worth acting on for you depends on the invoice dates and on your canton, and is worth a look at the guide before you enrol.

What you file

The evidence Zurich and Aargau ask for is similar, and rarely burdensome. Zurich asks for the completed form "Berufsorientierte Aus- und Weiterbildungskosten", which runs Person 1 and Person 2 in separate columns, with rows for total costs, the employer's contribution and the costs you carry. Aargau asks for a schedule with the receipts attached. The direct federal tax has its own form 10. The ceiling belongs to the person, not to the couple; the Aargau guide says so expressly, as do the Zurich form and the Zug guide.

Filling that in is exactly where TaxWize starts: the course invoice is read out, total, provider and invoice date land in the right field, and the cantonal and federal columns are computed separately, for tax year 2025 in seven cantons, at CHF 39 per tax return and tax year. How much your address moves the overall bill is what the tax comparison shows. Filing itself still goes through your canton's portal.

Sources

All sources read on 17.08.2026.

• Wegleitung zur Steuererklärung 2025, canton Zurich, sections 16.2 and 5.4 and form 367 (CHF 12'400 cantonal / CHF 13'000 federal, due date and payment, reduction by third-party contributions, federal contributions as other income, Person 1 and Person 2 columns): zh.ch
• Wegleitung zur Steuererklärung 2025, canton Aargau, section 15.5, the 1 January 2025 changes table and the federal annex (CHF 18'000, previously CHF 12'000, amount per spouse, boundary with the flat professional-expenses deduction, cantonal deductions replaced federally): ag.ch
• Wegleitung natürliche Personen 2025, canton Bern (CHF 12'500, invoice date and partial invoices, examples of non-job-related courses): wegleitung.sv.fin.be.ch
• Wegleitung zur Steuererklärung 2025, canton Lucerne, sections 248 to 250 (CHF 13'000, travel and meal costs, coverage by third parties): steuern.lu.ch
• Wegleitung zur Steuererklärung 2025, canton Solothurn, section 590 (CHF 12'000 cantonal, CHF 13'000 federal, federal examination contributions as taxable income): so.ch
• Wegleitung zur Steuererklärung 2025, canton Zug, codes 245 and 246 (CHF 12'000 cantonal, CHF 13'000 federal, per person and year): zg.ch
• Wegleitung zur Steuererklärung 2025, canton Schwyz, sections 3.12 and 3.13 (CHF 12'000 cantonal, CHF 13'000 federal, deductible cost types): sz.ch
• Wegleitung zur Steuererklärung für natürliche Personen 2025, direct federal tax, form 2a, section 15 (CHF 13'000, conditions, form 10): estv.admin.ch