On exchangecrypto.ch we compare the exchanges, brokers, apps and banks that let people living in Switzerland buy cryptocurrency. We do not hand out stars or overall scores. A rating like "8.7 out of 10" implies a precision that does not exist: someone buying bitcoin through a savings plan needs something different from someone trading altcoins or moving large sums to their own wallet. So we check the same points for every provider and write down the results as concretely as we can.
The criteria
| Criterion | What we check | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Supervision | FINMA licence or SRO membership; for foreign firms, the contracting entity | FINMA list, SRO registers |
| Availability | Accounts for Swiss residents, restrictions on individual products | Terms, help pages |
| Deposits and withdrawals | SIC/IBAN, SEPA, TWINT, PostFinance, card – each with its cost | Price list |
| Total cost | Fee plus spread, card surcharge, withdrawal fee | Price list |
| Coin range | Which coins, bitcoin only or a broad range | Provider website |
| Custody | Who holds the keys, can you withdraw to your own wallet? | Terms, help pages |
| KYC and limits | ID requirements, daily and monthly limits | Terms, law |
| Tax documents | Tax statement or annual statement with CHF values at 31 December | Provider, account area |
| Support | German, French, Italian, English | Provider website |
Supervision. We check FINMA's list to see whether a provider holds a licence as a bank, securities firm or FinTech institution. Many crypto companies instead belong to an Self-regulatory organisation: a FINMA-recognised body that supervises its members' compliance with anti-money-laundering law, but not their capital or solvency. such as VQF, PolyReg, SO-FIT or ARIF, which we verify in their member registers. For foreign platforms, we state which company Swiss residents actually sign their contract with and whether that company is supervised anywhere. Registrations that only cover customers in other countries are described as such. Our guide to FINMA crypto regulation explains what each status means.
Payment rails. We are precise about how francs reach your account. A SIC transfer from a Swiss IBAN is not the same as an international SWIFT transfer, which may cost you a fee at your own bank. See our pages on bank transfers, TWINT, PostFinance and buying with a card.
Total cost. What matters is how much is missing at the end: the trading fee plus the The gap between the buy and sell price. It comes on top of the stated fee and is often the less visible part of the cost., plus any card or withdrawal fees. A worked example: with a 1% fee and a 0.5% spread, a CHF 1,000 purchase costs roughly CHF 15. Fees come from official price lists; if a homepage and the price list disagree, the price list wins and we mention the discrepancy.
Custody, KYC, tax. We check whether coins stay inside the app or can be withdrawn to your own wallet – Holding your own private keys rather than leaving your coins with a platform.. Swiss financial intermediaries must identify you once crypto purchases reach CHF 1,000 within 30 days; we list each provider's specific Know Your Customer: identity checks with ID and often a selfie, required by anti-money-laundering law. limits. And we note whether you get documents for your Swiss tax return.
How the comparison table is ordered
The table of eight providers on our home page is an editorial selection. We weigh whether a provider accepts Swiss residents, which payment methods it offers and how broad its coin range is. No numeric score determines the order, and first place does not mean "best for everyone". Each row shows facts on supervision, payments and costs, so you can filter by what matters to you. Detailed assessments are in our reviews.
The account buttons on our pages lead to the international platform CEX.IO. The same criteria apply to it: it has been operating since 2013, and group entities are registered in the US (FinCEN) and the UK (FCA). Customers resident in Switzerland contract with CEX OVRS LLC in Nevis, which names no supervisory authority. CEX.IO holds no FINMA licence and no Swiss SRO membership, and does not offer deposits in Swiss francs.
When something cannot be verified
Not every detail can be confirmed. Our rule: second-hand figures carry their source and date, unconfirmed information is labelled as unconfirmed, and anything we could not check at all is left out. We phrase the absence of an offer carefully: "no offer found" rather than "does not exist".
How we write about regions
Our regional pages only list local infrastructure we can document: cantonal banks' crypto offers from their own announcements, tax practice from cantonal guidance notes, bitcoin acceptance from the community map BTC Map with retrieval date and radius. Counts of bitcoin ATMs often come from older secondary sources, and we say so. We do not invent ATMs, shops or meetups.
Price data and calculators
Our price widgets load live prices directly in your browser from CoinGecko's API. If it does not respond, we use Coinbase's public exchange rates. If both fail, the widget shows the last available price together with its date. Fetched prices are cached in your browser for no more than 90 seconds. Our calculators show cost ranges taken from published price lists, not binding quotes. What data reaches third parties in the process is explained in our privacy policy.
Updates
We revise pages when providers change fees, limits or payment methods, when the Swiss Federal Tax Administration publishes new year-end values, when cantons renew their guidance or FINMA issues new guidance. If something looks out of date to you, let us know via the contact page.
