Blog Switzerland
Passing on Bitcoin in Switzerland: why a will is not enough
Legally your Bitcoin passes to your heirs like any other asset. In practice they receive nothing at all unless you prepared the access while you were alive.
There is a gap in the subject of Bitcoin and inheritance that many people notice late. Legally the matter is settled. Technically it is not settled at all. And because the law says one thing and the technology another, an area opens up in which wealth simply disappears.
The legal part is the easy one
Under Swiss inheritance law, heirs step into the entire legal position of the deceased at the moment of death. This is called universal succession and is set out in Article 560 of the Civil Code. It applies to the flat, the bank account, the stamp collection, and equally to Bitcoin.
Two things run in parallel for tax. Up to the date of death the Bitcoin belongs to the estate of the deceased and is subject to cantonal wealth tax. On transfer to the heirs, inheritance tax may apply depending on the canton and the degree of relationship. Spouses and direct descendants are exempt in most cantons. More distant relatives and unmarried partners generally are not.
The technical part is the hard one
This is where legal guides usually stop. A certificate of inheritance makes your heirs the rightful owners of your Bitcoin. It gives them no access to it.
With a bank account the certificate is enough, because the bank administers the account and releases it on presentation of the papers. With Bitcoin in self-custody there is no such body. Whoever holds the private key can move the coins. Whoever does not hold it cannot, and no court anywhere changes that.
The three cases that occur in practice
What works
- The heirs know the Bitcoin exists
- They know where the recovery words are kept
- They can reach that place without you being alive
- They roughly understand what to do with them
What goes wrong
- Nobody knows about the Bitcoin, it drops out of the estate
- The words are in a safe deposit box that opens weeks later
- The words are in the will, which becomes visible to all legal heirs
- A note sits in a drawer and nobody understands what it means
The third point on the right deserves its own warning. Recovery words do not belong in a will. A will is opened on death and brought to the attention of all legal heirs, regardless of who you intended the Bitcoin for. It may also sit for years with an institution whose care you cannot control.
If your family lives abroad
For many women I meet, the heirs are not in Switzerland. That adds two complications that are easy to overlook and easy to solve if you think about them in advance.
The first is language. If your note explaining what to do is written in German, and the person who will read it does not read German, it is not a note, it is a puzzle. Write it in the language your family actually speaks.
The second is distance. A safe deposit box in Zurich is of limited help to a sister in Manchester who has to organise a funeral first. Think about who can physically reach the place, and how quickly.
How to prepare it sensibly
- A record that contains no keys A single sheet stating that Bitcoin exists, in what form it is held, and who can help in an emergency. No recovery words, no amounts. This sheet may be found: on its own it opens nothing.
- The words kept separately, somewhere reachable Written by hand on paper, in two different secure places. What matters is that a trusted person can reach at least one of them without waiting for a court order.
- Short instructions in plain language What a wallet is, what these words do, who to turn to. Written for someone who has never dealt with any of this, because that is exactly who will read it. In their language.
- A conversation while you are alive The step almost everyone skips. It is enough that one person knows it exists and where to look. An estate nobody ever discussed is the most common reason Bitcoin disappears.