Switzerland Opens its GIR Filing Portal

On March 19, 2026 the Swiss FTA announced that the Pillar Two GloBE Information Return (GIR) application became available on the Confederation ePortal, and that the app is used both to register for GIR purposes and to submit the GIR.

As provided by the OECD, the GIR submission is designed as a secure data-exchange workflow, not as a form-based tax return. In practice, that means four separate layers: entity onboarding, role/permission setup, XML/encryption preparation, and then upload plus status-message handling. It is also explicitly not a substitute for the Swiss top-up tax return.

Below we highlight the key aspects of the Swiss GIR submission process. Also see our Switzerland GIR Submission Checklist which breaks down the GIR Submission. 

1. Who is in scope, and when is the first Swiss deadline?
The GIR applies to multinational groups whose consolidated annual revenue reached at least EUR 750 million in two of the last four fiscal years under the GloBE rules. For a 31 December 2024 year-end, the 2024 GIR is due by 30 June 2026; for later years, the normal deadline is 15 months after year-end. 

2. Registration is an onboarding process, not a quick self-activation
The FTA requires registration through the ePortal. The registration page says it is complete only once an administrator for the entity has been activated in the GIR app, and no registration confirmation is sent. The user guide shows the workflow: log in with AGOV or CH-Login, enter myESTV, register the company, select the services “manage companies/persons” and “GIR,” enter contact details, accept terms, and wait for an invitation/registration code sent by post to the registered office; the guide says the postal delivery usually takes 1–2 working days. The responsible person then redeems that code and receives administrator rights.

3. Role selection matters because Switzerland ties the registration profile to the XML filing logic
When finishing registration in the GIR application, the filer must choose the filing role and the start of the fiscal year. The user guide identifies three roles: UPE for a Swiss-resident ultimate parent, DFE for a Swiss designated filing entity, and CE for a Swiss constituent entity of a foreign-parented group. The technical guide says the role in the XML must match the role chosen at registration, so registration is not just administrative housekeeping; it is part of the validation logic.

4. Registration is generally one-off, but de-registration is manual
The FTA says you do not need to re-register every year unless something changes that affects the group’s GIR filing obligation. If the Swiss obligation ends, the entity must notify the FTA; both the main GIR page and the technical guide say de-registration has to be requested in writing or by email and is not done through the portal itself. If the entity later becomes subject again, the FTA says it must be reactivated.

5. Switzerland requires only full OECD-style XML
The FTA is explicit that GIR must be filed in XML according to the OECD schema; email, paper, and Excel are not accepted. It also says it will not provide an Excel-to-XML converter (unlike Japan for instance), so taxpayers must use their own systems or an external provider. In other words, the portal is only the transmission layer; data preparation remains the taxpayer’s responsibility.

6. The upload package must be encrypted before submission
The technical guide says the GIR-XML file must be compressed and encrypted before upload. The user guide points filers to an FTA “Encryptor” package containing the certificate and operating-system-specific tools, and says the resulting ZIP is what gets uploaded. The technical guide also allows self-packaging, but then sets very specific rules: rename the XML to Payload.xml, zip it, encrypt the ZIP with AES-256/CBC and a 16-byte IV, then encrypt the AES key/IV with the FTA public key. 

7. The portal submission itself is simple; the real gate is validation
Once the encrypted package is ready, the user guide says the filer clicks “new message” in the GIR application and uploads the file. The technical guide sets size limits of 100 MB for the XML and 10 MB after compression. Transmission to FTA systems is over HTTPS. After upload, a confirmation message may appear first, but the legal/practical completion point is later: the technical guide says the filing obligation is satisfied only when the declaration shows the status “Accepted.”

8. Rejections are all-or-nothing, and some failures happen before a status message even exists
Switzerland’s technical guide says early file checks can fail for download, decryption, decompression, threat scan, virus scan, or schema validation. If the failure occurs at the initial file-validation stage, no declaration entry is created and no status message is generated. If the upload makes it into the message overview but fails validation, the whole message is rejected and the downloadable status message lists the errors. The guide also says XML signatures are not allowed; an XML signature causes rejection.

9. Switzerland’s XML rules include a few important local provisions
The technical guide says a Swiss filing to the FTA may contain data for only one constituent entity, so only one GLOBEBody is allowed. It also says ReceivingCountry in the message header must be CH, while the RecJurCode values inside the GIR sections must correspond to Swiss partner states for the relevant period. As such, the inbound portal message is always addressed to Switzerland, but the substantive data inside it is tagged for onward exchange to the relevant partner states.

10. Corrections are not in-portal edits; they are structured XML resubmissions
If an error is found after filing, the FTA says a corrected GIR must be submitted. The user guide confirms that new filings, corrections, and cancellations are all done by uploading XML again. The technical guide says corrections use MessageTypeIndic = GIR102, must not include new data, and require CorrDocRefId links back to the prior valid DocRefId. It also says Switzerland prefers the correction mechanism to full cancellation; a whole declaration cannot simply be “deleted” in one step, except by sending a correction that cancels all underlying elements.

11. There is also a useful CE / nil-return nuance
For a Swiss entity registered as CE in a foreign-parented group, the technical guide allows a nil return (GIR103) if the group files the GIR in another state and Switzerland will receive it through exchange with that partner state. But if the foreign parent’s state is not a Swiss partner state for GIR exchange, the Swiss CE must file a substantive GIR in Switzerland, even though the return will not be exchanged internationally. That distinction will matter for Swiss subsidiaries in groups headquartered outside the initial exchange network.

12. There is a separate test window, but it is not the same as production onboarding
The user guide says test filings can be made in the acceptance environment from 7 April to 3 July 2026. In that test environment, invitation codes are not mailed to the registered office; instead, the filer must email the FTA test mailbox with the FTA ID and the date/time of the registration to obtain the first code. Test filings are processed normally and also receive status messages.

Summary

Whilst Switzerland’s GIR portal is live, key aspects are (i) getting the right entity and role activated, (ii) producing a Swiss-compliant OECD XML, (iii) packaging it correctly, and (iv) monitoring the status message until it becomes Accepted. Because the portal shows metadata and status but not the substantive return content, groups should keep their own archive of the source XML, encrypted ZIP, MessageRefId / DocRefId / CorrDocRefId mappings, and downloaded status messages.