Permanent foreign resident population and acquisitions of Swiss citizenship (SEM foreigner statistics)
sem-foreign-population
- Publisher
- SEM
- Access method
api- Table id
2-10 + 3-60 (December)- Licence
- Still to be confirmed with the SEM: the XLSX tables carry no licence (admin.ch legal notice: copyright of the federal authorities); the same statistics on opendata.swiss are "Open use" (terms_open) since 2022. Votara uses the totals only, to cross-check the BFS figures.
- Coverage
- Geography national · population foreign nationals with a C, B (incl. Ci) or L (≥ 12 months) permit; acquisitions of Swiss citizenship decided in the calendar year · referenceDay end of December · from 2024 · to 2025
- Gaps
- The two latest years with a December file only (the archive goes back to 2008). Persons in the asylum area (N, F, S) are not in the SEM foreign population; diplomats and international officials neither.
- Used on
- STORY-06
- Known limits
- Different statistics from the BFS on purpose (SEM/BFS fact sheet "Erklärungen zu den Unterschieden zwischen den Statistiken des SEM und des BFS zur ausländischen Wohnbevölkerung", January 2025, https://www.sem.admin.ch/dam/sem/de/data/publiservice/statistik/auslaenderstatistik/faktenblatt-unterschiede-statistiken.pdf.download.pdf/faktenblatt-unterschiede-statistiken-d.pdf): the SEM counts from its register ZEMIS the persons under the foreign nationals act (C, B incl. Ci, L ≥ 12 months); the BFS (STATPOP) counts from the municipal registers and adds persons in the asylum process (N, F, S) with at least 12 months of residence, diplomats and international officials. End of 2023 the fact sheet gives 2 361 402 (SEM) vs 2 364 102 (BFS). Cross-check (2026-11-02): end of 2024 the SEM counts 2 368 364 and the BFS 2 479 888, end of 2025 2 414 408 and 2 528 117 (bfs-nationality-groups): the BFS count is higher by 4.5 % both years; per nationality the SEM count can be higher (Italy 2025: SEM 350 958, BFS 346 115) because the registers differ. Naturalisations: SEM 40 077 (2024) and 41 134 (2025), BFS 39 912 and 40 672 (see bfs-naturalisations). Durable check: scripts/checks/facts-population.ts warns when the SEM count exceeds the BFS count or the gap exceeds 10 %.
- Processed file
- data/processed/sem-foreign-population.csv
How current is this data?
- Freshness
- Up to date
According to its update rhythm, no newer edition is expected yet.
- Period covered
- 2024–2025
- Last change of the data
- Last check of the source
- Update rhythm
- Yearly
Ledger note (in English): The December files used here appear every year, in the weeks after the end of the year (the SEM publishes its tables every month).
- Votara checks the source
- Every week, and every day from 3 days before to 14 days after an announced publication date
The state is computed each time the site is built; this page shows it as of . Results of the accuracy checks
Transformations
- 2-10-best-tot-kat-<year>-12.xlsx, sheet "CH-Nati": column B "Total ständige ausländische Wohnbevölkerung"; 3-60-bew-br-j-<year>-12.xlsx (calendar year), sheet "CH-Nati": column B "Total Erwerb Schweizer Bürgerrecht" and C "Einbürgerungen" (ordinary, facilitated, reinstatement). Rows: "Gesamttotal" → total; EU/EFTA, Drittstaaten, continents, "Herkunft unbekannt" and the continent subtotals ("Total Europa" …) → aggregate; every other row a nationality (group = ASCII slug of the SEM label). The fetch fails unless the nationalities add up to the total. Script: scripts/fetch/sem-foreign-population.ts