Zurich

Zurich is Switzerland's largest cantonal economy. Its 1,632,918 residents (17.9% of the Swiss population at the end of 2025) produced GDP of CHF 164.5 billion in 2022, 20.8% of the national total, and GDP per head of CHF 104,620, the 5th-highest of the 26 cantons. The canton counts 1,149,866 jobs and 113,101 enterprises, more than any other, and employment grew by 7.9% between 2019 and 2024.

Zurich's weight lies in knowledge-intensive services. Finance employs 90,993 people, 7.9% of all jobs and the highest share of any canton; UBS, Zurich Insurance and Swiss Re are headquartered in the city. Information and communication reaches 6.4% of jobs, also the highest cantonal share and 1.8 times the national average, with large engineering sites such as Google's. Legal, consulting, engineering and R&D services add 12.2%, and education accounts for 9.4%, reflecting ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich and ZHAW. Health and social care is still the largest single employer group (13.8%).

The environment trades high costs for depth. The median gross monthly wage in the Zurich region was CHF 7,502 in 2024, the highest of Switzerland's seven large regions (Switzerland: CHF 7,024). KPMG puts Zurich's maximum effective corporate tax rate at 19.47% for 2026, the second highest after Bern, and its top income tax rate at 39.10%. Unemployment was 2.9% in August 2026, up from 2.6% a year earlier (Switzerland: 3.0%).