No Swiss authority keeps a list of family offices. Swiss law does not define the term, and no rule prevents a firm from using it. What Switzerland does have is a public register of licensed financial institutions. This list starts from what that register shows and checks it against what each firm says about itself. Every count below was read from FINMA’s own published lists on 12 November 2026, the day those lists were last updated.
Two findings are worth stating before the list itself. Most firms whose registered name includes the words Family Office do not describe themselves as multi family offices. And most Swiss firms that clearly are multi family offices do not use these words in their registered name.
What a multi family office is, and what Switzerland actually regulates
A multi family office serves several wealthy families who are not related to each other. It works for the family rather than for a product provider: it consolidates the assets, writes the investment policy, selects and monitors the banks and managers, coordinates the lawyers and tax advisers, and keeps the records across generations. A single family office does the same work for one family only. The difference matters for the client, because a multi family office has other clients whose interests have to be balanced against yours, and it has a commercial need to keep you.
Swiss law does not regulate the label. It regulates activities. A firm needs a licence for what it does with client money, not for what it calls itself. There are four registers that matter here, and these were their sizes on 12 November 2026.
| FINMA register | Entries | What the licence covers |
|---|---|---|
| Banks and securities firms | 276 | Taking deposits, holding custody, lending, trading for clients |
| Portfolio managers and trustees, supervised by a supervisory organisation | 1’509 | Managing individual client assets under a mandate, or holding assets in trust |
| Portfolio managers and trustees that are domestic group companies under the Financial Institutions Act | 90 | The same work, inside a licensed group |
| Fund managements, managers of collective assets and representatives | 430 | Running collective vehicles. Of these, 343 are managers of collective assets and 54 are fund managements |
An office that only produces consolidated reporting for the family, negotiates with banks and coordinates advisers needs none of these licences. Most buyers misread this in both directions. The absence of a licence is not by itself a warning sign, and the presence of one is not a quality mark. What a licence tells you is which activities the firm is allowed to carry out, and who supervises it.
Why a Swiss multi family office list is hard to build
The published numbers do not agree with each other, and the gap is large. One commercial database counted 187 multi family offices and 91 single family offices in Switzerland in June 2026. The FINMA register contains 40 licensed firms with Family Office in the registered name. Both numbers can be defended, because they measure different things: one counts firms that present themselves a certain way, the other counts firms that hold a specific licence and chose a specific name.
There is a second reason the picture keeps changing. The Financial Institutions Act made a licence compulsory for Swiss portfolio managers from 2020. More than 1’000 firms decided not to apply and left the market instead of carrying the new compliance cost, and the number of licensed external asset managers had fallen to 1’309 by late 2025. Any list assembled before that transition is now partly out of date. That is why each entry below has a date.
How we built this list
Four steps, all of which you can repeat yourself.
- We took the four FINMA lists named above on 12 November 2026 and searched every registered name for the words family office.
- We read what each of those firms publishes about itself, and recorded whether the firm uses the term multi family office in its own words.
- We added the firms that are clearly multi family offices but carry no such words in their registered name, found through Swiss trade press and the firms’ own sites, and looked each one up in the same four registers to establish the exact legal name, the domicile and the licence type.
- We removed single family offices, and firms whose register entry shows that they are in liquidation.
This list does not rank the firms and does not publish assets under management. Swiss multi family offices are not required to disclose their assets, the figures that circulate are mostly self-reported and mostly unaudited, and a number nobody can check is worse than no number.
The firms with “Family Office” in their FINMA-registered name
There are 40 of them: 37 in the register of portfolio managers and trustees, and three more that are registered as domestic group companies under the Financial Institutions Act. We do not reproduce the register entries here. Anyone can find them in FINMA’s public register by searching for the words family office. What matters is how they break down.
| Type of licence | Firms |
|---|---|
| Portfolio manager | 32 |
| Trustee | 4 |
| Portfolio manager and trustee | 1 |
| Group company under the Financial Institutions Act | 3 |
| Total | 40 |
Of the 37 firms monitored by one of the supervisory organisations, 21 are supervised by AOOS, 12 by OSFINcontrol, 2 by SO-FIT and 2 by OSIF. Almost all of them are small: the name describes a service the firm offers, not a size.
Zurich has the most, and Ticino has as many as Geneva
Reporting on Swiss family offices focuses almost entirely on Zurich and Geneva. The register shows something different: Ticino has as many licensed firms whose registered name includes the words Family Office as the canton of Geneva, and more than half of them sit in or around Lugano. The commercial databases, which count self-description rather than licences, put Geneva ahead of Zurich and barely mention Ticino at all.
| Canton | Firms | Where they sit |
|---|---|---|
| Zurich | 12 | Zürich 9, Küsnacht 2, Erlenbach 1 |
| Geneva | 11 | Genève 10, Versoix 1 |
| Ticino | 11 | Lugano 7, Locarno, Breganzona, Corteglia, Paradiso |
| Zug | 3 | Zug, Cham, Baar |
| Schwyz | 1 | Wollerau |
| Lucerne | 1 | Luzern |
| Bern | 1 | Bern |
The registered name does not tell you the business model
We read the public pages of firms whose registered name includes these words. Only a minority use the term multi family office about themselves. Ness Family Office SA in Geneva, founded in 2012, calls itself an independent multi family office and states that it is regulated by FINMA. Fairway Family Office AG in Zurich describes itself as a regulated multi family office and lists structuring, succession, real estate, philanthropy and legal work alongside investments.
The others mostly do not. 3T Family Office SA in Geneva, founded in 2011, points to its membership of a self-regulatory body rather than to a family office model. Black Oak Family Office SA in Geneva presents itself simply as a family office. IFO International Family Office SA in Lugano, founded in 2008, treats family office work as one of three service lines and states that it is authorised by FINMA. Essentia Family Office SA in Lugano describes itself as a competence centre for the organisational needs of families. Trigon Family Office AG presents itself as a family office in Zurich, covering asset management, succession, tax, legal work and family governance. Eurotrust Family Office AG, registered in Zurich as a trustee, speaks of multi-client family office experience and sells family office work next to tax, fiduciary and corporate finance services. TFO The Family Office AG, despite the name, describes itself as an independent specialist for all asset matters, works out of Bern and Zurich, and is licensed as an asset manager.
None of that is improper. It simply means the register name cannot be used as a shortcut. If you are screening firms, the words in the company name tell you what the founders chose to call the company, and nothing more.
The multi family office firms whose company name does not include these words
These are the firms a Swiss private banker would name if you asked which multi family offices actually compete for large family mandates. None of these firms uses the words family office in its registered name. Several of them hold a heavier licence than the firms counted above, because they put client families into collective vehicles rather than only running individual mandates.
| Firm | Domicile | FINMA licence |
|---|---|---|
| Verium AG | Zürich | Manager of collective assets |
| Belvoir Capital AG | Zürich | Manager of collective assets |
| Corecam AG | Zürich | Manager of collective assets |
| 1875 Finance SA | Genève | Manager of collective assets |
| CRESCENDO CAPITAL SA | Genève | Manager of collective assets |
| Freemont Management SA | Lutry | Manager of collective assets |
| Bedrock SA | Genève | Portfolio manager |
| HBS SA | Genève | Portfolio manager |
| FINAD AG | Zürich | Portfolio manager |
| Helvetic Trust AG | Zürich | Portfolio manager |
| Kaiser Partner Financial Advisors AG | Zürich | Portfolio manager |
Verium AG, Zurich
Verium describes itself in its own words as an independent multi family office based in Zurich. It is led by its partners and holds the manager of collective assets licence, which is the licence a firm needs once it runs pooled investment vehicles for its clients rather than only individual mandates. Of the firms on this list it is the clearest example of the pure model: no bank behind it, no in-house products of its own to sell, and the term multi family office used without qualification.
Belvoir Capital AG, Zurich
Belvoir uses the line “Your Multi Family Office” on its own front page, runs its head office in Zurich with branches in Lugano and Lausanne, and states that it is backed by a family-owned banking group. The group is PKB, which is owned by the Trabaldo Togna family and took a majority stake in Belvoir in January 2024. Belvoir was founded in 2004 and holds the manager of collective assets licence. For a buyer the relevant question is the one that follows from any bank ownership: whether the advice stays open across all custodian banks, or moves towards the parent company.
1875 Finance SA, Geneva
The largest of the independent Geneva houses on this list by disclosed assets. It was founded in 2006 by five private bankers, and the name refers to a Geneva wealth management tradition that goes back to 1875. The firm reports more than CHF 13 billion under management, runs offices in Geneva, Zurich and Luxembourg, and sold a 40 per cent minority stake to the REYL group in 2022. Its chairman has described the multi family office role as a kind of super chief financial officer for the family, which is the most accurate short definition of the job we have seen from a practitioner. It holds the manager of collective assets licence.
Bedrock SA, Geneva
Bedrock calls itself an award-winning multi family office and dates itself to 2004. It works from Geneva, London and Monaco, manages roughly CHF 7 billion, and states plainly that it serves a deliberately small number of families and institutions. It holds the portfolio manager licence rather than the collective assets licence.
HBS SA, Geneva
HBS describes itself as an independent multi family office in Geneva and is registered as a portfolio manager. It is one of the smaller Geneva houses, and one of the few that uses the term without qualifying it.
Helvetic Trust AG, Zurich
Helvetic Trust states that it acts as a multi family office, calls itself owner-managed and financially independent, and lists offices in Zurich, Bern, Geneva and London. It is registered as a portfolio manager. Despite the name, it is not registered as a trustee.
FINAD AG, Zurich
FINAD dates its founding to 1976, which makes it one of the oldest firms in this field in Switzerland, and it works from Zurich, Vienna and Hamburg. It remains wholly owned by its managing partners. Interestingly, its own family office page sells family office services without once using the term multi family office. The trade press uses the term for it more readily than the firm does itself.
Kaiser Partner Financial Advisors AG, Zurich
Part of a family-owned group that combines a licensed private bank, a wealth advisory arm and a separate reporting and controlling specialist, and that runs its multi family office as a distinct unit on an open architecture basis. The Swiss advisory entity is registered as a portfolio manager. This is the structure to study if you want to understand how a group can own a bank and still sell independent advice: the functions sit in different legal entities, and you should know which one signs your mandate.
Corecam AG, Freemont Management SA and CRESCENDO CAPITAL SA
Three smaller houses that all hold the manager of collective assets licence, in Zurich, Lutry and Geneva respectively. Crescendo is a Geneva house and is independently owned. Freemont works from Lutry, on Lake Geneva. All three are regularly described as multi family offices in third-party directories, and all three put clients into collective vehicles, which is what the licence implies.
Often listed as multi family offices, but they are not
Every commercial list of Swiss multi family offices we checked contains firms that should not be on such a list. Five examples, all of which can be settled from public sources.
Calibrium AG, Zurich
A single family office. It was founded in 2006, renamed from Aeris Capital in 2017, and acts as the investment office for the family of the late SAP co-founder Klaus Tschira. It holds the manager of collective assets licence, which is why it appears in a FINMA register at all, and databases that read only the licence routinely file it under multi family office.
Horizon21 AG, Zurich and Pfäffikon
Also a single family office. It was founded in 2004 to serve its founder, Rainer-Marc Frey, and his family, and it holds the manager of collective assets licence. It does not take on unrelated families.
HNW Family Office AG, Erlenbach
The clearest illustration of the naming problem. Its registered name includes the words Family Office and it holds the portfolio manager licence, so it is among the 40 counted above. It is a single family office connected to the Swarovski family, not a firm that takes on new clients.
Julius Bär Family Office & Trust AG, Zurich
Registered as a trustee, and part of a bank. It is among the 40 counted above, but a family office unit inside a private bank is a different proposition from an independent multi family office, and should be assessed as a bank service.
Clarus Capital Group AG, Zurich
Still listed as a Zurich multi family office by several directories. FINMA’s public register shows the company in liquidation. This is the best argument for checking the official register rather than a commercial directory: the register shows the liquidation, the directories do not.
What the licence type tells you
Once you know which licence a firm holds, you know a great deal about how it earns its money.
- Portfolio manager. The firm manages individual client assets under a mandate. The assets stay at a custodian bank of your choosing. This is the licence of the classic independent wealth manager and of most of the smaller firms with Family Office in their name.
- Manager of collective assets. The firm runs collective vehicles, which means it can pool several families into one fund or one private market structure. The capital and organisational requirements are higher. If a multi family office offers you its own funds or club deals, this is the licence you should expect to find.
- Trustee. The firm can hold assets in trust. Useful for succession across jurisdictions, and a different business from managing a portfolio.
- Bank or securities firm. The firm can hold your custody and lend against your assets. It also earns money from its own balance sheet, which is the structural conflict that makes families look at independent offices in the first place.
- No licence. Normal and correct for an office that only consolidates, reports, negotiates and coordinates advisers, and never touches a discretionary mandate.
How to check a Swiss family office yourself in five minutes
- Take the exact legal name from the firm’s legal notices page, not the brand name shown on the homepage. The two are often different.
- Look the name up in Zefix, the federal commercial register index, for the legal form, the domicile, the identification number and the officers.
- Search that exact name in the FINMA register of authorised institutions. The lists of portfolio managers and trustees, of banks and securities firms, and of fund managements and managers of collective assets are all published as downloadable files.
- Note the licence type and the supervisory organisation. Then check whether the entry has an addition such as “in Liquidation”.
- Ask the firm which legal entity will sign your mandate, and look that entity up too. Groups often market under one brand name and sign contracts through a different legal entity.
If a firm cannot answer the last question in one sentence, treat that as a warning sign.
Multi family office, single family office or independent wealth manager
A single family office exists for one family, is paid by that family, and has no other client to balance. It is the right answer at a size where the family can carry the fixed cost of its own staff, which in practice starts in the high hundreds of millions. Our list of Swiss single family offices covers that group, and a separate piece explains why they are so hard to find.
A multi family office spreads that fixed cost across several families, which is why it becomes available far lower down, and why the mandate looks more like a service contract than an employment relationship. An independent wealth manager overlaps heavily with it: the honest distinction is that a wealth manager is primarily paid to run the portfolio, while a multi family office is paid to run everything around the portfolio as well, and often does not manage the money itself at all. We compare the two in family office versus independent wealth manager, and set both against the bank option in private bank, external asset manager or family office.
What to ask before you sign
- Which legal entity signs the mandate, and what licence does that entity hold?
- Who owns the firm, and has that changed in the last five years?
- How are you paid in total: the flat fee, plus anything received from banks, funds or product providers?
- Which custodian banks do you work with, and do you receive anything from them?
- Do you run your own funds or co-investments, and how is the conflict handled when you place clients into them?
- How many families does the person in front of me look after?
- What happens to my mandate if that person leaves?
- What is the smallest relationship you currently serve, and the largest?
The fee question is the one most families ask last and should ask first. Our note on minimum investment levels in Swiss independent wealth management sets out what the market expects at different sizes.
Frequently asked questions
There is no official count, because Switzerland does not register family offices. Forty firms licensed by FINMA carry the words Family Office in their registered name, as of 12 November 2026, but not all of them are multi family offices and many genuine multi family offices are not among them. Commercial databases claim figures around 187, counting self-description rather than licences.
It depends on what the office does. Managing client assets under a mandate requires a portfolio manager licence, running collective vehicles requires a manager of collective assets licence, and holding assets in trust requires a trustee licence. An office that only consolidates, reports and coordinates advisers needs no licence at all.
No. There is no legal definition of a family office in Swiss law and no restriction on using the words in a company name or on a website. Swiss financial regulation attaches to activities, not to labels.
A single family office serves one family and is paid by that family alone. A multi family office serves several unrelated families and spreads its fixed costs across them, which makes it accessible at a much lower level of wealth but introduces the need to balance one client against another.
Of the 40 licensed firms with Family Office in their registered name, 12 are domiciled in the canton of Zurich, 11 in the canton of Geneva and 11 in Ticino, with the rest spread across Zug, Schwyz, Lucerne and Bern. Ticino is consistently under-reported in family office coverage of Switzerland.
Method, corrections and related reading
All register figures in this article were read from FINMA’s published lists of authorised institutions on 12 November 2026, the date those lists were last updated, and all company descriptions come from the firms’ own published pages or from Swiss trade press. We update this list when the register changes. If you work at one of these firms and something here is wrong, or if your firm belongs on the list and is missing, write to our editorial team and we will correct it with the next update.
Read also: our Swiss single family office list, the overview of private equity firms in Switzerland that family offices invest alongside, the count of licensed wealth managers by canton, and the quarterly review of Swiss independent wealth managers. If you are considering this industry as a career rather than as a client, start with building a career in Swiss wealth management and the figures in what independent wealth managers earn.
Source: https://vapa.ch/multi-family-office-list-switzerland/ · vapa.ch
