Building land prices, Canton of Zurich 2026: what is land worth?

Anyone who bought residential building land in the canton between 2021 and 2025 paid CHF 1,742 per square metre in the middle.¹ That is the median of 1,362 sales: half were above, half below. A quarter of sales were below CHF 900, a quarter above CHF 2,896.¹

In 2011 to 2015, the same figure was CHF 800.¹ So the price more than doubled in ten years. The office groups five years together for this. The reason: far less undeveloped land is sold today than in the past.²

Only freely negotiated sales of building land in residential and mixed zones count.² Inheritances, gifts and forced sales are not included. A house also counts as building land if a new residential building replaces it within three years of the sale.²

What this means for you: CHF 1,742 is the figure for the whole canton. Your municipality can be far above or below it.

In the 2025 model, a square metre of residential land costs CHF 7,836 in the City of Zurich.¹ In Flaach in the Weinland it costs CHF 435. The city is 18 times as expensive. Next come Rüschlikon at CHF 6,690, Herrliberg at CHF 5,582 and Zollikon at CHF 5,133. At the lower end, besides Flaach, are Berg am Irchel at CHF 463 and Bauma at CHF 471.

A cantonal study named travel time to Zurich as the most important price factor. It analysed about 7,900 sales of residential land from 2006 to 2015.⁴ Other factors were the tax rate, proximity to Lake Zurich and the view. Jobs, schools, shops, public transport and noise also played a role.⁴

In 2025, 19 municipalities are at CHF 3,000 or more, and 48 are below CHF 1,000.¹

What this means for you: with building land, location matters even more than with a finished house. You can find your municipality in the table.

In Rüschlikon, the model price rose from CHF 2,417 in 2015 to CHF 6,690 in 2025, an increase of 176.8 per cent.¹ Next come the City of Zurich at 155.2 per cent and Uetikon am See at 151.8 per cent. Wettswil am Albis, Herrliberg, Kilchberg, Opfikon and Wetzikon follow, all above 120 per cent.

In 17 of the 160 municipalities, the price at least doubled in ten years. It fell in none of them. The smallest rise was in Flaach at 7.4 per cent. Hüttikon followed at 10.8 per cent and Buch am Irchel at 12.3 per cent.¹

Over twenty years the gap is even wider. In the model, building land in Rüschlikon now costs 6.6 times as much as in 2005, in Flaach 11 per cent more.¹

What this means for you: if you bought your plot decades ago, you are often sitting on a large gain. That is good news, but it has consequences for tax when you sell.

The model price is the canton’s estimate of the average price level in a municipality.² The model takes the smoothed price trend of the whole canton. It then estimates, for each municipality, how much faster or slower prices grow there.² This gives a figure even for small municipalities with few sales.

What the model price is not: the price of your plot. Two plots in the same municipality can differ many times over. What counts is the location within the village or town, the zone and the permitted floor area. Then come the shape of the plot and its servicing, meaning road access, water and power.

That is why the table also shows a range. The middle half of the model prices lies within it. In Uster, that is CHF 1,567 to CHF 3,107.¹

What this means for you: the municipal figure is a starting point, not a price tag. For your plot, the zone, the building regulations and the floor area ratio matter.

The canton publishes no official percentage for the share of land in a house’s value. Anyone who quotes you a fixed percentage is therefore estimating.

Only the formula for the tax value is official. For a detached house, it is land value plus depreciated building value.⁵ The depreciated building value is the new-build value minus a reduction for age. It is 1 per cent a year, and under the 2026 directive at most 40 per cent.⁵ For condominiums, the share of the land counts.⁵

This gives a rule of thumb, not an official figure. The building loses tax value every year until the limit is reached. Land has become more expensive in every Zurich municipality over the last ten years.¹ For an older house, the land therefore usually makes up a growing part of the value.

What this means for you: the tax value is not the market value. For an honest figure, you need a valuation of house and land.

The last column shows the median purchase price of a detached house in 2025, divided by the area of its plot.³ The house is included. The canton only publishes this figure where there were at least 15 sales.³ That is why it appears for 52 municipalities.

In Uster, a detached house cost a median CHF 3,635 per square metre of plot.³ The building land model there is CHF 2,203.¹ In the City of Zurich it is the other way round: CHF 6,996 for the house, CHF 7,836 for the building land.

This shows you that the two figures come from different sales and are calculated differently. You must not subtract one from the other to get the value of your house. The figure helps to compare municipalities. It shows what a detached house there typically costs per square metre of land.

What this means for you: the figure places your municipality. For your house, its condition, living space and position on the plot count.

Suppose a detached house from the 1960s stands on 1,200 square metres. The zone now allows considerably more living space. For a developer, the house is then mainly a cost, because demolition costs money. The developer calculates with the land.

The canton’s statistics reflect exactly this. If a house that was sold is replaced by a new residential building within three years, the sale counts retroactively as building land.² According to the office, such replacement pays off mainly in expensive locations.²

There is no fixed threshold for when this pays off. But the principle is clear. The higher the land value compared with the old house, the more likely it becomes a demolition property. Two kinds of buyers then come into question: families who renovate and developers who build new.

What this means for you: before advertising, find out what your plot allows. Only then do you know whom to approach.

First, the value capture levy on the gain from a zoning change, in force since 2021. Was your land newly zoned for building? You owe the canton 20 per cent of the added value, from CHF 30,000.⁶ It falls due on sale or on building.⁶

With an upzoning or change of zone, the municipality can levy at most 40 per cent, after deducting CHF 100,000.⁶ Only if it has decided to, and usually only from a plot size of 1,200 to 2,000 m².⁶ The sale alone triggers nothing; the duty passes to the buyer.⁷ More on the value capture levy.

Then property gains tax. The tariff runs from 10 to 40 per cent.⁸ It falls by 5 per cent after five full years, by 50 per cent after 20.⁸ Bought over 20 years ago? You may use the market value of 20 years ago.⁸ A levy you have paid reduces the gain.⁸

What this means for you: work out your tax before you name a price.