The imputed rental value ends in 2029 – sell sooner or later?

Today, if you live in your own home rather than renting it out, you must declare a notional rental income as tax. This is the imputed rental value (Eigenmietwert). That changes on 1 January 2029. Voters approved the constitutional amendment behind it in September 2025. The Federal Council fixed the date at its meeting on 1 April 2026.² From that day, the imputed rental value is no longer taxed at all. This applies to a main home and to a self-used holiday home alike.⁴

In exchange, the general maintenance deduction for a home you live in yourself disappears too. The deduction for mortgage interest changes as well; the next section covers that. Property gains tax, the tax on your profit from a sale, is not touched by this reform.⁷

What this means for you: nothing changes on your tax return before 2029. After that, look at your own figures. How much imputed rental value do you declare today? How high are your maintenance costs and your mortgage interest?

Only for the home you live in yourself. If you let out a second flat, the maintenance deduction stays. At federal level, though, deductions for energy saving, environmental protection and demolition fall away there too.⁴ The deduction for heritage conservation work (Denkmalpflege) also survives. At federal level it still covers every home in private ownership. This applies whether you live there or let it out. At cantonal level it stays optional, just as it is today.⁴

Deductions for energy-saving and environmental work disappear from direct federal tax. Cantons may keep them for their own tax. The limit: at most until a balanced greenhouse-gas budget is reached, and no later than 2050.⁴ Zurich’s cantonal government currently considers this «not appropriate». It will reassess once federal rules on eligible costs exist.¹¹

What this means for you: only someone who lives in their own home entirely loses the maintenance deduction. For a let property, little changes. And heritage conservation stays deductible at federal level for every home.

Today you may deduct private mortgage interest up to your taxable investment income, plus a further CHF 50,000.⁶ From 2029, a new rule applies. Mortgage interest is only deductible in proportion. The share is based on your let or otherwise not self-used property in Switzerland, against your total assets.⁴ For a couple who own only their own, paid-off home, the effect is small: little to deduct, but also little interest to pay.

There is an offsetting rule for your children. Anyone buying a self-used home in Switzerland for the first time gets an extra deduction. In the first year after the purchase, they may deduct up to CHF 10,000 as a couple, or CHF 5,000 alone. The amount then falls, step by step, to zero over ten years.⁴

What this means for you: the smaller your mortgage, the smaller this change feels. If your children are buying their first home, this new deduction is worth a look.

No official source answers that in general terms.¹ The tax due on a sale itself, property gains tax on your profit, stays the same in substance.⁷ So the reform is not, on its own, a tax reason to sell or to wait.

For your tax until then, here is what the tax office itself says. At low mortgage rates, those who have largely paid off their mortgage gain the most. That is typically retirees.¹ Above roughly 3 per cent, the picture reverses: higher tax becomes more likely.¹

What this means for you: plan a sale, or staying, around your own life. Not around the date 2029. No reform tells you where prices will go; no official source says that either. For the bigger question, the home check: keep, adapt or sell can help, whatever the imputed rental value does.

It depends mainly on one figure: your mortgage. If your house is paid off, the imputed rental value ends in 2029, and you lose no interest deduction. In a year without major renovation, you then declare less income than today.⁴ This is the group the Federal Tax Administration names: typically retirees.¹

With a mortgage, it is different. From 2029, interest is only deductible in proportion to let property. If your own home is all you own, almost nothing is left.⁴ If interest and maintenance exceed your imputed rental value, you are likely to pay more tax than today. The first-time buyer deduction only covers first purchases from 2019. Sell, and you lose it, unless you buy another home to live in within a reasonable period.⁴

What this means for you: tax alone rarely decides. The rules of property gains tax do not change with the abolition.⁷ What counts is your life plan, what remains after that tax, and the timing.

There is no official answer, and the experts disagree. Three assessments date from September 2025, before the start date was decided. The UBS investment office expected «slightly higher prices», around 2 to 3 per cent overall in the coming years. Rising interest rates would quickly offset that, according to UBS.¹²

Wüest Partner calculated an average federal tax relief of around CHF 500 per household, a moderate effect.¹³ The valuation institute IAZI remained sceptical: house prices would hardly get a significant extra boost, in its view.¹³ UBS, too, saw interest rates as more important than the reform.¹² I am not making a forecast of my own.

What this means for you: delaying a sale for a price jump after 2029 means waiting for something no one reliably predicts. What your house is worth today, on the other hand, can be established.

Until the 2028 tax year, you can still deduct maintenance costs on your self-used home as usual, with receipts or the flat rate.⁶ In Canton Zurich, this flat rate is currently 20 per cent of the imputed rental value, regardless of the age of the building.⁹ From 2029, this deduction no longer exists for a home you live in yourself.⁴

What this means for you: a larger renovation you were planning anyway is more worthwhile for tax purposes by the end of 2028 than after. In Zurich, the invoice or payment date counts, depending on your previous method. Examples are repainting the facade or refitting a bathroom to the same standard, insofar as this maintains value. Energy-saving work also belongs in this period: at federal level this deduction ends for certain,⁴ and Zurich’s government currently opposes keeping it.¹¹ Only the federal heritage conservation deduction surely remains.

Check with your tax office or trustee (Treuhänderin) whether bringing work forward pays off. No official source gives a general figure.