Switzerland

National jurisdiction · as of 2026-09-06

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Switzerland's age-classification and age-verification statute for film and video game content is the Federal Act on the Protection of Minors in Film and Video Games (JSFVG), SR 446.2, passed 30 September 2022.

Only part of the Act has been brought into force: the definitions, scope, and the mechanism for declaring an industry branch's own age-classification code binding on non-member actors entered into force on 1 January 2025, but the direct provisions setting the age-labelling, content-descriptor and age-verification requirements themselves (Art. 6-8) are among those the Federal Council has not yet brought into force, and no commencement date for them has been set.

Switzerland has no adult-content-specific age-verification statute distinct from the JSFVG, no dedicated social-media minor-access restriction, and no app-store or device-level age-verification requirement.

01

Instruments on record

Federal Act on the Protection of Minors in Film and Video Games, Age Classification and Verification Regime

Enacted, not yet in force

Federal Act on the Protection of Minors in Film and Video Games (JSFVG), SR 446.2, Art. 1-19

Applies to private

The JSFVG applies to film and video game industry actors and to providers of platform services, in each case within their economic activity, and covers the requirements for age labelling, content descriptors and age verification (Art. 4 lit. a), measures applying to platform services on which users upload and retrieve films or video games (Art. 4 lit. b), and the process for declaring an industry branch's own age-classification code binding on actors who are not members of the branch organisation that wrote it (Art. 4 lit. c, 9-19).

A binding code must set at least five age tiers, with the highest reserved for adults, and must cover age-labelling and age-verification rules. The Federal Assembly passed the Act on 30 September 2022.

Only Articles 1-5, 9-13, 15-19, 29, 32, 37-39 and 41, covering the definitions, scope, and the branch-code binding-declaration mechanism, entered into force on 1 January 2025; the remaining provisions, including Articles 6-8, which set out the age-labelling, content-descriptor and age-verification requirements directly, are left to be brought into force at a later time. The provisions this entry describes come into force on different days, and not all of them have commenced.

Enforcement bodyFederal Social Insurance Office (Bundesamt für Sozialversicherungen, BSV), which reviews an industry branch's proposed age-classification code before the Federal Council decides on declaring it binding.

Source: Full text of law