Company and commercial law: SA, Sagl, gerenti and procuratori

Società anonima and società per azioni

The Swiss company limited by shares is called Aktiengesellschaft in German, société anonyme in French and società anonima in Italian. The Italian term follows the French model and the usage of the Italian Codice di commercio of 1882, which also spoke of the società anonima. When Italy adopted the unified Codice civile in 1942, it replaced this term with società per azioni (SpA), defined in Art. 2325 c.c. as the company for whose obligations only the company answers with its assets.¹ Swiss law kept the older term, so that a Ticinese company carries the suffix "SA" while its Italian counterpart is an "SpA". For an Italian reader "società anonima" sounds archaic and, to some, slightly opaque, because the word anonima evokes anonymity. The Swiss name says nothing about the anonymity of the shareholders, who since the reforms of 2015 and 2019 must in any event be recorded in a register of shareholders and of beneficial owners kept by the company.²

The two forms differ in more than their name. The Swiss SA requires a minimum share capital of CHF 100,000, of which at least CHF 50,000 must be paid in. The nominal value of a share need only be greater than zero. The Italian SpA requires a minimum capital of EUR 50,000, a figure introduced by Decree-Law No. 91 of 24 June 2014 in place of the EUR 120,000 required since 2004.³ Both are founded by public deed before a notary and acquire legal personality through registration. The governance structures, however, diverge. The Swiss SA has a general meeting (assemblea generale), a board of directors (consiglio d'amministrazione) and, unless it opts out under the conditions of the law, an external auditor (ufficio di revisione). The Italian SpA chooses between three models of governance, of which the traditional model combines a board of directors with a collegio sindacale of statutory auditors who supervise the legality of management, while the external audit is entrusted to a revisore legale or an audit firm.⁴ The Swiss ufficio di revisione corresponds to the Italian revisore legale, and Swiss law has no sindaci.

Società a garanzia limitata and società a responsabilità limitata

The limited liability company illustrates the divergence even more clearly. Swiss law calls it società a garanzia limitata (Sagl), a term that renders the German Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung through the idea of a limited guarantee. Italian law calls the corresponding form società a responsabilità limitata (Srl), which is the literal rendering of the German term. The Swiss Sagl requires a share capital of at least CHF 20,000, which must be fully paid in, and is governed by Art. 772 to 827 CO.⁵ The Italian Srl requires a capital of EUR 10,000 as a rule, but since Law No. 99 of 9 August 2013 the founders may fix a lower capital of at least one euro, which must then be fully paid in cash and accompanied by the obligation to build up a reserve.⁶ The Italian simplified Srl therefore has no Swiss counterpart. An Italian entrepreneur who expects to found a Ticinese company with one franc of capital will be disappointed.

The management of the Sagl uses a term that has no technical meaning in Italian company law. Under Art. 809 CO the members manage the company jointly unless the articles provide otherwise. The persons entrusted with management are called gerenti. Each gerente is authorized to represent the company.⁷ In the Italian Srl the managers are the amministratori, who may form a board (consiglio di amministrazione) or act as sole administrator (amministratore unico). In everyday Italian a gerente is the manager of a shop, a bar or a petrol station, usually a person who runs a business that belongs to someone else. An Italian client who is told that he will be gerente of his Ticinese Sagl may therefore underestimate the position, which in Swiss law carries the full duties of care and loyalty of an organ and the liability that goes with them. The confusion also runs the other way. A comparative article on an Italian tax portal, which otherwise explains the differences between the Sagl and the Srl correctly, lists a consiglio di amministrazione among the organs of the Sagl, transposing the vocabulary of the SA and of the Italian Srl onto a Swiss form whose statute speaks of gestione and gerenti.⁸

Notes

1. Codice di commercio of 31 October 1882, Art. 76 ff. (società anonima). Art. 2325(1) c.c.: "Nella società per azioni per le obbligazioni sociali risponde soltanto la società con il suo patrimonio", Brocardi.it, "Art. 2325 Codice civile – Responsabilità", https://www.brocardi.it/codice-civile/libro-quinto/titolo-v/capo-v/sezione-i/art2325.html. On the liability rule of the Srl, which Art. 2462 c.c. formulates in the same way, see Brocardi.it, "Art. 2462 Codice civile", https://www.brocardi.it/codice-civile/libro-quinto/titolo-v/capo-vii/sezione-i/ art2462.html. ↩
2. CO, Art. 697j, with the footnote to the official text: inserted by no. I 2 of the Federal Act of 12 December 2014 on the Implementation of the Revised Recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (AS 2015 1389) and amended by no. I 1 of the Federal Act of 21 June 2019 on the Implementation of Recommendations of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (AS 2019 3161), in force since 1 November 2019 according to the French version of the footnote, https://www.droit-bilingue.ch/fr-it/2/22/220-697j-985.html. See Chapter G.IV. ↩
3. State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), KMU-Portal, Confronto delle forme giuridiche (2023), https://www.kmu.admin.ch/dam/kmu/it/dokumente/savoir-pratique/formes-juridiques/ rechtsformenvergleich-tabelle.pdf.download.pdf/ITAL_2023_Rechtsformenvergleich.pdf (SA: CHF 100,000, of which CHF 50,000 paid in; nominal value of a share greater than zero); Brocardi.it, "Art. 2327 Codice civile – Ammontare minimo del capitale", https://www.brocardi.it/codice-civile/libro-quinto/titolo-v/capo-v/sezione-i/art2327.html (EUR 50,000 since D.L. 91/2014, converted by Law 116/2014; previously EUR 120,000). ↩
4. KMU-Portal, Confronto delle forme giuridiche (above). The three governance models of the SpA (traditional, dualistic and monistic) are regulated in Art. 2380 ff., 2409-octies ff. and 2409-sexiesdecies ff. c.c., the collegio sindacale in Art. 2397 ff. c.c., see Brocardi.it, Codice civile, Libro V, Titolo V, Capo V, Sezione VI-bis, "Dell'amministrazione e del controllo", https://www.brocardi.it/codice-civile/libro-quinto/titolo-v/capo-v/sezione-vi-bis/. ↩
5. KMU-Portal, Confronto delle forme giuridiche (above) (Sagl: CHF 20,000; Art. 772–827 CO; public deed and entry in the commercial register); KMU-Portal, "Forma giuridica: società a garanzia limitata (Sagl)", https://www.kmu.admin.ch/it/forma-giuridica-societa-a-garanzia-limitata-sagl (capital to be fully paid in, Art. 774 CO). ↩
6. Brocardi.it, "Art. 2463 Codice civile – Costituzione", https://www.brocardi.it/codice-civile/libro-quinto/titolo-v/capo-vii/sezione-i/art2463.html (EUR 10,000; lower capital of at least EUR 1 under the amendment by Law No. 99/2013, with full payment in cash and a reserve obligation). ↩
7. KMU-Portal, "Forma giuridica: società a garanzia limitata (Sagl)" (above), quoting Art. 809 CO: "I soci esercitano in comune la gestione della società a meno che non sia diversamente disciplinato dagli statuti". ↩
8. Federico Migliorini, "SAGL svizzera vs SRL italia", Fiscomania, 8 July 2024, https://fiscomania.com/sagl-svizzera-vs-srl-italia/. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of October 2026.