The Ticino Fiduciary Act: a cantonal licence for a whole profession

The law of 1984

The Grand Council of the Canton of Ticino adopted the Law on the Exercise of the Fiduciary Professions (Legge sull'esercizio delle professioni di fiduciario, LFid) on 18 June 1984. It entered into force on 1 January 1985.¹ The Council of State issued the implementing regulation on 19 December 1984, which entered into force on the same day as the law. The regulation required every applicant to submit a curriculum vitae, a certificate of domicile, an extract from the criminal record, a certificate that no insolvency proceedings were pending, evidence of education and of professional practice, and proof of civil liability cover. The minimum cover was CHF 1 million by insurance or CHF 300,000 by bond for a financial fiduciary, and CHF 500,000 by insurance or CHF 100,000 by bond for a commercial or real estate fiduciary.² Applications were lodged with the Department of Institutions and decided by the Council of State.

The law was the first of its kind in Switzerland and has remained the only one. When the Grand Council revised it in 2021, the parliamentary debate described it as a law unique to Ticino, adopted in 1985 and governing a profession that every other canton leaves to the market and to federal law.³ Its premise was that the clients of fiduciari, many of them Italian residents who could not easily verify the background of the person to whom they entrusted their affairs, needed the protection of a public licence. The law therefore tied the right to practise to the person of the fiduciario, required proof of education and experience and of an irreproachable reputation, and created a cantonal authority to supervise the profession and to discipline its members.

The revision of 2009 and the Federal Court

By the early 2000s the law needed renewal. The Council of State submitted a comprehensive revision in Message No. 5896 of 6 March 2007, supplemented by a further message. The Grand Council adopted the new law on 1 December 2009.⁴ Its entry into force was delayed by an action for abstract review of the law brought before the Federal Supreme Court. In its judgment 2C_204/2010 of 24 November 2011 the Court annulled three provisions and upheld the rest. It struck down Article 7 letter d, because the exception for lawyers did not exclude all activities covered by the federal Free Movement of Lawyers Act and therefore subjected lawyers to additional cantonal rules contrary to the primacy of federal law (Art. 49 of the Federal Constitution). It annulled Article 17 paragraph 1, which required an annual audit of every fiduciario by an independent auditor, because the duty was unlimited in scope, duplicated the supervision of the cantonal authority and was not justified by a sufficient public interest. It also annulled the second sentence of Article 14 letter a, which required written consent for investments in collective investment schemes, because federal civil law prescribes no special form for the contract of mandate (Art. 122 Cst.).⁵

The Court upheld the core of the law. The requirement of a recognized diploma combined with two years of professional practice in Switzerland pursued a legitimate public interest and was proportionate. The revised law entered into force on 1 July 2012.⁶ Ten years later, when a professional association asked the Grand Council to admit applicants with ten years' practice but without a diploma, the Commission on the Constitution and Laws refused, citing the same judgment and its holding that practice alone did not sufficiently guarantee the public interest.⁷

Notes

1. Commissione Costituzione e leggi, Rapporto 7753 R of 5 October 2021, https://www4.ti.ch/fileadmin/POTERI/GC/allegati/rapporti/25092_7753%20R.pdf (law of 18 June 1984, in force 1 January 1985). ↩
2. Regolamento della Legge sull'esercizio delle professioni di fiduciario of 19 December 1984, in force 1 January 1985, Art. 1 and 4, as published on LexFind, https://www.lexfind.ch/tolv/115728/it. ↩
3. Andrea Manna, "Revisione della LFid approvata", laRegione, 18 October 2021, https://www.laregione.ch/1542447. ↩
4. Commissione Costituzione e leggi, Rapporto 7753 R (above), referring to Messages 5896 and 5896A. ↩
5. Federal Supreme Court, judgment 2C_204/2010 of 24 November 2011, summary at https://app.omnilex.ai/de/sources/court-decision/ch-bger--2c-204-2010/2c2042010. ↩
6. Legge sull'esercizio delle professioni di fiduciario (LFid) of 1 December 2009, RL 11.1.4.1, version in force from 1 July 2012, https://www.lexfind.ch/tolv/103359/it. ↩
7. Commissione Costituzione e leggi, Rapporto 7753 R (above), rejecting the request of an association of fiduciaries for an exemption based on ten years' practice. ↩

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 August 2025.