Legal entities

You want to use AGOV to act on behalf of a company, association or another organisation.

At a glance

Legal entities and other organisations act through natural persons.

Each AGOV account represents exactly one natural person.

From 2027, the AGOV Business Account is intended for business or organisational use.

A Business Account remains a personal account and is not an account of the organisation.

The business email domain is permanently linked to the Business Account.

Organisational affiliation, roles, powers of representation and signing authority are not confirmed by AGOV.

Anyone acting for several independent organisations should use separate Business Accounts.

Shared Use can be declared for a Business Account; this declaration is neither an approval nor proof of authorisation for shared use.

Explanations

Organisations act towards digital government services through natural persons. Therefore, an AGOV account used for business purposes also always represents exactly one natural person.

From 2027, an AGOV account can be declared as a Business Account (agov.ch/biz). A business email address is used for this purpose. Once setup has been completed successfully, the entire email domain is permanently linked to this Business Account.

Example:

person@company.ch
→ Business Email Domain: company.ch

The specific email address can subsequently be changed within the same domain but must then be verified again. An existing Business Account cannot be switched to another email domain. A new Business Account must be used for a new business context or a different organisation.

Receipt at the business email address is verified during onboarding and at least once a year thereafter. During a login, target applications may require a more recent receipt verification.

The Business Account does not confirm that the account holder is employed by the organisation concerned or is authorised to act on its behalf. Nor does it confirm any role, deputy arrangement, power of representation or signing authority. These relationships and authorisations are determined by the relevant target systems or their authorisation management.

A Business Account can be declared with shared_use=true as potentially being used jointly. This does not change the fact that the AGOV account continues to represent the natural person in whose name the account is registered. The Shared Use declaration is neither an approval of shared use nor a determination of which person actually carries out a specific transaction.

AGOV does not provide a function for transferring the identity of an existing AGOV account from one natural person to another. A change of person or organisation is therefore generally handled by creating a new, appropriately configured account and adjusting the authorisations in the relevant target applications.

For private use, we recommend a separate private AGOV account with a private email address that can preferably be used on a long-term basis.