Service charges in Geneva: items, cost, statement and calculator

The Geneva lease sets out service charges alongside the rent. The tenant pays a monthly advance payment and receives an annual statement that settles the year.

This article covers three groups of questions. The first on what the landlord may charge, on the lease clause authorising it and on the payment regime chosen. The second on the amount of charges in Geneva and on how each home's share is calculated.

The third on the statement, its verification, the tenant's remedies and moving out. The service charge calculator below places an advance payment within the usual Geneva range.

What are service charges?

Service charges are the expenses the landlord bears for the use of the home and rebills to the tenant. The Code of Obligations (CO) calls this home the leased object and treats these as ancillary costs.

Article 257a paragraph 1 CO defines them as consideration for services provided by the landlord or a third party in connection with the use of the object. Article 257b paragraph 1 CO defines them for dwellings, covering the landlord's actual expenses for heating, hot water, other operating costs and public charges resulting from the use of the object.

The rent follows a different logic. It remunerates the mere transfer of use (art. 257 CO), at a price that stays stable between two formal changes.

Ancillary costs reimburse real expenses: their amount varies from one year to the next and is settled through a statement. A Geneva tenant pays two separate lines, a net rent and charges.

Outside the scope of articles 257a and 257b CO are expenses the tenant orders and settles directly with the supplier, such as their electricity subscription, which remains a consumption cost (judgment 4A_305/2022 of the Federal Supreme Court, consid. 4.1.2). Geneva leases most often provide that heating and hot water are billed in addition to the rent. Other operating costs are added only if the clause names them (ASLOCA Geneva, the tenants' defence association).

What costs can the landlord charge the tenant?

The costs the landlord can charge the tenant are only the recurring expenses generated by occupation of the building; anything that preserves or increases the value of the property remains the landlord's own cost.

What the law says (art. 257b para. 1 CO): "For dwellings and commercial premises, ancillary costs mean the landlord's actual expenses for services connected with the use of the object, such as heating costs, hot water and other operating costs, as well as public charges resulting from the use of the object."

Twelve items break down according to this criterion, based on the Code of Obligations and the federal ordinance.

Item	Chargeable to the tenant	Why
Heating fuel and energy	Yes	Expense linked to use of the installation (art. 5 para. 2 let. a OBLF)
Electricity for burners and pumps	Yes	Operating consumption of the heating system (art. 5 para. 2 let. b OBLF)
Chimney sweeping, boiler cleaning, water heater descaling	Yes	Periodic operating maintenance (art. 5 para. 2 let. d and e OBLF)
Reading and billing of individual meters	Yes	Measuring each home's consumption (art. 5 para. 2 let. f OBLF)
Waste water treatment tax and road tax	Yes	Public charge resulting from use (art. 257b para. 1 CO)
Caretaking, cleaning of common areas, maintenance of the exterior	Yes, if the lease names them	Operating costs linked to use (art. 257b para. 1 CO)
Electricity for common areas, lift operation	Yes, if the lease names them	Operating costs linked to use (art. 257b para. 1 CO)
Administration of the statement	Yes, up to the usual rates	Actual billing work (art. 4 para. 3 and 5 para. 3 OBLF)
Repair, refurbishment, interest and depreciation of installations	No	Owner's investment, excluded under art. 6 OBLF
Heating of vacant homes	No, in principle	The landlord bears the cost of its empty units (art. 7 para. 1 OBLF), except for frost-protection heating
Property tax, mortgage interest, renovation	No	Charges encumbering the leased object (art. 256b CO)
Managing agent's fees, lease costs, amendments, reminders	No	No service linked to use (art. 257a para. 1 CO)

The landlord draws no profit from these items. Article 257b paragraph 1 CO covers only the landlord's actual expenses, and legal scholarship concludes that the tenant benefits from the discounts, rebates, wholesale prices and refunds granted by suppliers, per Philippe Richard's paper at the 12th Seminar on Tenancy Law, in Neuchâtel in 2002.

Administration costs for the statement are subject to a numerical limit. ASLOCA sets the usual rate at between 2 and 3% of the costs concerned and considers any rate above 4% excessive, in its article of 9 September 2024. With individual meters whose readings a specialist firm already invoices, the accepted administrative supplement falls to 1% of the heating cost.

Which lease clause makes charges due?

The clause that makes charges due is the one that names each item billed to the tenant. Article 257a paragraph 2 CO sets the rule: ancillary costs are borne by the tenant only if this has been specially agreed.

The Federal Supreme Court requires a sufficiently precise agreement, detailing the actual items. In ATF 135 III 591, consid. 4.3.1, it holds that the tenant easily understands, on signing, which items are billed on top of the rent only if the clause lists them, and that a reference to a standardised annex to the contract is not enough. In that case, the sole heading "Ancillary costs advance payment" did not amount to a special agreement.

A compliant clause lists the items: "The tenant bears, by advance payments, the costs of heating, hot water, caretaking, electricity for common areas and lift maintenance." An insufficient clause stays global: "The tenant pays a monthly charges advance payment of CHF 180.–."

This diagram sets side by side the two lease clauses cited above: the one that lists the items, and the one that settles for a global advance payment, with the consequence when the special agreement is missing.

Ancillary costs are deemed included in the rent without a compliant agreement, per ATF 121 III 460, consid. 2a/aa. The landlord then refunds the advance payments collected since the start of the lease, a position restated by ASLOCA Geneva in January 2024. The period over which this refund reaches back remains disputed in legal scholarship.

A tenant who has paid for years without objecting, not knowing that these amounts were not due, commits no abuse of right in reclaiming them, as the Federal Supreme Court held in judgment 4C.224/2006, consid. 2.4.

Advance payment or flat rate: what is the difference?

The advance payment and the flat rate are paid the same way each month, but only the advance payment carries the right to an annual statement and to a refund of any overpayment.

The flat rate extinguishes the debt: whatever the actual cost, nothing moves either way. Six points separate the two regimes, under the Ordinance on the Lease of Residential and Commercial Premises (OBLF) and the Code of Obligations.

	Advance payment	Flat rate
Statement	Mandatory, at least once a year, presented to the tenant (art. 4 para. 1 OBLF)	No statement
Basis for the amount	The landlord's actual expenses (art. 257b para. 1 CO)	The average calculated over a three-year period (art. 4 para. 2 OBLF)
Actual costs higher than payments	The tenant pays the balance	The landlord bears the difference
Actual costs lower than payments	The landlord refunds the difference	The landlord keeps the difference
Supporting documents	Available for inspection on request (art. 257b para. 2 CO)	Not applicable
Administrative statement costs	Chargeable according to actual expenses or the usual rates (art. 4 para. 3 OBLF)	Not applicable

Identify your regime before making any claim. Open the lease at the rent section, below the net rent line: the charges amount carries a label there.

The words "advance payment", "heating advance payment" or "provision" denote the first regime; the words "flat rate" or "flat-rate amount" denote the second. Requesting an annual statement makes sense only in the first case.

How much do service charges cost in Geneva?

Service charges in Geneva cost on average 5 to 22 francs per square metre per year, heating and hot water alone, or between 30 and 140 francs a month for a 77 m² 4-room flat.

The calculator below requires the construction period, the floor area and the heating energy, and returns a monthly range of plus or minus a third.

Water, common-area electricity and caretaking are added to this range if the lease provides for them. The range multiplies the consumption benchmark for the construction period by the Geneva energy tariff, and adds the installation's operating costs allowed under the OBLF; three factors widen the gap between its two bounds.

• The building's energy performance, the foremost factor: the cantonal energy services place a building from the 2010s at 48 kWh per m² per year, an unrenovated building from the 1960s to 1970s at the equivalent of 22 litres of heating oil, or around 220 kWh (benchmarks of 24 June 2026).
• The floor area: 38 m² on average for a Geneva 2-room flat, 77 m² for a 4-room flat, 97 m² for a 5-room flat, according to the rent tables of the Office cantonal de la statistique, as at May 2021.
• The price of energy: 8.68 centimes per kWh including all taxes for natural gas from the Services industriels de Genève since 1 April 2026, 9.23 centimes for the consumption share of district heat from the GeniTerre network, network subscriptions on top.

No statutory cap limits ancillary costs. The only limit lies in the landlord's actual expenses, art. 257b para. 1 CO: a high statement is not unlawful in itself, it is its justification that is checked.

Occupants' consumption and the building's allocation key make the actual statement vary.

How is a tenant's share of charges calculated?

A tenant's share of charges is calculated by reducing the building's total to their home alone through an allocation key, in three successive operations.

• Break down the building's total item by item.
• Split each item into a fixed share and a measured share.
• Allocate each share according to a key.

Four allocation keys are found in Geneva buildings.

• Floor area: square metres of the home; the reference key for heating and hot water, held valid by the Federal Supreme Court even without individual meters (judgment 4A_502/2012).
• Volume: cubic metres of the rooms; used when ceiling heights vary.
• Value share: thousandths of ownership per floor or an equivalent key; accepted by the federal model as one of the other plausible keys.
• Measured consumption: heat meter or allocator; mandatory in Geneva from five users of a central heating system, except in buildings predating 1993 whose heat consumption index stays below 125 kWh per m² per year.

The statement model of the Federal Office of Energy in principle splits each item into 30% fixed costs and 70% consumption costs, for heating as for hot water. Fixed costs, including heating of common areas, are allocated in proportion to floor area.

This diagram unfolds the calculation chain in four stages: the building's total costs, their breakdown by item, the split of each item into 30% fixed costs and 70% individual costs, then the allocation to a home, with the key applied at each stage.

The landlord bears the cost of vacant homes (art. 7 para. 1 OBLF). When an empty unit has been heated only against frost and the building has no individual meters, the landlord bears only a fraction of it, the rest being allocated among the tenants: a third in a building of two or three households, half from four to eight, two thirds beyond that.

A key holds if it appears on the statement, if it applies to all homes and if it can be recalculated from the supporting documents.

What must a statement of charges contain?

A statement of charges must contain the actual expenses for the period, their allocation and the balance. Article 4 paragraph 1 OBLF requires a statement at least annually, presented to the tenant.

Seven details make a statement verifiable.

• The period covered, from the first to the last day of the year.
• Each item billed, quantified for the whole building.
• The allocation key between tenants.
• The share charged to the home.
• Administration costs, at actual expenses or the usual rate (art. 4 para. 3 OBLF).
• The total of advance payments made.
• The balance, owed or refunded.

This statement template pinpoints, line by line, the seven details just listed: the period covered, each item billed, the allocation key, the home's share, administration costs, the total advance payments and the balance.

Heating and hot water follow their own rule. When the itemised statement for these two items does not accompany the annual invoice, article 8 paragraph 1 OBLF requires the landlord to state expressly on the invoice that the tenant may demand it.

No provision sets the sending date: the law governs the periodicity, not the transmission. The landlord's claim becomes time-barred after five years, as a periodic charge under article 128 number 1 CO. Pierre Wessner, professor emeritus at the University of Neuchâtel, links ancillary costs to this time limit, which runs from the end of the statement period.

How do you check your statement of charges?

To check a statement of charges, the tenant carries out six successive checks, from their lease to inspecting the supporting documents at the managing agent's office.

1. Open the lease and match each item on the statement against the ancillary costs clause.
2. Identify the regime stated in the contract, advance payment or flat rate.
3. Check the period stated and any overlap with the previous statement.
4. Add up the advance payments actually debited and compare them to the statement total.
5. Recalculate your share from the building's amount and the stated key.
6. Request to inspect the supporting documents as soon as a discrepancy remains unexplained.

Art. 257b para. 2 CO indeed requires the landlord to allow this inspection at the tenant's request. Art. 8 para. 2 OBLF sets its scope: the tenant, or their duly authorised representative, is entitled to inspect the original supporting documents and to request information on fuel stock levels at the start and end of the heating period.

The originals cover the energy supplier's invoices and the maintenance contracts underlying each item, not the managing agent's summary. A written request fits in a few lines: it states the subject, the statement period and the home concerned, then requests to inspect the original supporting documents under art. 257b para. 2 CO and art. 8 para. 2 OBLF.

What to do when charges increase?

When charges increase, first distinguish a rise in the advance payment from a rise in the charges themselves: the first changes the amount collected each month, the second the amount ultimately owed.

The price of energy and the severity of the winter make the heating and hot water items vary from one statement period to the next. A managing agent who raises the advance payment after a statement unfavourable to the tenant is acting on cash flow, not on the debt: article 257b paragraph 1 CO limits billing to the landlord's actual expenses.

Adding an item or shifting a cost from the net rent to the charges falls under article 269d CO, whose paragraph 3 covers the introduction of new ancillary costs. The change takes effect at the next termination date and requires a form approved by the canton, stated reasons and at least ten days' notice before the start of the notice period. Without an official form or reasons, paragraph 2 renders the increase void.

Three responses follow from the source of the increase.

• Check the statement item by item before paying a rising balance.
• Set aside the difference if the increase affects only the advance payment.
• Demand the official form if a new item appears without notice, then refer the notice of increase to the conciliation authority.

How do you challenge a statement of charges in Geneva?

To challenge a statement of charges in Geneva, the tenant sends a written complaint to the managing agent, then refers the matter to the Conciliation Authority for Tenancy and Rental Matters.

No statutory time limit bounds this challenge. The Code of Obligations imposes thirty days to challenge a rent increase, nothing for a statement of charges. A lease clause deeming the statement accepted without objection within thirty days does not forfeit this right: in judgment 4A_606/2015 of 19 April 2016, the Federal Supreme Court allows the correction of an inaccurate balance, silence shifting the burden of proof onto the tenant.

Four steps lead from the managing agent to the Geneva courts.

1. Complain in writing to the managing agent, quantifying the items disputed.
2. File a request in French; the commission's registry issues a form free of charge, optional to use (LCCBL, art. 3 para. 3).
3. Appear at the hearing, held within two months; conciliation remains free of charge (CPC, art. 203 para. 1 and 113 para. 2) and professionally qualified representatives may assist or represent the parties (LaCC, art. 15).
4. Bring the action before the Tribunal des baux et loyers within thirty days of the authorisation to proceed (CPC, art. 209 para. 4), free of court costs (LaCC, art. 22 para. 1).

This timeline places the milestones of the challenge on a single axis: dotted for the phase where no statutory time limit runs, from receiving the statement to the conciliation request, then solid for the only two mandatory time limits: two months to the hearing, thirty days to refer the matter to the Tribunal des baux et loyers.

Pay the balance claimed while the challenge is ongoing. Arrears on ancillary costs due entitle the landlord to serve a written default notice of at least thirty days for a home, followed by termination (CO, art. 257d).

How are charges allocated when a tenant moves out?

When a tenant moves out, charges are allocated in proportion to the period of occupation: each party bears the costs for the months during which they had the use of the home.

Such an allocation complies with art. 257b para. 1 CO, which limits ancillary costs to actual expenses connected with the use of the object. The statement covers an annual period (art. 4 para. 1 OBLF) and reaches the outgoing tenant only after the home is returned, sometimes several months later. The balance, positive or negative, falls due only at that point.

This diagram cuts a single statement period at the move-out date: on the left the outgoing tenant's share, on the right the incoming tenant's, each for their own period of occupation.

This is what the rent deposit, or other security, is for: the landlord draws on it to cover any unpaid balance on the final statement. The tenant cannot demand its return from the bank until one year after the end of the lease, and only if the landlord has not asserted a claim in the meantime through legal proceedings, debt enforcement or bankruptcy (art. 257e para. 3 CO).

What should you compare your service charges to?

Your service charges are best compared to the co-ownership charges of a condominium (PPE), to the advance payments set in the lease by the landlord, and to the reference mortgage rate.

The owner of a PPE flat pays co-ownership charges that follow a different logic from the ancillary costs of a lease.

On the landlord's side, the amount of the advance payments set in the lease stems from an estimate based on the building's real expenses. The reference mortgage rate, finally, drives increases and decreases in the net rent, without its effect on ancillary costs being self-evident.

Service charges or PPE charges: what is the difference?

The difference between service charges and PPE charges lies in the debtor and the recipient of the contribution: the tenant owes ancillary costs to their landlord, the co-owner owes contributions to the community.

The tenant's bill is limited by art. 257a CO to services "connected with the use of the object, specially agreed in the lease". Each co-owner must contribute to expenses that a tenant never pays, under art. 712h para. 1 and 2 CC, including repairs to common areas and interest owed to secured creditors.

An owner who lets their unit faces a meeting of the two regimes in the same year: they pay their PPE charges to the community and pass on to their tenant only the conventional items linked to use. Each party's contribution to the community follows the value of their share, a mechanism specific to condominium ownership.

How does a landlord set the advance payments for charges?

A landlord generally sets the advance payments for charges based on the actual expenses of the building's last statement, item by item, with no provision requiring it: art. 257b para. 1 CO only limits what may be billed at the statement.

No provision therefore requires the agreed advance payment to match the final cost. The Federal Supreme Court restated this on 29 January 2019 in its judgment 4A_339/2018: if the advance payment is deliberately set low, this does not extinguish the debt, and the tenant remains liable for the full balance of the annual statement; the landlord's liability is engaged only if particular circumstances required it to inform the prospective tenant.

The amount is set when the property is put up for let, together with the lease's ancillary costs clause. An advance payment set close to the real costs removes the year-end catch-up and the dispute it causes.

Does a fall in the reference rate reduce charges?

No, a fall in the reference rate does not reduce service charges. This rate affects the amount of the rent, not the ancillary costs.

Under art. 269a let. b CO and art. 13 para. 1 OBLF, tenants benefit from a right to a proportional reduction in rent, unless this is offset by a rise in other cost factors. As ancillary costs depend on the landlord's actual expenses (art. 257b para. 1 CO), they are independent of the cost of the landlord's financing.

The Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research publishes this rate quarterly (art. 12a OBLF). The statement staying constant after a rent reduction does not reveal an error by the managing agent.