Swiss nationality law

Swiss Citizenship Act (SCA)
Federal Assembly of Switzerland
Long title Federal Act on Swiss Citizenship (SR 141.0)
Territorial extent	Switzerland
Enacted by	Federal Assembly of Switzerland
Enacted	20 June 2014
Commenced	1 January 2018
Amends
Federal Act on the Acquisition and Loss of Swiss Citizenship (1952)
Status: Current legislation

Swiss citizenship is the status of being a citizen of Switzerland and it can be obtained by birth or naturalisation.

The Swiss Citizenship Law is based on the following principles:

• Triple citizenship level (Swiss Confederation, canton, and municipality)
• Acquisition of citizenship through birth (jus sanguinis)
• Prevention of statelessness

Swiss nationals are citizens of their municipality of origin, their canton of origin, and the Confederation, in that order: a Swiss citizen is defined as someone who has the citizenship of a Swiss municipality (article 37 of the Swiss Federal Constitution). They are entered in the family register of their place of origin. The manner by which Swiss citizens acquire their place of origin differs depending on whether they acquired Swiss citizenship by filiation (jus sanguinis), ordinary naturalisation, or facilitated naturalisation. Marriage has in and of itself no effect on the places of origin of the spouses.^[1]

The acquisition of Swiss citizenship is governed by the Federal Act on Swiss Citizenship, also known as Swiss Citizenship Act (SCA)^[2] (German: Bürgerrechtsgesetz (BüG), French: Loi sur la nationalité suisse (LN), Italian: Legge sulla cittadinanza (LCit)), enacted in 2018 to replace the Federal Act on the Acquisition and Loss of Swiss Citizenship from 1952.