SSFV Weekly Engagement Wages in Switzerland (2026 Guide)

Swiss set crews are paid against a 50-hour week. Post-production crews are paid against a 40-hour week. The SSFV Richtlöhne Wochenengagement set a recommended base wage, called the Grundlohn, for each role by category and experience level, and every figure in the table is that base wage only. Holiday compensation still has to be added on top before it becomes the actual gross wage on the contract and payslip.

What a Wochenengagement Actually Is

A Wochenengagement is a weekly, rather than daily, crew engagement. Switzerland's film industry runs two parallel wage-recommendation systems: Richtlöhne Wochenengagement for weekly bookings, and a separate Richtlöhne Tagesengagement for daily bookings based on a 9-hour day with volume discounts once a production commits to five or more days at time of booking. This article covers the weekly system.

The Richtlöhne Wochenengagement are published jointly by six organizations: SSFV (Schweizer Syndikat Film und Video, the crew union), ARF/FDS (the Swiss directors' and screenwriters' association), and four producer associations, IG, SFP, GARP, and Swissfilm Association (SFA). They are industry recommendations, not a Gesamtarbeitsvertrag (collective bargaining agreement) and not a statutory minimum wage. The tables themselves say so directly: rates are "nach oben wie auch nach unten verhandelbar" (negotiable both up and down), and specific project circumstances are meant to be taken into account.

The current table took effect January 1, 2025, and replaced a version that had not changed since 2009. The 2025 renegotiation, concluded December 4, 2024, restructured roughly 80 professions into a new category framework based on budget responsibility, personnel management, artistic/creative/technical/organizational responsibility, and professional qualifications. It also produced an average salary increase of 6.9% across the board, though individual roles moved by different amounts because of the restructuring.

As of September 2026, this is still the operative table. The six signatory organizations agreed to gather two years of experience with the new structure before reopening negotiations in Q1 2027, so treat this table as current through the end of 2026 planning cycles and expect a revision after that.

The rates apply to crew with documented training or verified professional experience in the role. They are not a document for below-the-line labor cost benchmarking in general; they're specifically calibrated to Swiss production and are denominated in CHF.

How the Rate Tables Are Organized

SSFV publishes the Richtlöhne Wochenengagement as three linked documents:

1. Setberufe (on-set roles): 13 categories, A through L, each mapped to a 50-hour week, plus two documentary-specific categories (DOK A and DOK B) that apply to exactly two roles.

2. Berufe Postproduktion (post-production roles): 8 categories, I through VIII, each mapped to a 40-hour week. Three of the eight (II, VII, VIII) are currently unpopulated in the published list, reserved for future roles.

3. Departemente (departments): a cross-reference that maps every named role to its category, organized by department (Production, Assistant Directors, Script, Location/Unit, Camera, Grip, Lighting, Sound, Costume, Hair & Makeup, Art Department, Post-Production).

Within each category, wages step up across three Lohnstufen (wage levels) tied to experience in that specific function:

A Berufsjahr counts only if the person worked at least 100 working days in that calendar year in that specific role. Years in a different function, or years at lower volume, don't count toward the step-up.

Setberufe: Full Rate Table (CHF per week, 50-hour week)

Source: SSFV, Richtlohnliste Setberufe, gültig ab 1. Januar 2025.

Berufe Postproduktion: Full Rate Table (CHF per week, 40-hour week)

Source: SSFV, Richtlohnliste Berufe Postproduktion, gültig ab 1. Januar 2025.

Who Belongs in Which Category

This is the full role-to-category lookup from SSFV's Departemente reference, so you don't have to cross-check three PDFs on set.

Production

Assistant Directors

Script

Location / Unit (Aufnahmeleitung)

Camera

Grip

Lighting

Sound

Costume

Hair & Makeup

Art Department

Post-Production

Source: SSFV, Richtlöhne Wochenengagement nach Departementen, gültig ab 1. Januar 2025.

The Formula

The table figure is not the paycheck. The full calculation is:

Weekly Gross Wage (Bruttolohn) = Grundlohn (Richtlohn) + Ferienentschädigung (holiday compensation)

Where Ferienentschädigung is:

• 8.33% of the Grundlohn, for crew between 20 and 50 years old

• 10.6% of the Grundlohn, for crew under 20 or over 50 years old

This isn't optional or bundled in. The AAB (Allgemeine Anstellungsbedingungen, the general employment conditions that sit alongside the wage tables) states explicitly that holiday compensation is not included in the recommended Richtlöhne and must be shown as a separate line in both the contract and the payslip.

Step 1: Identify the Role's Category

Use the department lookup table above, or the Setberufe / Postproduktion PDFs directly, to find the category letter (or roman numeral, for post) for the role you're hiring.

Step 2: Confirm the Lohnstufe

Check verified Berufsjahre in that specific function, at a minimum of 100 working days per calendar year, to land on Stufe 1, 2, or 3. Don't infer this from years in the industry generally.

Step 3: Add Holiday Compensation

Apply 8.33% (or 10.6% where age applies) to the Grundlohn to get the actual weekly gross wage you're budgeting and contracting.

Step 4: Handle Partial Weeks and Overtime

If an engagement doesn't run a full week, the AAB sets the day rate for a partial week at 1/5 of the weekly wage. The hourly rate for overtime and night hours is 1/50 of the weekly wage for set roles (1/40 for editors, matching their 40-hour week).

Overtime surcharges on top of that hourly rate:

Night and overtime surcharges cumulate. Hours worked between 23:00 and 05:00 that also fall in the 51st-59th hour of the week carry both surcharges at once.

Step 5: Worked Example

A four-week fiction shoot in Zurich, budgeting two roles.

1st Assistant Director, Category C, 5 years of experience in the role (age 34, so Stufe 2, 8.33% holiday rate):

• Grundlohn: CHF 2'145 / week

• Ferienentschädigung: CHF 2'145 × 8.33% = CHF 178.68

• Weekly Bruttolohn: CHF 2'323.68

• Four-week total: CHF 9'294.72

Director of Photography, Category A, 9 years of experience (age 45, Stufe 3, 8.33% holiday rate):

• Grundlohn: CHF 4'765 / week

• Ferienentschädigung: CHF 4'765 × 8.33% = CHF 396.92

• Weekly Bruttolohn: CHF 5'161.92

• Four-week total: CHF 20'647.68

Combined base + holiday cost for these two roles across the four weeks: CHF 29'942.40. This is Grundlohn plus Ferienentschädigung only. It doesn't include the employer-side statutory social insurance contributions (AHV/IV/EO, ALV, family allowance funds, accident insurance, and pension fund contributions where applicable) that Swiss payroll law requires on top of gross wage. Those are calculated by your payroll or production-services provider and vary by canton, insurer, and the crew member's age and salary, so budget them as a separate line rather than folding an assumed percentage into the Richtlohn figure.

Partial-week example: if the shoot wraps the 1st AD three days into what would have been a fifth week, the AAB's partial-week rule applies: CHF 2'145 / 5 = CHF 429 per day, so three days = CHF 1'287 in Grundlohn for that week, plus the proportional 8.33% holiday compensation on top.

Overtime example: if the DOP works 5 hours into the 51st-59th-hour band in a given week, the hourly base is CHF 4'765 / 50 = CHF 95.30. With the 25% overtime surcharge, that's CHF 119.13 per hour, and if those same hours fall inside the 23:00-05:00 night window, the surcharges cumulate to 50% total for CHF 142.95 per hour.

Push past the 60th hour at night and you're stacking a 100% overtime surcharge with the 25% night surcharge, for CHF 214.43 per hour, more than double the base rate.

Where Producers Get This Wrong

1. Treating the Grundlohn as the full labor cost. The single most common budgeting error here is copying the Richtlohn figure straight into a line item and stopping. Forgetting the 8.33%/10.6% Ferienentschädigung understates every weekly crew line by roughly a week's extra pay across an eight-to-twelve week feature schedule, and it's a compliance gap since the AAB requires it to appear separately on the payslip.

2. Mixing the two hour bases in one blanket rate. Set crew run a 50-hour week; post crew run a 40-hour week. If your budget template converts everyone to a single hourly-equivalent rate to make department comparisons easier, you will misprice one side of the crew every time.

3. Assuming Berufsjahre transfer across roles. A Lohnstufe is tied to years worked in that specific function, at a minimum of 100 working days per calendar year, not to years in the industry generally. Someone with six years on set but only two specifically as 1st AD is Stufe 1 in that role, not Stufe 2 or 3, no matter how strong their CV reads.

4. Applying documentary rates to the whole documentary crew. DOK A and DOK B exist for exactly two roles: the documentary DOP and the documentary line producer (Produktionsleitung). Every other position on a documentary shoot, gaffer, script supervisor, sound, art department, is paid on the standard fiction scale for their category. "It's a doc, so everyone gets doc rates" is a real and costly misreading.

5. Ignoring the cantonal minimum-wage override on Category L. The lowest category (runners, Set PA, Cast PA, AD PA) explicitly carries the caveat "vorbehältlich der kommunalen und kantonalen Mindestlöhne," subject to communal and cantonal minimum wages. In cities and cantons with statutory minimum wage laws (Geneva and Neuchâtel are the clearest examples), the recommended CHF 1'000-1'200/week can sit below what's legally required, and the statutory floor wins.

6. Reusing a pre-2025 rate card or budget template. These figures were frozen from 2009 until January 1, 2025, then jumped an average of 6.9% under a restructured category system covering roughly 80 professions. A template or comp set built before that date is working from superseded numbers and, in some cases, a category structure that no longer maps cleanly to today's list.

7. Assuming this table settles the question for advertising and branded content. ⚠️ This weekly-engagement list is built for fiction and documentary production. Whether it's treated as applicable to commissioned or advertising weekly bookings could not be confirmed from a primary source for this article. SSFV's daily-rate (Tagesengagement) page notes that no agreement was reached for advertising day rates after negotiations in 2013-2014, with 2009 rates recommended as a fallback in that segment. If you're budgeting a commercial or branded shoot on a weekly basis, confirm directly with SSFV or Swissfilm Association rather than assuming this table applies.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Richtlohnliste legally binding? No. It's an industry recommendation negotiated jointly by SSFV and five producer/creator associations, not a Gesamtarbeitsvertrag or statutory minimum wage. The tables state directly that rates are negotiable both up and down based on a project's specific circumstances. The one exception is Category L, which is explicitly subject to overriding cantonal and communal minimum wage law.

How is a Wochenengagement different from a Tagesengagement? A Wochenengagement is a weekly booking measured against 50 hours (set) or 40 hours (post). A Tagesengagement is a daily booking measured against a 9-hour day, with SSFV's separate day-rate list applying volume discounts once a production commits to five or more days at the time of booking.

When will these rates change again? The six signing organizations agreed to gather two years of experience under the current structure before reopening negotiations, scheduled for Q1 2027. Rates in effect since January 1, 2025 should be treated as current through the end of 2026.

Does the Ferienentschädigung rate ever change? Yes, by age. It's 8.33% of the Grundlohn for crew aged 20-50, and 10.6% for crew under 20 or over 50, per the AAB for weekly engagements.

Where Splinde Fits

Mapping roughly 80 professions across 13 Setberufe categories and 8 Postproduktion categories, then layering the correct Lohnstufe, the age-dependent Ferienentschädigung, and overtime surcharges on top, is exactly the kind of repetitive, error-prone lookup a Swiss crew budget generates line by line. In Splinde's Budget Templates, you set up each role's Grundlohn and Lohnstufe once as a Variable, and the holiday compensation and any overtime surcharges calculate automatically wherever that Variable is used across the schedule, instead of being re-typed and re-checked on every single crew line.