How to Calculate Cancellation and Postponement Fees for Swiss Film Crew (2026 Guide)

Under Switzerland's AAB Tagesengagement 2014, still the binding standard for day-rate freelance crew as of September 2026, what you owe a cancelled or postponed crew member depends on how many hours of notice you gave and whether the cancellation had a genuine "schwerwiegender Grund" (serious reason) behind it, not on how sorry the production is.

The Core Rule

The AAB Tagesengagement 2014 ("Allgemeine Anstellungsbedingungen für freie technische und künstlerische Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter der Film- und Audiovisionsproduktion, Tagesengagement") is the general employment standard jointly issued by the Swiss producer associations (Swissfilm Association, SFP, ARF/FDS, GARP, IG unabhängige Schweizer Filmproduzenten) and the crew union SSFV. It governs freelance, day-rate ("Tageslohn") engagements, and Article 6 states it applies "in der Regel für Werbe- und Auftragsfilme", meaning it is the default framework for commercials and commissioned films specifically, as opposed to feature or documentary week engagements.

As of September 2026, the AAB Tagesengagement 2014 has not been revised since Article 7.2, 7.3, 12.3, 15.5, and 22.1 were last adjusted on October 1, 2014. That matters because the sister agreement, the AAB Wochenengagement, was fully rewritten for 2026. The two documents share a near-identical title and are published by the same bodies, but they are not the same rules. More on that below.

Four separate scenarios trigger four separate formulas under this agreement, and producers routinely conflate them:

• Rücktritt (cancellation): the engagement does not happen at all.

• Verschiebung (postponement): the engagement happens, just later.

• Wetterabhängige Termine (weather-dependent reservation days): the crew member holds a date open on request, whether or not the day is used.

• Nicht beanspruchte Optionstage (unused extension option days): an option day was agreed but neither confirmed nor cancelled before it would have started.

Critical Distinction: The tiered percentages in Article 7.3 are not a price list for buying your way out of a booking. They apply specifically when a producer cancels for a "schwerwiegender Grund" within the meaning of Article 7.2. Article 7.3's final clause is explicit: "Annulliert der Produzent eine Anstellung ohne schwerwiegende Gründe, so sind 100% der vertraglich vereinbarten Lohnsumme geschuldet."

Cancel without a serious reason, at any point, and the full contracted fee is owed regardless of how much notice you gave.

The Formula

Compensation = Day Rate (Tageslohn / Honorar) x Compensation Percentage

The percentage is set by which scenario applies and, within cancellation and postponement, by how many hours or days of notice were given before the agreed work start.

Step 1: Identify the scenario

Confirm whether the change is a full cancellation, a postponement to a later date, a weather-contingent standby request, or an unclaimed option day. Each has its own table below, and they are not interchangeable.

Step 2: Measure the notice window

Count the time between when the crew member was informed and the originally agreed work start ("Arbeitsbeginn"), in hours for cancellation, in days for postponement.

Step 3: Apply the applicable percentage table

Cancellation (Art. 7.2 to 7.3)

Source: AAB Tagesengagements 2014, Art. 7.2 and 7.3, verified against the official PDF on ssfv.ch in September 2026.

Postponement (Art. 8), when the production moves the same engagement to a later date and it is fulfilled then:

If the crew member can prove they were already committed elsewhere for the new date, Article 8 lets them invoke the cancellation rule (Art. 7.2) instead of accepting the postponement.

Weather-dependent reservation days (Art. 9): a flat 25% of the day rate per day the crew member was asked to hold open, whether or not the day is ultimately used.

Unused extension option days (Art. 10.4): if an optioned day is neither claimed nor cancelled before it would have started, a flat 25% of the corresponding wage is owed.

Step 4: Worked example

A production books a gaffer for a single-day commercial shoot ("Werbefilm") at an agreed Honorar of CHF 900, call time Thursday 07:00.

If the client pulls the spot and the producer informs the gaffer on Tuesday at 09:00, that is 46 hours of notice, inside the "less than 48 hours" band. Compensation owed: CHF 900 x 75% = CHF 675.

If the same cancellation is communicated a day earlier, Monday at 08:00 (71 hours of notice, inside the "less than 72 hours" band), the amount drops one tier: CHF 900 x 50% = CHF 450. A single day of extra notice is worth CHF 225 here, which is exactly why the exact hour of notification, not just the date, needs to be logged.

Now take a 3-day commercial shoot at the same CHF 900 day rate, originally scheduled Monday to Wednesday, and postponed to a date two weeks out. If the production confirms the new date on the preceding Wednesday (5 days out, the 7-to-5-day band), the crew is owed 3 x CHF 900 x 12.5% = CHF 337.50. If that same notice slips to the day before the original Monday start (37.5% band), the cost is 3 x CHF 900 x 37.5% = CHF 1,012.50.

That is more than it would cost to cancel a single one of those three days outright with less than 24 hours' notice (CHF 900 at the 100% tier). Late postponements of multi-day bookings are not the cheap option producers often assume they are.

Where Producers Lose Money

1. Assuming the tiers are always available. As covered above, the percentage table only applies when the cancellation has a genuine "schwerwiegender Grund". A budget cut or a client change of heart, communicated a week out, does not qualify as a "serious reason" under Art. 7.2, and Art. 7.3's closing clause makes the full fee due in that case. Treat the tiers as a concession for real production emergencies, not a standard cancellation fee schedule.

2. Confusing this document with the AAB Wochenengagement. Both agreements are published by SSFV and the same producer associations, both are titled "Allgemeine Anstellungsbedingungen", and both number their contract-duration articles 7 through 10. But the Wochenengagement AAB was fully revised for 2026, and its Article 8, for example, covers production abandonment ("Produktionsabbruch"), not postponement. Searching for "AAB Art. 8" without confirming which document you are in is a real way to apply the wrong rule to a day-rate booking.

3. Underpricing late postponements on multi-day jobs. Because Article 8's percentage applies per postponed working day, a late-notice postponement of a multi-day booking compounds fast, as the worked example above shows. Budget schedule risk on multi-day commercial bookings the same way you would budget an outright cancellation, not as a lighter alternative.

4. Forgetting that a weather hold has a cost even if it never rains. Article 9's 25% applies the moment a crew member is asked to reserve a date, independent of whether the day is used, cancelled, or rained out. If your schedule includes a weather cover day, that line item exists in the budget before the weather ever becomes a factor.

5. Letting an option day expire silently. Article 10.4 means an extension option you never confirmed and never explicitly cancelled before its start still costs 25% of the corresponding wage. Option deadlines need the same tracking discipline as a firm booking date.

6. Treating the AAB's rules as proof of a day rate. The AAB Tagesengagement 2014 tells you how to calculate compensation as a percentage of the agreed Honorar, not what that Honorar should be. As of September 2026, SSFV confirms there is still no joint rate agreement with Swissfilm Association for Werbe- and Auftragsfilm day rates specifically, following stalled 2013 to 2014 negotiations, and the union's own reference point remains the 2009 rate list. Do not assume the day rate itself is standardised just because the cancellation terms are.

Calculating exposure across a multi-day, multi-crew commercial schedule by hand, and re-running it every time a shoot date moves, is exactly where these percentage tiers get missed. In Splinde, setting each crew member's Tageslohn as a Variable in your Budget Template means a schedule change flows through automatically, and Scenario Management lets you model what a cancellation, postponement, or added weather-cover day would cost at each notice tier before you make the call to the production office rather than after.