Properties in a Swiss mountain resort are most expensive in the world; The Gotthard Pass reopens to traffic today; plus other news in our roundup this Friday.
Properties in a Swiss mountain resort are most expensive in the world
According to UBS real estate price index released on May 7th, property prices in Switzerland have soared – more so in some communities than in others.
However, the highest prices – to the tune of 52,000 francs per square metre – are in a resort town of St.Moritz in Graubünden.
Homes there are more expensive than in Monaco (2nd place) and even the notoriously pricey New York (8th).
Within Switzerland itself, two more Alpine resorts, Gstaad and Verbier, fall into 4th and 5th place, respectively.
The predictably expensive Zurich is in the 7th place, trailed by Geneva in the 11th.
The Gotthard Pass reopens to traffic today
As of 11 am on Friday May 8th, vehicles will be able to travel through the Pass, which was closed for the winter since November.
“Thanks to favourable weather conditions and less snow than last year, the clearing and maintenance work on the Pass could be carried out quicker than expected,” the Federal Roads Office said on Thursday.
The Pass road will help alleviate congestion on the north-south axis (A2 motorway) during the peak travel periods of the Ascension and and Pentecost weekends (May 14th-17th and May 22nd-25th, respectively).
And with the opening of the Gotthard Pass road, the seasonal extension of the A2 motorway exit at Göschenen will also be reinstated for a smoother traffic flow.
Zug is no longer the most fiscally attractive Swiss canton for companies
Long a magnet for foreign companies due to its low corporate tax, the tiny canton has been dethroned by its neighbour, Lucerne, this year.
According to a new analysis carried out by the consulting firm PwC, in 2026 Lucerne lowered its tax rate to 11.66 percent – slightly outdoing Zug’s (11.71 percent).
In a way of comparison, in Zurich and Bern, this rate is close to 20 percent.
The number of cross-border workers up by almost 2 percent in 2026
At the end of March, there were approximately 413,000 people with a cross-border permit G working in Switzerland, the Federal Statistical Office said on Thursday.
Their total number increased by 1.9 percent compared to the first quarter of 2025.
Most of the cross-border workforce resides in France (58.3 percent), followed by Italy (22.3 percent), and Germany (16.3 percent).
Over the past five years, their number has increased from 341,000, representing a 21.3-percent growth.
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