Cross-Border Workers Report 2026: salaries, sectors, regions

Key findings

How to read the sample:

1. Median of the midpoints of reported annual ranges: CHF 85'000. Eligible observations: 21. This does not measure salaries actually paid or represent all cross-border workers.
2. Differences between locations also reflect the occupations and employers represented in the listings. Compare group sizes before interpreting medians; a small group does not establish a geographic pay advantage.
3. The panel contains no Italian sample matched by role, seniority and working hours. It therefore cannot quantify the Italy–Switzerland salary advantage or its evolution.

Median salary by sector — top 10

The table shows the median salary (not the mean: less sensitive to outliers) for the ten sectors with the most observations in our panel. Only sectors with at least ten listings with a declared salary range are included. Sorted by number of openings, descending.

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Regional breakdown — Ticino

Ticino listings are grouped by their stated location: Lugano, Chiasso, Mendrisio, Bellinzona, Locarno and other Ticino locations. The table describes available observations, not coverage of the cantonal labour market. Locations without eligible observations have no publishable median.

Purchasing power: Italy vs Switzerland

Purchasing-power parity compares goods and services between countries; exchange rates convert currencies. These are different measures. This listing panel contains neither comparable prices nor a documented PPP series, so no purchasing-power conversion coefficient is published.

• The available starting point is annual gross pay in the panel: median CHF 85'000. Comparing this with an Italian offer requires equivalent roles, hours, seniority and compensation components.
• A personal budget must distinguish spending in the country of residence from spending in the country of work: housing, transport, insurance and services may affect each differently. This report does not estimate an equivalent Italian income.
• Net income depends on individual tax and family circumstances and applicable contributions. Use the linked calculator and tax guide for an explicit scenario; do not apply one universal percentage to gross salary.

Share & cite

The report is intended as a reference resource for journalists, researchers, labour-law consultants and associations. If you use these numbers in an article, press release or paper, the suggested citation is below; a back-link is not mandatory but very much appreciated.

Suggested citation format

Frontaliere Ticino (2026). Cross-Border Workers Report 2026: salaries by sector, region, purchasing power. Available at: https://frontaliereticino.ch/en/report/cross-border-workers-2026/

Methodology

The panel is filtered to Ticino listings dated in the report year. Only ranges with reported provenance, explicit CHF currency and annual period, and finite positive ordered bounds are included. Monthly amounts and missing currencies are not converted. The midpoint is (min+max)/2; salary bounds below CHF 20,000 or above CHF 300,000 are excluded. Overall median and mean use all eligible observations; the sector table requires at least ten observations per sector. Estimates and missing or ambiguous provenance are excluded. No annual change is calculated without comparable snapshots for two years. With no observations, the median is unavailable and salary values in the CSV remain empty.

Comparison with official statistical sources: BFS/UST · ISTAT