Receipts for landlords: maintenance, service charges and what you can deduct

In short: As a landlord you need receipts for two purposes: the service charge statement you send to your tenants, and the maintenance deduction on your tax return. Collect every invoice for repairs, maintenance, management, insurance and running costs separately for each property, sort them by year and keep them for at least ten years.

If you rent out a flat or an apartment building, receipts play a bigger role in your life than they do for most private individuals. The plumber's invoice for the boiler, the heating oil bill, the caretaker, the building insurance: every one of them ends up in either the service charge statement or the tax return, and sometimes both.

The difficulty is rarely the volume. It is the sorting. Which invoice can I pass on to the tenants? Which one do I deduct as maintenance? Which one increases the value of the property and only matters when I sell? This article shows you which landlord receipts you need, how to file them and how to save yourself hours of searching at the end of the year. It focuses on Switzerland, where the rules for service charges and property maintenance deductions are fairly well defined.

Which receipts do you actually need as a landlord?

The short answer: every invoice connected to the property, plus the tenancy agreements and proof of the rent you received. In practice that means:

• Maintenance and repairs: plumbing, painting, electrical work, replacing appliances, garden care, service contracts for the heating or the lift.
• Running costs (Nebenkosten): heating oil, gas, district heating, electricity for shared areas, water and sewage, waste collection, caretaker, snow clearing, lift and boiler inspections.
• Management and insurance: management fees, building insurance, liability cover, legal expenses insurance for the property.
• Financing: the bank's annual mortgage interest statement.
• Value-adding investments: an extension, a kitchen of a higher standard than before, a heat pump replacing an oil boiler.
• Income: tenancy agreements, bank statements showing rent payments, statements settled with tenants.

A typical year for a rented four-room flat might look like this: plumber CHF 480 (blocked drain), repainting after a change of tenant CHF 2,200, share of building insurance CHF 350, management CHF 900, heating costs according to the condominium statement CHF 1,150. Five very different receipts, three different purposes.

Running costs or maintenance: how do you tell the receipts apart?

The basic rule: running costs (Nebenkosten) are ongoing costs of using the flat and may only be charged to tenants if the tenancy agreement lists them explicitly. Maintenance is everything that preserves the condition of the property; you pay for it yourself, and in return you can deduct it on your tax return.

Service charges are governed by Art. 257a and 257b of the Swiss Code of Obligations (OR): only the items agreed in the contract may be charged, and only at actual cost. Under Art. 8 of the VMWG (the ordinance on residential and commercial tenancies), tenants have the right to inspect the receipts behind your statement. That is exactly why your records need to be complete. A heating oil invoice you cannot find is an item you cannot enforce in a dispute.

A simple overview:

Set up two categories for each property: "running costs" and "maintenance". Decide where a receipt belongs the moment you capture it. If you scan receipts with an app such as Belego, you can create your own categories and note the property and the billing period in the notes field. At year end you filter by category instead of going through the whole pile again.

What can you deduct as property maintenance?

Deductible costs are those that preserve value: repairs, like-for-like replacements, insurance premiums, management costs and charges connected to the property. Costs that add value are not deductible, meaning anything that leaves the property better than it was. You can claim those later against property gains tax (Grundstückgewinnsteuer) when you sell, so keep those receipts just as carefully.

For federal tax and in most cantons you can choose, per year and per property, between a flat-rate deduction and your actual costs. The flat rate depends on the age of the building and is calculated as a percentage of rental income. As of 2026 the federal rates are 10 percent for buildings up to ten years old and 20 percent for older ones; the exact rates and cantonal variations are in your canton's tax guide (Wegleitung).

The choice only helps you if you have the receipts. Example: rental income CHF 24,000 a year, building 30 years old, flat rate 20 percent, so CHF 4,800. In the year with the repainting, the boiler replacement and the insurance you reach actual costs of CHF 6,900. That year you claim actual costs and submit the receipts. In the quiet following year with CHF 1,200 of maintenance you take the flat rate. Without complete receipts you do not have that choice, because you cannot prove the actual costs.

Energy-saving measures are a special case: they are deductible even though they add value, and many cantons let you spread them over several years. Which measures qualify is covered in the overview of tax deductions in Switzerland and in your cantonal guide.

How do you organise landlord receipts without losing track?

Sort by property, by year and by purpose. Anything else turns into chaos by the time you own a second flat. A system that works:

1. One category or folder per property (for example "Bahnhofstrasse 12").
2. Within the property, sort by year, keeping in mind that the service charge year often differs from the calendar year (for example 1 July to 30 June).
3. One label per receipt: running costs, maintenance, value-adding, financing or income.
4. A file name with date, supplier and amount so you know what a file contains without opening it.

How to build file names and folder structures in practice is explained in the article on filing receipts digitally. A scanner app takes the naming off your hands: Belego saves every scan as a PDF, reads the date, merchant and amount automatically and names the files exactly that way on export. Anything it cannot read reliably is left blank for you to fill in by hand rather than guessed.

For the service charge statement you need a list of all items with receipts at the end of the period. A CSV export with date, supplier, amount and category is a good starting point, because you can copy the totals straight into your statement template.

How long do landlords need to keep receipts?

Keep all receipts for at least ten years, and receipts for value-adding investments for as long as you own the property plus ten years. Private individuals have no general statutory retention obligation, but the tax authority can review deductions within the ten-year window for supplementary tax assessments. If you let property as part of a business, the ten-year retention duty under Art. 958f OR applies in any case.

For property gains tax the value-adding receipts are decisive, even after 20 or 30 years. The invoice for the extension built in 2009 reduces the taxable gain when you sell in 2035. Paper rarely survives that long in readable condition, especially till receipts on thermal paper. Scan everything and keep the digital copy alongside the original. More on retention periods and formats in the article on how long to keep receipts in Switzerland.

Checklist: receipts for a landlord's tax return

Before you file, you should have the following together for each property:

• Tenancy agreements and a summary of rental income
• Service charge statement with all the underlying invoices
• All maintenance invoices for the year, sorted by date
• Insurance premiums and management fees
• Mortgage interest statement
• A separate folder of value-adding investments (for later)
• Valuation or official value of the property

If you capture receipts as they arrive instead of once a year, this list takes half an hour to tick off. The article on year-end receipts shows the best way to go about it.

Note: This article is general guidance, not tax advice. The law, your canton's guide and the information from your tax authority or your Treuhänder (the Swiss term for a trustee or accountant) are what count.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to show tenants the receipts behind the service charge statement?

Yes. Under Art. 8 VMWG tenants have the right to inspect the receipts supporting your service charge statement. You do not have to post them, but you must make them available on request, for example at your office or the property manager's. Every item in the statement should therefore be backed by an invoice. Without the receipt you will struggle to enforce the item in a dispute.

Can I charge running costs that are not listed in the tenancy agreement?

No. Only the running costs explicitly listed in the tenancy agreement may be billed to tenants separately. Everything else counts as included in the rent. If you want to start passing on a new item such as caretaking or waste fees, you need a contract amendment on the official form. Keep the related invoices either way, because they are deductible as maintenance.

Does the flat-rate deduction apply per property or to all properties together?

For federal tax and in most cantons you can make the choice between the flat rate and actual costs separately for each property and each tax year. So you can claim actual costs for the flat with the big renovation and take the flat rate for the second one. A few cantons have exceptions, so check your cantonal guide.

Do I need a receipt for small amounts like CHF 30 of garden soil?

For the tax deduction, yes, if you claim actual costs: the tax authority may want to see evidence for every item. So collect the small receipts from the DIY store too. The easiest method is to scan them with your phone at the till, so they are dated, named and assigned to a property before they get lost or fade.