Swiss wine trade control (SWK): who has to report, and what is inspected?

The Swiss wine trade control (Schweizer Weinhandelskontrolle, SWK) in Dübendorf checks, on behalf of the federal government, that wine designations are correct and that every bottle sold was actually bought or produced. Anyone dealing in wine commercially is registered with it, keeps cellar records and reports stock and volume every year. This guide explains who that applies to and what it involves day to day.

What counts as wine trade

Wine trade means buying and selling wine products commercially, and treating or storing them for distribution. Wine products are more than wine: sparkling and semi-sparkling wine, liqueur wine, grape juice and must, Sauser, aromatised wine drinks such as mulled wine or vermouth, and alcohol-free wine all count.

That brings these businesses under the control:

• wine shops and online shops that buy and resell bottled wine
• importers and exporters
• wineries that take in, blend or bottle wine from others
• growers who press their own grapes and sell the wine (Selbsteinkellerer)

Self-vinifying growers have been under the SWK since the 2019 revision of the wine ordinance; the former option of an equivalent cantonal control no longer exists. At the end of 2024 about 4,800 businesses were registered, a little over 1,000 of them self-vinifying growers.

The exemptions

The wine ordinance (Art. 34) exempts only two groups:

• Small bottle traders with Swiss stock. Businesses that only buy and resell bottles filled in Switzerland, with a non-reusable closure and a label naming an SWK-registered business, that neither import nor export and turn over no more than 1,000 hl a year.
• Production for own use only. Those who produce only for their own consumption, sell nothing and make no more than 500 l.

Import even a single pallet and the first exemption no longer applies. If your case is unclear, the SWK office gives a binding answer.

Registering

You register online at cscv-swk.ch before you start trading, with your UID number, the type of activity and a responsible person with signing authority and a business address in Switzerland. The SWK confirms with an SWK business number, which you also need for the general import licence if you import wine. You also notify the cantonal food inspectorate.

What you do continuously and every year

1. Keep cellar records as you go. One stock card per wine designation with every receipt and issue, each entry with date, customer or supplier name, type of change, document number and quantity.
2. Take stock on 31 December and report it, together with the year's volume in litres, on the SWK portal by 31 January. The SWK no longer accepts paper. The process is described in The SWK stock report due 31 January.
3. Pay the fees. The annual fee depends on the volume you report.
4. Report changes. A new company name, address or responsible person must be reported straight away. If you stop trading wine, you file a deregistration request.

What an inspection checks

The SWK inspects on a risk basis. Small self-vinifying growers who sell only their own products and buy in no more than 20 hl from the same production area are usually visited every six years; other businesses more often. A visit takes a little over three hours on average. Inspectors mainly check:

• that stock cards and documents match without gaps, from purchase to sale
• that designations on labels, invoices and import documents match what is in the bottle
• that the stock in the cellar matches the stock in the books
• that storage locations, tanks and third-party stock are clearly labelled and kept apart

According to the SWK, the most common findings concern cellar bookkeeping and labelling. In 2024, 69 percent of inspected businesses had no findings or only minor ones.

Where Vinosoft helps

Vinosoft does not replace the SWK report, but it supplies the figures and documents for it:

• A stock card from daily work. Delivery notes, invoices, till sales, webshop orders, credit notes and purchase orders create stock movements carrying the document number and the customer or supplier name. The movement log shows them per article with a running balance. Movements created by documents can't be deleted.
• Stock and volume as of 31 December. Under Statistics → SWK, Vinosoft produces the detailed inventory, Formular A and Formular B as a PDF — the figures you copy into the SWK portal. See The SWK wine trade control report.
• Leave out third-party stock. Storage locations whose contents aren't yours can be excluded from the SWK report. See Manage storage locations.
• For self-vinifying growers: the cellar bookkeeping module. It keeps grape lots, pressing, blends, bottling and the vessel register, closes the stock cards as of 31 December automatically in January, and fills in the SWK's official Excel forms A and B for the report, separately per owner. Its overview flags gaps an inspector would notice, such as wine produced without an SWK code, negative balances or cards that weren't closed. The module is switched on per account.

For a wine to appear in the report, the article needs an SWK code and a size; check both when you create it.

What may change

In November 2025 the Federal Council proposed relief for self-vinifying growers, including a simplified, standardised document instead of running cellar records and a single annual entry for bottle sales per product. This needs an amendment to the wine ordinance; until it is in force, today's rules apply.

The bigger picture: Cellar bookkeeping and wine trade control.

Sources: Swiss wine ordinance (SR 916.140), SWK leaflet for the wine trade (02/2024), Federal Council report on postulate 21.4446 (November 2025). This guide is not legal advice; the SWK's answers are binding.