Cross-border maintenance (CH-FR-EU)

Cross-border child and spousal maintenance: calculation under Swiss law, recognition and enforcement under the Lugano Convention, recovery via the Aripa and SCARPA.

Cross-border maintenance is one of the most common failure points of a binational divorce. A pension order rendered in Switzerland but never enforced in France produces zero euros. A maintenance amount set under one set of cost-of-living assumptions becomes untenable as soon as one parent crosses the border. The firm structures each maintenance case to be both legally sound and operationally enforceable across the CH-FR-EU corridor.

Two layers of difficulty

A maintenance case across the Swiss-French border combines two legal layers:

  • Substantive law — how the amount is computed. Swiss law (CC art. 276 ss) and French law (Code civil art. 371-2 ss) apply different methods, different reference incomes and different cost-of-child tables.
  • Enforcement law — how the order is collected. The Lugano Convention 2007 governs recognition and enforcement of decisions; the Aripa (Agence de recouvrement) and the Swiss Office for the Recovery of Maintenance handle the operational side.

A robust strategy treats both layers simultaneously from the first draft of the petition.

Calculation under Swiss law — the two-step method

Since the Federal Tribunal decision BGE 144 III 481 (2018), the calculation proceeds in two steps:

  1. Establish the minimum vital of each party. Base minimum (CHF 1’200 single adult, CHF 1’700 couple), housing share, taxes, health insurance, professional travel costs.
  2. Distribute the surplus. Each adult gets two units; each child gets one unit (or 0.5 if under 10). The result determines the contribution each parent owes for the child plus, where applicable, post-divorce spousal maintenance under art. 125 CC.

The method explicitly includes care contribution (Betreuungsunterhalt) for the parent who looks after the child day to day — a Swiss innovation absent from French law.

Adjustment for cross-border situations

When one parent lives in France and the other in Geneva, three adjustments apply in practice:

  • Reference minimum vital — the French parent’s minimum is benchmarked against French social-aid scales (RSA + AAH proxies), not Swiss ESS norms.
  • Currency — orders must clarify the payment currency. A CHF-denominated order paid by a Swiss-resident parent to a French-resident parent is the standard.
  • Indexation — orders are tied to the Swiss consumer-price index. Re-anchoring to a French index is a frequent error.

Recognition and enforcement under the Lugano Convention

Once obtained, a Swiss maintenance order must be made enforceable in France:

  • attach a Lugano certificate (art. 53 LUG and Annex I);
  • file the order with the competent French court (Tribunal judiciaire of the debtor’s domicile);
  • enforcement then proceeds via French huissiers or the Aripa system.

The mirror process applies for French orders to be enforced in Switzerland — see our procedure Recovering a cross-border maintenance order and the glossary entries on the Lugano certificate and the Lugano enforcement certificate.

Practical recovery channels

  • Aripa (France) — collects maintenance from defaulting French-resident debtors on behalf of creditors. Convention CHF-EUR to clarify.
  • SCARPA (Geneva) — advances unpaid maintenance to low-income creditors and pursues the Swiss-resident debtor.
  • Swiss Federal Office of Justice (OFJ) — central authority for the New York Convention 1956 on the recovery of maintenance abroad, applicable to non-EU states.

Modification across the border

A change of circumstances (income change, child reaching majority, relocation) can justify a modification under art. 134 CC for child maintenance or art. 129 CC for spousal maintenance. Important: a Swiss order can only be modified by the Swiss court that issued it — never by a French court applying French law. Trying to “rewrite” a Swiss maintenance order in France triggers refusal of enforcement on either side.

Tax angle

Maintenance has tax consequences that vary by side:

  • in Switzerland, child maintenance is deductible for the debtor and taxable for the creditor (art. 33 al. 1 let. c LIFD);
  • in France, child maintenance is deductible up to the rate ceiling and taxable for the creditor;
  • a maintenance amount set without checking both tax positions can lose 25-35% of its effective value.

What you receive

  • A maintenance projection under Swiss law, including the care contribution component.
  • A jurisdiction note covering enforcement in the spouse’s country.
  • The petition or response drafted in French (working English translation on request).
  • A pre-built file for the Lugano certificate / Annex I to attach at judgment time.

Trilingual French / English / Spanish. Personal handling from start to finish — no substitution. First consultation CHF 50.

Discuss my maintenance case