Swiss Federalism Explained Simply: Confederation, Cantons, Municipalities (2026)

Switzerland is not run from one place. Power is deliberately split across three levels: the Confederation (Bund) at the top, the 26 cantons (Kantone) in the middle, and the municipalities (Gemeinden) at the base. This is what federalism means here – decisions are taken as close to the people as possible, and the higher level only handles what the lower one cannot do well alone.

The numbers make it concrete. There is one Confederation, there are 26 cantons, and as of 1 January 2026 there were 2,110 municipalities (the figure drops most years as small communes merge). Each level has its own constitution or rules, its own parliament and government, and its own taxes. You are, at the same time, a resident of a commune, a canton and the country – and once you are a citizen, you vote at all three.

This design is the key to understanding Switzerland, and it is exactly why naturalisation feels different from one place to another. Keep the three levels in mind and most of the civics syllabus falls into place.

Each level has its own job. A simple way to remember it: the bigger the task, the higher the level.

• The Confederation (Bund) handles what must be the same for the whole country: foreign policy, the army, the currency and money, customs, the national motorways and the railways. Its rules apply everywhere.
• The cantons (Kantone) are powerful in their own right. They run the police, the schools and most of education, the hospitals and health care, and much of culture – and they set their own taxes. This is why school or police can work differently in Zurich than in Ticino.
• The municipalities (Gemeinden) handle local life: local zoning and building permits, water and waste, local roads and many local services – and they too levy a communal tax.

The guiding idea is subsidiarity: a task stays at the lowest level that can handle it, and only moves up when it genuinely needs to. That is why Switzerland can be one country and yet feel local everywhere. To see how the federal government itself is organised, our explainer on the Federal Council covers the seven-member executive that leads the Bund.

Switzerland has 26 cantons. Six of them are traditionally called half-cantons: Obwalden, Nidwalden, Basel-Stadt, Basel-Landschaft, Appenzell Ausserrhoden and Appenzell Innerrhoden. The label matters in two precise ways – each half-canton elects only one member to the Council of States (a full canton elects two), and each counts as half a vote when the cantons’ verdict is tallied in a national vote.

That cantonal balance is built right into Parliament, which has two chambers of equal weight:

• The National Council (Nationalrat) has 200 seats and represents the people; seats are shared among the cantons by population.
• The Council of States (Ständerat) has 46 seats and represents the cantons: 20 full cantons with two seats each, plus six half-cantons with one each, makes 46.

The same logic returns when you vote. Changes to the Constitution need a double majority – a majority of voters and a majority of the cantons – so a populous city cannot simply overrule the smaller, rural cantons. That mechanism is one of the most-tested ideas in the exam; our explainer on direct democracy walks through it in detail. For the list of all 26 cantons and their capitals, see our cantons and capitals guide.

Federalism is not just exam theory – it is the reason your own naturalisation works the way it does. Ordinary naturalisation runs through all three levels at once. You generally apply in your commune, which is the first authority to examine your file; your canton then checks its own conditions; and the Confederation gives the federal naturalisation permit. You become a citizen of your commune and your canton and of Switzerland – all three at the same time.

This is exactly why fees, language levels and even the test format differ from place to place: the canton and commune each add their own rules on top of the federal minimum. It is also why the same person can face a written test in one canton and an oral interview in another. (One nuance: facilitated naturalisation – for example as the spouse of a Swiss citizen – is handled federally by the State Secretariat for Migration, not through the commune.)

The practical lesson: always check the rules for your commune and canton, not just the national headline. We track the latest cantonal differences in which cantons got cheaper or stricter in 2026, and you can look up your own in the canton overview.

Examiners love federalism because it captures, in one idea, how Switzerland actually works – and because a new citizen will use it constantly, voting and paying taxes at three levels. Expect questions on the three levels, the 26 cantons and six half-cantons, the 200/46 split between the chambers, and which level does what.

A quick self-check – can you answer these from memory?

• What are the three levels of the Swiss state? (Bund, Kantone, Gemeinden.)
• How many cantons are there, and how many are half-cantons? (26 cantons; 6 half-cantons.)
• How many seats has the National Council, and how many the Council of States? (200 and 46.)
• Which level runs the army and foreign policy, and which runs schools and police? (The Confederation; the cantons.)
• At your own naturalisation, which level do you usually apply to first? (Your commune, for ordinary naturalisation.)

If any of those were shaky, that is your study list. The fastest way to lock it in is active recall – see a question, answer it, get instant feedback. Try a round of politics and civics mock exams and revisit the curriculum for anything you miss.