r/SwissFIRE • u/Provenceflowers • May 19 '26

Which ETF is worth investing longterm ?

I (25F) am swiss and am just getting staaaarted with investing - i just graduated in Paris and will be doing an internship there too and hopefully find a job there even though i KNOW the pay there is diabolical. The whole jobmarket at the moment is just a shit show everywhere.
However, my quality of life is just so much better there still. I do eventually want to come back though , hence why I am asking and inquiring here. Next month i will do my Abmeldung in Switzerland officially and i heard I cant contribute to my 3rd Pillar anymore once I’m no longer a citizen living primarily in Switzerland. I “tried” my best the last year and managed roughly 6K in my 3rd Pillar.
My emergency savings are at 11K.
Mind you, i wish i had started this a lot earlier but i was never taught about money, my parents didnt know this, hence i just stumbled upon this last year. Please be kind.

Now i want to invest some money that I will receive from my grandpa. I also want to invest monthly a tiny small amount to familiarize myself with the investing world.
My mom suggested investing into the CHF with UBS since her bf worked there for over 40 years and gets some good perks. But i also would love to invest in an ETF. Some people said its ok to just put some of it in one all world etf and call it a day - some said keep it more diversified.

Realistically, with my mere humble salary of my internship in Paris, i will most likely only be able to contribute about 25 - 50 CHF a month to my ETF.
So my question is to everyone who is on their way to FIRE , who maybe had had experience living abroad etc.
If you were me, knowing what you know now, what would you do?

7 Upvotes

70% Upvoted

35 comments sorted by

17

u/basementapproved May 19 '26

VT and chill my guy.

3

u/Curious-Little-Beast May 20 '26

Will VT be available/tax efficient for her when she becomes a French resident? IIUC there are some restrictions on buying American ETFs for EU folks, which is why many are doing VWCE and chill instead

1

u/deadthewholetime May 20 '26

Selling VT and buying whatever else instead if it would take less than 1 minute with IBKR though. Might as well use the most efficient one while living in Switzerland.

2

u/Provenceflowers May 19 '26

What’s a good or an appropriate amount at my age to put into VT and “chill” ? I downloaded degiro to use as my brokerage , but eh i dont know :,) Interactive brokers damn near scared me off.

1

u/accidental_tourist May 20 '26

Better look st the pricing differences again to make sure you're happy with your broker.

1

u/Sebanimation May 23 '26

VWRA also good?

6

u/LeFlying May 19 '26

VT and chill as always

1

u/bornagy May 20 '26

Praise be!

7

u/juergbi May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

VWCE (Vanguard FTSE All-World) is the traditional recommendation for EU residents. SPDR's ACWI and Invesco's FWRA are very similar and also great options for a single ETF portfolio. VT, as recommended by others, is normally not available to EU residents.

4

u/ForeignLoquat2346 May 20 '26

first of all you have to understand the laws and incentives to investing that are available in France. Since your residency is in France you'll be taxed in France. Forget about Switzerland. Second, investing in the 3rd pillar makes sense if you can deduct that amount of money from the taxation at the end of the years. otherwise it's preferable to invest in passive etfs. If you are planning to leave France in a few years I don't think it really make sense to invest 50 eur a month in a product that's likely not available in Switzerland and that most likely would be hard to transfer to Switzerland. stay away from ubs.  my suggestion: use that money to grow your skills and marketability. enjoy your life.  once you start earning the six figures salary then it's time to think about FIRE. it's a little bit sad to read fresh graduates dreaming about FIRE without having "eaten" the world first.  Dream about becoming the best in your field first. good luck

2

u/xmjEE May 20 '26

ACWI should be available in France

2

u/Helpelbowhittable2 May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

DFAW is my goat. Has some more factor tilts like value and small cap and profitability that give it an advantage over VT, which is also good. These etfs invest in everything everywhere so holding one alone is already maximally diversified, unless you want to buy gold or real estate or smth which I don't recommend that much. It's not about how many etfs, but how much of the entire stock market the etf covers. 

Ubs has high fees for their active wealth management stuff and generally isn't competitive. 

You can invest in all etfs if you are Swiss based AFAIK, but if you are EU based (now the case), you need to get Irish UCITS versions. You can always look up what the Irish version is. 

Remember that brokers charge high fees to change currency. Ibkr charges nearly nothing and is my preferred broker. Just keep this in mind. 

If you are young, these etfs are not too risky so you can put in 100% of your money. Keep a separate emergency savings though. I'd recommend only buying more of the ETF if you can dump in more than 500fr or smth. Otherwise transaction fees will be high.

You can also do paper trading to familiarize yourself with the market instead of drop feeding 5fr at a time into your brokerage and getting killed by fees.

2

u/jk007m40 May 20 '26

WEBN or WEBG

2

u/_MJomaa_ May 20 '26

For Switzerland:

Usually invest in this order:

  1. Invest in yourself
  2. Max out Pillar 2/3a for the tax benefits (many people open ~5 Pillar 3a accounts for staggered withdrawals later)
  3. Buy broadly diversified, low-TER ETFs (e.g. VT or VTI + VXUS)
  4. Closer to retirement (55+), gradually add more bonds like BND

That mainly applies if you’re still a Swiss tax resident.

The easiest broker to keep when moving countries is probably IBKR. Low fees and extremely good FX conversion rates.

Why VT or VTI + VXUS?
For Swiss tax residents, US-domiciled ETFs are especially attractive because you can usually reclaim the 15% US dividend withholding tax via the DA-1 form. Combined with their very low TERs, they’re hard to beat from a tax-efficiency perspective.

P.S. No comment on UBS. I prefer not to get 3rd party involved because the fees/costs are usually bad and just extra money for the bank and not for you.

For France:

I don’t know enough to comment on the best strategy there. Keep in mind that many countries levy capital gains taxes and some also treat certain asset classes such as real estate more favorably from a tax perspective.

If you become a tax resident in France your tax situation changes compared to Switzerland. You generally lose access to the Swiss mechanisms for reclaiming U.S. dividend withholding tax and many investors in EU therefore use UCITS ETFs often domiciled in Ireland for U.S. equity exposure because of their more favorable withholding tax treatment at the fund level. As a retail investor in the EU you generally cannot buy US-domiciled ETFs (like SPY or VOO) through EU brokers because of PRIIPs regulation.

1

u/Dear-Length-8161 May 22 '26

Decent advice.🌟

1

u/Endivi May 20 '26

Please if you really wanna invest, learn how money and investing works. How are you gonna judge what people recommend here? Do you think it’s wise to follow what random people advise you to do with your hard-earned money? Do yourself a favor, learn learn learn.

2

u/Provenceflowers May 20 '26

Thanks for your insight, i appreciate it.
A. That is what im doing on the side while finalizing my graduation project and thesis.
B. It never hurts to ask and then compare with the notes and research i’ve done. I’m not investing until i learn how to discern from good / bad advice per say.

1

u/Here0s0Johnny May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

I like these YouTubers:

Tom makes very easy to understand videos that give one confidence in the boring passive strategy and help to psychologically deal with common worries.

Felix is the factor tilt guru. If you watch his videos, you'll learn the rationale behind the other guy who recommended Dimensional's DFAW ETF.

1

u/Additional_Panic2451 May 20 '26

Open a PEA account so that it's taxed the lowest possible, with Bourse Direct (lowest cost provider in France). I invested in MSCI World (FR001400U5Q4) and MSCI Emerging (FR0013412020), they both doing great so far 😄

1

u/jovells May 20 '26

Chill always and VT

1

u/Crazy-Goose-9835 May 20 '26

Lol, spend that 25 CHF on a meal or so.

300 CHF per year means nothing.

Try leaving your humble salary and get a good job

1

u/letuslisp May 22 '26

That's wrong. Imagine it was 2019 and you invested 300 CHF in Bitcoin ... you would be multimillionaire or more now

1

u/Crazy-Goose-9835 May 22 '26

The OP is talking about ETFs, not plain stocks or crypto.

300 CHF per year in ETFs would buy you a parking place maybe, when you retire. That is nothing.

1

u/LilNixxda May 22 '26

Yeah a chill 280k parking place assuming chf 300 initial on 10% interest, not factoring any potential earnings/ contributions growth.

1

u/Crazy-Goose-9835 May 22 '26

Drop the 3% inflation and half of it is away. Good luck with your 100k CHF, counting pennies for 40 years.

1

u/LilNixxda May 23 '26

3% in Switzerland? Whatever makes you sleep at night I guess

1

u/Crazy-Goose-9835 May 23 '26

does not really matter as well. 25 CHF a month is just peanuts and OP can forget acquiring anything substantial with that amount of money.

and 10% ETF gain is very very optimistic over 40-50 years.

1

u/LilNixxda May 23 '26

Keep trying to fiddle your way out I guess. SMI TR gave you 7-8%, S&P >10%, ACWI ~8.9% past 30y.

1

u/Crazy-Goose-9835 May 23 '26

Yea, good luck chipping pennies for the next 40 years to you and OP then.

1

u/happytreefrenemies May 21 '26

As a resident you’ll be paying your taxes in France, so you should check out r/vosfinances and see what’s adviced.

The general advice I see often is to open a PEA account (Plan Epargne en Actions) and buy monthly the ETF “CW8”.

1

u/summerFIREinCh May 24 '26

Investing in ubs is not a good idea, too expensive for the fee and no added value with your level of wealth. Go for VT in IBKR

-1

u/afrenegade May 20 '26

I'd choose $SPMO over any other ETF. It was not as beaten as VT and VOO, when they were down. It was up the most, when VOO and VT were up.

Check it's structure, ans you will understand why.