Your students’ residence permits also depend on one sentence on your website.

Picture this: an agency in Shanghai translates a Swiss boarding school’s brochure into Chinese. “Preparation for the International Baccalaureate” becomes a sentence that reads like a state-recognised Swiss diploma. The translation ends up on the Chinese page of the website. Nobody at the school reads Chinese, and nobody asks.

This is not a question of style. It touches the very basis on which students from outside the EU and EFTA come to Switzerland today without an in-depth review of the programme.

The shortcut the SEM grants.

In a circular dated 16 May 2024, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) recommends a clear procedure to the cantonal migration authorities. Schools listed in the Swiss Private School Register can be presumed to provide proper education within the meaning of Article 24 of the Ordinance on Admission, Residence and Gainful Employment. An in-depth review of the school programme is then not required.

The other side is in the same paragraph. If there are concrete and obvious signs that a school no longer meets the register’s requirements, the authority contacts the SEM and the register without delay. Until the matter is cleared up, no residence permits for attending that school are to be granted in principle. For a boarding school with many students from outside Europe, that is not a reputational issue. It is next year’s revenue.

Two qualifications, in fairness. The personal requirements of each application are still examined individually despite the listing, and cantonal rules continue to apply. And programmes of federally and cantonally recognised higher vocational education, such as those at hotel schools with federally recognised programmes, do not need a listing.

What the register requires.

The register is run by a foundation established in 2006 by the Swiss Federation of Private Schools. Its rules require, among other things:

• A recognised quality assurance system, the licence of the host canton, adequate liability insurance and a current extract from the debt enforcement register.
• Clear advertising. The school submits its contracts and advertising material and confirms that its national and international advertising states unambiguously whether a programme is a state-recognised qualification, exam preparation for a recognised qualification, a qualification recognised by associations, or education with no recognition.
• Clear contracts. Admission conditions, curriculum, teaching formats, start and duration, number of lessons, board and lodging, type of qualification and costs, including materials and exam fees.
• More for hotel schools, MBA schools and private universities. Positive reports from the cantonal vocational education office and the cantonal migration office, plus a school visit.

The requirements are reviewed every four years, and the school must submit current documents without being asked. A change of ownership must also be reported without being asked. If a school has given false information, the foundation board can issue a warning or remove it from the register, immediately in serious cases. There is no ordinary appeal against its decisions. In October 2026 the public register listed 45 schools, ten of them in renewal.

The blind spot: the website is advertising, in every language.

Most schools associate the register with quality systems and insurance certificates. Hardly anyone thinks of the website. Yet it is every school’s most-read piece of advertising, and it often exists in languages nobody in the leadership team reads: Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Turkish. Some versions were written by agencies, some by translation bureaus, some by an intern three years ago.

One mistranslated sentence can cost more than a bad review.

My position is clear: the language versions of a school website are not a marketing matter. They are part of the commitments a school makes to the register and the authorities. Whatever the English page says about how a qualification is recognised, the Chinese page must say in exactly the same way. And no sentence, in any language, should promise a permit. The authority decides, person by person.

What I would check on the website.

• One sentence per programme. Which of the four recognition categories applies, in the same words in every language.
• A glossary for translators and agents. The binding terms for qualifications and recognition, so that nobody translates freely.
• The fees page. What the contract must state, materials and exam fees included, belongs on the website too.
• No promises about permits. A factual page on the procedure by nationality, without guarantees.
• A comparison with every change. When a programme changes, every language version is checked. A simple automation can flag differences between languages before someone else finds them.

Before your next renewal.

1. This month

   Know your expiry date

   The public register shows how long your listing is valid. Plan the renewal six months ahead.

2. Before you submit

   Have every language reviewed

   By people who know the language and your programmes, not only by the agency that wrote the text.

3. With any change of ownership

   Inform the register

   Without being asked, as the rules require, and review the website at the same time.

4. Ongoing

   Collect agents’ material

   What agents publish in your name is, for families, your advertising.

Choose the most ambitious sentence on your website, the one your admissions team likes best. Now read it in one of your website’s other languages, especially the one you cannot read, or ask someone to read it aloud to you.

Does it say the same thing? Does it promise the same thing? If a migration authority read it next to a permit application, would it inspire more confidence or less? The translation nobody reviewed is advertising for your school too.

If you would like me to review your website and its versions in other languages from this angle, start with the Strategic Diagnostic. Questions about how the rules apply to a specific case are for the register, the migration office or your legal adviser.