Guide

How much does an ambulance cost in Switzerland, and who pays for it?

Alejandro Redondo Lázaro · 12 min read · Published 25.08.2026

An ambulance in Switzerland costs around 1,000 CHF, and a night-time emergency with a doctor on board can come to more than 2,500 CHF. Those two reference points come from the federal comparison of 2014 and from an example bill that the St. Gallen rescue service published in 2025. Basic health insurance pays 50% of the cost, but with a yearly cap that changes depending on how the call-out is classified. If it was a rescue, that cap is 5,000 CHF. If it was a transport, it is 500 CHF. Anything above that you pay yourself, unless supplementary insurance covers it.

Which of the two caps applies to you depends on the circumstances of the call-out, and not on how fast the ambulance arrived. And if the cause was an accident, who pays depends on your working situation, because accident insurance may pay it instead of your health insurer. Both are explained further down.

How much does an ambulance cost in Switzerland?

There is no national price. Each rescue service agrees or sets its own tariff, so the amount changes with the service that attends you, the time of day, the kilometres and whether a doctor is on board. The Swiss Conference of the Cantonal Ministers of Public Health (GDK/CDS) does not set a common tariff either.

In the national comparison published by the Swiss federal price watchdog in 2014, a life-threatening emergency call-out cost between 680 and 2,144 CHF depending on the scenario. The average of the services that replied was 951 CHF without a doctor and without a night surcharge, and 1,372 CHF with a doctor and with a night surcharge.

The St. Gallen rescue service publishes an example bill from March 2025 that comes to 2,528.50 CHF, for an emergency overnight from Saturday to Sunday, with a doctor on board and 50 kilometres.

What is the difference between rescue and transport on the bill?

The law does not treat the two the same. One cap is ten times bigger than the other. For a rescue, basic insurance pays 50% of the costs, up to a maximum of 5,000 CHF per calendar year, and only if the rescue happens in Switzerland. For a transport it also pays 50%, but up to a maximum of 500 CHF per calendar year.

What separates one case from the other is the circumstances of the call-out. The Federal Office of Public Health defines it like this. There is a rescue when a person is brought out of a situation that amounts to an extreme danger to their life and their health and is urgently given the nearest appropriate medical care. The St. Gallen rescue service illustrates it with examples in its own documentation, such as a mountain accident, a car accident or a heart attack. Every other medically indicated journey falls into the transport category, even if the trip was urgent.

Set against a real bill, it is easier to see. With the 2,528.50 CHF of the example above, if the call-out is classified as a rescue, basic insurance covers 1,264.25 CHF, because half the bill sits well below the cap of 5,000 CHF. If it is classified as a transport, it covers 500 CHF and not a franc more, because there the cap decides. The same ambulance on the same night, with a difference of 764.25 CHF in what the insurance covers. And your deductible and the 10% co-payment still come off that amount, as explained just below.

With transport there is one more condition worth knowing. Basic insurance contributes when the journey is medically indicated and when your state of health does not allow you to travel by any other means, public or private. A journey you could have made by taxi or by car falls outside it.

Do the deductible and the co-payment apply to an ambulance bill?

Yes, and that is why the half the insurance covers never reaches you in full. That amount counts as just another medical cost for the year, so your deductible (Franchise, the word printed on your policy) and the 10% co-payment still come off it. The St. Gallen document says so itself when it explains that the contribution is worked out after deducting the insured person’s own share.

The practical consequence is a big one. If you have not used up your deductible yet, what the insurance covers is taken off it, and you can end up receiving nothing for that bill. How much you pay before the insurance starts paying is in the guide on the deductible.

Does supplementary insurance cover the ambulance?

It can, and it is one way to close the gap that the basic insurance leaves. Supplementary insurance (VVG in German, LCA in French and Italian) is a private, voluntary contract that you add on top of the basic cover. Some of its products include transport and rescue costs, and others exclude them. It depends on the particular product and on its conditions.

A simple example with the bill above, if the call-out is classified as a transport. Of the 2,528.50 CHF in the example, the basic insurance covers 500 CHF, and supplementary insurance can cover part or all of what is left, up to the limits of your product. If yours does not include ambulance transport, what is left you pay yourself.

Before you count on it, check three things in the conditions of your product:

• Whether it includes transport and rescue costs. Look them up under those names in the table of benefits.
• The maximum amount it pays per year for that item.
• Whether it pays a percentage of the cost or a fixed amount.

Where the basic insurance ends and supplementary insurance begins is the subject of the guide on supplementary insurance.

Who pays for the ambulance if it was an accident?

Everything so far has been about health insurance. If the ambulance came because of an accident, who pays depends on your working situation. Accidents at work are covered by your employer’s accident insurance. So are accidents outside work, as long as you work at least 8 hours a week for the same employer. Below that threshold, an accident on the way to work still counts as an accident at work, and the rest of your private life stays with your health insurer.

And this matters far more than it seems. When the accident insurer pays, the caps of 500 and 5,000 CHF do not apply, because those caps belong to health insurance law. The accident insurance law says that travel, transport and rescue costs are reimbursed to the extent that they are necessary, without setting any maximum amount. For costs incurred abroad, the Federal Council can limit that reimbursement.

If the accident happened at work or on the way there, tell your employer and ask for the name of its accident insurer. Checking which of the two insurers pays before you argue about a bill saves time, because it changes who pays and how much. The guide to compulsory health insurance explains how the two fit together.

What do I do when the ambulance bill arrives?

1. Look at whose name the bill is in and what due date it carries. That comes first, because it sets the time you have.
2. Look on the bill for the word that classifies the call-out. In German, Rettung is rescue and Transport is transport. In French, sauvetage is rescue and transport is transport. It tells you which cap has been applied to you.
3. Check whether the cause was an accident. If it was, and you are insured through your employer, the bill goes to the accident insurer and not to your health insurer.
4. If the bill comes to you, send it to your insurer even if you think it does not reach the cap. Without the bill, your insurer cannot apply the contribution.
5. Go through the breakdown of the refund when it arrives. That is where you see how much of the bill the insurance covered, what was charged to your deductible and what to the 10% co-payment.
6. If one cap has been applied and you were expecting the other, ask your insurer for the explanation in writing and keep the report from the rescue service.

Where do these figures come from?

The federal comparison was made by the Swiss federal price watchdog in 2014, applying one and the same scenario to every service that replied: 70 minutes of call-out time, 50 kilometres there and back, and two professionals on board.

The 2025 reference is the example bill published by the St. Gallen rescue service itself, with the total already worked out and every item broken down.

Two ideas come out of all this. The first is that a single example from 2025 already goes past the highest figure in the whole 2014 comparison, which was 2,144 CHF, even though it is one service set against a scenario built for everyone. The second is that the gap between services is wide, and the regulator said so itself. For emergencies, the most expensive institutions bill more than twice what the cheapest ones bill. For journeys booked in advance, around three times as much.

Frequently asked questions

The short version

An ambulance in Switzerland costs around 1,000 CHF according to the federal comparison of 2014, and the example bill St. Gallen published in 2025 comes to 2,528.50 CHF. Basic insurance covers half, with a yearly cap of 5,000 CHF if it was a rescue and 500 CHF if it was a transport. Your deductible and the 10% co-payment still come off that amount, so in a year when your deductible is not yet used up you can receive nothing at all. If the cause was an accident, who pays depends on your working situation, and when the accident insurer pays, those caps do not apply. How all of this fits together is in the guide to compulsory health insurance.

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