Purchasing power: Zug has the highest spending potential
GfK: With a total of EUR 49,592, the Swiss will have significantly higher per capita purchasing power in 2023 than the inhabitants of neighboring Austria and Germany.
According to the GfK forecast, the total purchasing power of Switzerland's more than 8.7 million inhabitants will amount to 433.4 billion euros in 2023 (excluding Liechtenstein). The nearly 9 million Austrians, on the other hand, will have a total purchasing power of around 239.5 billion euros in 2023, while the total purchasing power of the more than 83.2 million Germans will amount to 2,186.7 billion euros. These are the findings of the new GfK Purchasing Power Studies 2023.
A look at the regional distribution of purchasing power in Switzerland offers insights into where people with particularly high spending potential live. Among the Swiss cantons, Zug, Schwyz and Nidwalden lead the ranking, as in previous years. With 79,207 euros per capita, the canton of Zug is clearly in first place. This means that people there have almost 60 percent more available for their spending than the average Swiss.
Overall, eight of the 26 Swiss cantons have above-average per capita purchasing power, while spending potential is below average in more than two-thirds of the cantons. In the last-placed canton of Jura, people have a per capita purchasing power of 42,928 euros, which is more than 13 percent below the national average.
Compared to last year, there are changes in the ranking of the top 10 cantons: Appenzell Innerrhoden moves up two ranks to sixth place, and Genève also improves by one rank and occupies eighth place this year. Basel-Landschaft, on the other hand, slips down one place to seventh, and Basel-Stadt even drops two places to ninth.
At the more detailed district level, the large regional differences in purchasing power become even more apparent. The leader among the Swiss districts is Höfe, where residents have 121,314 euros per capita at their disposal, almost 145 percent more than the national average. It is followed in second and third place by the Meilen district and the canton of Zug, whose per capita purchasing power is almost 61 percent and 60 percent above the Swiss average respectively. At the other end of the ranking, as in previous years, is the Bernina region: here, residents have a spending potential of 35,987 euros per capita, which is more than 27 percent below the national average. Thus, per capita spending power in the Höfe district is almost 3.4 times higher than in the Bernina region.
