Single or multi family office: what is the difference?

Family ties, not the label.

The Financial Institutions Act does not apply to persons who manage solely the assets of persons with whom they have business or family ties. (FinIA Art. 2(2)(a))

Family ties include relatives in the direct line, relatives up to the fourth degree in the collateral line, spouses and registered partners, co-heirs until the estate is divided, and persons in a permanent life partnership with the manager. (FinIO Art. 4(1))

An office organised as a company is covered too where it is controlled by family members, or by a trust or foundation that a family member set up. Not-for-profit institutions among the beneficiaries do not change that. (FinIO Art. 4(2)–(3))

Other families’ assets make it a portfolio manager.

A portfolio manager manages assets on a commercial basis in the name and on behalf of clients. (FinIA Art. 17(1)) It needs FINMA’s authorisation, and may be entered in the commercial register only once that has been granted. (FinIA Art. 5)

Once authorised, it is supervised on an ongoing basis by a supervisory organisation that FINMA licenses and supervises. (FinIA Art. 61; FINMA)

A name does not say which.

288 active companies are registered in Switzerland with “family office” in their name.

Antevo count from Zefix open data (the Central Business Name Index of the Federal Commercial Registry Office, opendata.swiss), accessed 17 October 2026: active entries in the commercial register whose registered name contains “family office”, also written “familyoffice” or “office familial”, without those in liquidation, by the canton of the registered office. Every legal form counts. A name says nothing about the business: the count includes offices that serve one family and offices that serve several, and misses family offices whose name does not say so. Counts only: no company is named.

The founders choose the name; it does not show whether the office serves one family or several. That depends on whose assets it manages.