Trust Administration Requirements by Country: What Changes With the Seat

Trust administration requirements by country differ less in the trust deed than in everything around it: who supervises the trustee, which records must exist, what is filed with an authority, and who can ask to see the paperwork. Two trusts with identical wording can be run in very different ways depending on where the trustee is established and which regulator has jurisdiction over that trustee.

This page describes what ongoing administration looks like in practice, how the main regimes differ, and what a Swiss-regulated trustee does from Geneva. It is general information, not advice. The answer for a given trust depends on its governing law, the residence of the settlor and beneficiaries, and the nature of the assets.

What "administration" actually covers

Administration is the continuous work that follows the signing of the trust deed. Most regimes expect the same core activities, even if they name them differently:

• keeping a complete record of the trust property and every change to it;
• preparing accounts that show what the trustee holds and how it was used;
• taking decisions in line with the deed and documenting the reasons;
• dealing with banks, custodians and any appointed asset managers;
• informing beneficiaries to the extent the law and the deed allow;
• answering regulators, tax authorities and, where relevant, registers.

The difference between seats lies in how much of this is prescribed by statute, how much is left to the deed, and how much is checked by an outside body.

Records and accounts under different regimes

In long-established common-law seats, the duty to keep accounts comes mainly from case law and trust statutes: a trustee must be able to show, on request, what happened to the assets. There is often no fixed format and no routine filing. Oversight is exercised by a court if a beneficiary or another party applies.

In regulated financial centers, the same duty is reinforced by licensing conditions. The trustee is a supervised business, so its record-keeping, internal controls and client files can be inspected even when no beneficiary has complained. Anti-money-laundering rules (AMLA in Switzerland) add identification of the settlor, the beneficiaries and the controlling persons, with periodic updates.

In civil-law seats, a trust is not native law. Administration then rests on the Hague Trusts Convention, on the law chosen in the deed, and on local rules for the trustee's own business. For a closer look at how recognition and governing law interact, see governing law versus seat of administration and the Hague Trusts Convention explained.

How Switzerland frames the trustee's role

Switzerland has no trust statute of its own for domestic trusts, but it applies the Hague Trusts Convention, and since the Financial Institutions Act (FinIA, in French LEFin) it regulates the professional trustee as a financial institution. Under Art. 2 para. 1 let. b FinIA, trustees rank among financial institutions, alongside asset managers. Under Art. 17 para. 2 FinIA, a trustee is anyone who, on a professional basis, manages a separate estate or disposes of it for a beneficiary or for a defined purpose, on the basis of a trust deed within the meaning of the 1985 Hague Convention. Art. 3 FinIA treats an activity as professional when it is an independent economic activity carried out to earn a regular income.

The same law sets what the administration rests on. A trustee based in Switzerland must be a sole proprietorship, a commercial company or a cooperative, entered in the commercial register (Art. 18). The management must include at least two qualified persons (Art. 20), and the minimum capital is CHF 100,000, paid in cash, with suitable security or professional liability insurance (Art. 22). Art. 19 para. 2 states the core duty: the trustee manages the separate estate, preserves its value and uses it for its intended purpose.

Supervision follows from Art. 61 FinIA. Trustees are subject to FINMA supervision, which involves a supervisory organization; day-to-day oversight is carried out by supervisory organizations holding a FINMA authorization. In practice that means the administrator's files are built to be examined by a third party, not only to satisfy the deed.

The annual administration cycle

Most regimes converge on a yearly rhythm, even if no statute prescribes it. The sequence below is typical for a supervised trustee; the exact steps and deadlines depend on the seat and on the deed.

For how the filing step varies, see trust reporting regimes compared and the annual compliance calendar by seat. Disclosure to registers is covered in trust registers and privacy.

The documents an administrator holds

A well-run file is usually the first thing a regulator, a bank or a court asks for. Typical contents:

• the trust deed, amendments and any deed of appointment or retirement of trustees;
• the letter of wishes, if one exists, kept separately from the deed;
• identity and source-of-wealth records for the settlor, beneficiaries and controlling persons;
• minutes or written records of trustee decisions, especially discretionary distributions;
• account-opening papers with custodian banks and mandates given to asset managers;
• yearly fiduciary accounts and the correspondence behind them;
• self-certifications and reporting records used for automatic exchange of information (AEOI/CRS).

How a letter of wishes is weighed varies by seat; see letters of wishes across seats. The role of a protector, where there is one, also changes what the administrator must record; see protector and reserved powers law.

What this service covers

The trust administration service is day-to-day trusteeship from Geneva. It is relevant to settlors and families who want a regulated trustee to run an existing or new trust, and to advisers who need a clear picture of what administration will involve before choosing a seat. It covers:

• fiduciary accounts and yearly statements;
• execution of distributions under the deed;
• coordination with custodian banks, as discussed in banking and custody for trust assets by seat;
• oversight of appointed asset managers;
• periodic reports to beneficiaries.

It does not cover the choice of trustee, tax advice in the beneficiaries' countries of residence, or litigation. It also does not replace advice from counsel in the governing-law jurisdiction.

What the confidential assessment establishes

The confidential assessment is where the practical questions are set out for your situation: which law governs the deed, where the assets are held, who the beneficiaries are and where they live, and what that means for records, reporting and bank relationships. It also clarifies which decisions would remain with other parties, such as a protector, and what a supervised administrator would need before accepting the role. Fees depend on the structure and are indicated after the assessment.

An example: a family established in Lausanne holds a trust with a bank account abroad and a portfolio managed in a third country. Before anything is moved, the assessment would map who holds which document, who reports to whom, and which authority could ask for the records. A comparison of seats is at Switzerland as a trust seat.