Unemployment benefits for cross-border workers after a job in Switzerland: who pays, on which salary, with which form

If you live in France and lose your Swiss job completely, France pays your unemployment benefit: you register with France Travail, the French public employment service, which pays you the French unemployment benefit (allocation d’aide au retour à l’emploi, ARE) as if you had worked in France. This is the rule in article 65 of EU Regulation (EC) No 883/2004, which Switzerland applies in the version that binds it under the free movement agreement with the EU (accord sur la libre circulation des personnes, ALCP).

Switzerland pays you nothing directly, but it later reimburses France Travail for the first 3 months of benefits, or the first 5 if you worked at least 12 months in Switzerland during the last 24. The rule is reversed for short-time work: if your Swiss contract continues with reduced hours (réduction de l’horaire de travail, RHT), Swiss unemployment insurance pays.

According to Unédic, the body that runs French unemployment insurance (agreement of 25 February 2026), the gap between benefits France paid to cross-border workers from Switzerland, the EU and the EEA and the reimbursements it received reached 860 million euros in 2024.

France Travail calculates your benefit on the gross salary you actually earned in Switzerland, converted into euros: article 62(3) of Regulation 883/2004 requires the country of residence to take into account the salary earned in the country of last employment. The French formula then applies: the daily benefit is the higher of 40.4% of the daily reference wage (salaire journalier de référence) plus a fixed part of €13.18, or 57% of that wage, capped at 75% of the daily wage and at €300.21 a day.

The French unemployment insurance agreement of 15 November 2024 planned to reduce salaries earned abroad by a coefficient based on average wages published by the OECD (general rules, article 11, § 1 bis). The government order approving the agreement, dated 19 December 2024, excluded that clause, so it does not apply. According to Unédic, benefit amounts were not uprated on 1 July 2026.

The EU reform would make the country of last employment pay a cross-border worker’s unemployment benefit once the worker has 22 weeks of continuous insurance there; otherwise the country of residence remains responsible. According to Unédic, the European Parliament and the Council reached a provisional agreement on 22 April 2026, which both institutions still have to adopt formally.

For someone who worked in Switzerland, nothing changes at this stage. Switzerland applies Regulation 883/2004 in the version that binds it under annex II of the free movement agreement (LACI, article 121), and any change to that annex is decided by the EU-Switzerland Joint Committee (ALCP, article 18). Until that committee decides, France Travail remains your payer and Switzerland reimburses 3 or 5 months.