First 30 days as a Zurich expat — what nobody tells you

The relocation pack covers the permit. It doesn't cover what happens when your tap starts leaking on a Sunday and you don't know a single person in the city.

Everyone tells you Zurich is expensive. They're right. Everyone tells you the trains run on time. Also right. What nobody tells you is that the first month feels less like settling into a new city and more like solving a puzzle where half the instructions are in Swiss German and the shops close at 6pm.

We built Taskkly partly because of this exact experience. So here's the honest guide — not the official one — to your first 30 days.

Moving to Zurich

1. Sundays will catch you off guard as a Zurich expat

   
   

   You will, at some point in your first two weeks, run out of something essential on a Sunday. Milk, toilet paper, coffee — it doesn't matter. What matters is that nearly everything is closed, and the supermarket you walked past yesterday is now a locked building with no explanation.

   
   

   Switzerland takes Sunday seriously in a way that feels almost philosophical. It's not laziness — it's a deliberate cultural choice to protect a day of rest. The practical consequence for a newcomer is that Sunday planning becomes a skill you have to consciously develop.

   
   

   What actually helps

   
   

   Train station shops (Hauptbahnhof, Stadelhofen, Oerlikon) are open on Sundays. So are some Migrolino and K-Kiosk convenience stores. Save these in your maps now, before you need them at 11am on a Sunday morning in a mild panic.

2. Your network doesn't exist yet — and that's the hard part

   
   

   In the city you came from, you had years of accumulated contacts. The electrician your neighbour recommended. The cleaner your colleague passed on. The guy who fixes bikes on the corner who also somehow knows how to fix anything else. That network took years to build, and you left it behind. You have started your new journey as a Zurich expat.

   
   

   In Zurich, you're starting from zero. And the Swiss social scene — warm once you're in, but genuinely hard to break into at first — doesn't hand you that network quickly. The research backs this up: more than half of expats in Switzerland report difficulty making local connections in their first year.

   
   

   This matters practically, not just emotionally. When something breaks in your flat, who do you call? When you need someone to pick up a prescription because you're sick and can't leave? When the IKEA furniture arrives and you realise you fundamentally don't understand the instructions? In your old city, you'd have called someone. Here, you're figuring it out from scratch.

   
   

   "The first month I just kept Googling things in English and hoping for the best. Half the results were in German. The other half were Reddit threads from 2014."

   
   

3. The admin is a sport

   
   

   Switzerland runs on paperwork, and the paperwork runs on German. Your Anmeldung (resident registration), your health insurance setup, your bank account — all of it needs to happen within strict deadlines, and most of the forms are not available in English.

   
   

   Health insurance is the one that trips people up most. You're legally required to have it within three months of arrival. The system is complex — you choose your own provider, your own deductible level, and there are dozens of options. The comparison websites are in German. The call centres are in German. And if you miss the deadline, you get assigned a provider at the most expensive rate.

   
   

   Practical tip

   Comparis.ch has an English version and is the most trusted health insurance comparison tool in Switzerland. Do this in week one, not week eleven.

4. Quiet hours are real and people care about them

   
   

   Ruhezeit — quiet hours — are enforced in Swiss apartment buildings in a way that will feel genuinely surprising if you come from a culture where noise is a neighbourly negotiation. Between 10pm and 7am, noise should be minimal. No laundry. No drilling. In some buildings, no showering after a certain hour.

   
   

   Sunday is a full quiet day in many residential areas. This isn't just a rule written in a lease — your neighbours actually follow it, and they will notice if you don't.

   The temptation in the first few weeks, when you're unpacking boxes and assembling furniture and generally making a new home, is to just get things done. Resist. A bad start with a Swiss neighbour is a long-lasting thing. They have been here longer than you and they will still be here after you've figured out the rhythm.

   
   

5. Finding someone you can trust takes longer than you think

   
   

   This is the thing nobody really warns you about. Not finding things — Zurich has everything — but finding people. Specifically, trusted people who will come to your flat, do a job well, and charge you a fair price without taking advantage of the fact that you're new, don't speak the language, and don't know what things should cost.

   The handyman market in any city has a wide quality range. In a city where you have no referrals, no reviews you can trust, and no language to negotiate with, the risk of getting that wrong is higher. Same goes for cleaners, delivery help, IT support — anything that requires letting someone into your home or trusting them with a task.

   
   

   This is exactly why Taskkly exists. Every Tasker on our platform is personally vetted, assigned to categories based on their actual skills, and available for same-day tasks across Zurich. No German required — you can request, communicate, and pay entirely in English. Pricing is transparent before you confirm anything.

   
   

6. The city rewards patience

   
   

   Here's the thing that takes about three months to fully feel: Zurich is genuinely one of the best cities in the world to live in, and it becomes more obvious the longer you're there.

   
   

   The lake. The mountains you can see from the tram. The weekend ski trips that are actually feasible, not aspirational. The fact that the city is small enough to feel human but connected enough to feel international. The cleanliness that stops feeling remarkable and starts feeling like a baseline you'd miss anywhere else.

   The first 30 days are hard partly because they require you to rebuild so much from scratch — your routines, your contacts, your understanding of how things work. But every expat who's been here more than a year will tell you the same thing: it clicks. And when it does, you stop counting the days.

Need a hand settling in?

Cleaning, handyman, errands, grocery shopping — we cover it all. No German needed, no app required.

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