When should you draw your 3a?
Lump-sum withdrawal tax is progressive — pulling all your 3a accounts in one year lands you in a steep bracket. Spreading withdrawals across 5 separate years can save CHF 10 000–40 000 in tax for a CHF 350 000 balance. This tool finds the optimal schedule.
How it works
Pillar 3a (and Pillar 2 lump-sum) withdrawals are taxed on a separate lump-sum scale that's typically 1/5 the ordinary income rate. But the scale itself is still progressive — a CHF 350 000 withdrawal in one year might fall in the 6 % effective band, while CHF 70 000/year for 5 years stays in the 2.5–4 % band the whole way through.
The rules: Swiss law allows up to 5 separate Pillar 3a accounts. You can withdraw one (or more) per tax year. You can start withdrawing 5 years before AHV retirement age (currently 65) and must finish by age 70.
The tool above: brute-forces every assignment of accounts to years within your window and picks the schedule that minimises cumulative lump-sum tax. ~7 800 permutations for 5 accounts × 6 years; runs in milliseconds.
What's not modelled: Pillar 2 (BVG) lump-sum draws, ordinary income in the withdrawal year (which adds onto the lump-sum bracket in some cantons), partial withdrawals for property purchase, the AHV interaction. For a full retirement plan, our paid plan wires this into the multi-year LPP solver.
How big can the saving be?
For a single retiree in Zürich with CHF 400 000 across 4 Pillar 3a accounts, the difference between one-shot and 4-year-staggered withdrawal is typically CHF 18 000–25 000. Real money, just from sequencing.