How Swiss Made Law Actually Works (And Why Brands Game It)

"Swiss Made" is the most powerful two words in watchmaking. They're also the most misunderstood.

Most people assume Swiss Made means a watch was made in Switzerland. That a team of skilled Swiss watchmakers assembled, finished, and inspected every component in a workshop somewhere in the Jura mountains. That the case, the dial, the hands, the movement — all of it — came from Swiss suppliers using Swiss materials and Swiss expertise.

That's not what it means. Not even close.

Swiss Made is a legal designation governed by a specific ordinance — the Ordinance on the Use of "Switzerland" or "Swiss" for Watches — first drafted in 1971 and revised most recently in 2017. It has clear criteria, measurable thresholds, and enough flexibility in its language that an entire sub-industry exists to help brands meet the minimum requirements while manufacturing as much as possible outside of Switzerland.

This isn't a conspiracy theory. It's how the system was designed. And if you're spending serious money on a watch, you should understand exactly what you're paying for.

The Actual Rules

Since January 1, 2017, a watch can legally carry "Swiss Made" on its dial if it meets four conditions.

The movement must be Swiss. Specifically, the movement must have been assembled in Switzerland, inspected by the manufacturer in Switzerland, and at least 60% of its manufacturing costs must have been generated in Switzerland. Additionally, at least 50% of the value of the movement's constituent parts (excluding assembly costs) must be Swiss.

The watch must be cased up in Switzerland. The movement has to be placed into the case on Swiss soil.

Final inspection must happen in Switzerland. The manufacturer has to conduct the last quality control check in Switzerland.

At least 60% of the total manufacturing costs of the finished watch must be generated in Switzerland. This is the big one — the so-called 60% rule. Before 2017, this percentage only applied to the movement. Now it applies to the whole watch.

Additionally, all technical development and prototyping must be carried out in Switzerland. Research and development costs can be included in that 60% calculation. The cost of the bracelet or strap is excluded.

On paper, this sounds fairly rigorous. In practice, it leaves enormous room for interpretation.

Where the Flexibility Lives

The 60% rule is based on manufacturing costs, not on where physical components are made. This distinction matters enormously.

Swiss labour is among the most expensive in the world. A Swiss watchmaker earns significantly more per hour than a factory worker in Shenzhen or Bangkok. So when a brand imports cases, dials, hands, and bracelets from Asia — where they can be produced at a fraction of the cost — and then pays Swiss workers to assemble and inspect the finished product, the Swiss labour costs can easily account for 60% of the total manufacturing cost, even when the majority of physical components were made elsewhere.

Here's a simplified example. A brand sources a case from China for £15, a dial from Thailand for £8, and hands from India for £3. The total foreign component cost is £26. They then pay a Swiss workshop £45 to assemble the movement (itself a mix of Swiss and foreign parts), case it up, regulate it, and run final inspection. Swiss R&D costs add another £20. Total manufacturing cost: roughly £91. Swiss portion: roughly £65, or about 71%. Comfortably above the 60% threshold. The watch is legally Swiss Made — even though the case, dial, hands, and potentially parts of the movement were manufactured in Asia.

This isn't hypothetical. In a 2025 Robb Report investigation, Frederique Constant's managing director openly confirmed that the brand sources cases from Asia and uses factories across the continent. He described Asian manufacturers as "super top-notch" for producing cases, bracelets, and dials at scale. Maurice Lacroix's managing director Stéphane Waser was more blunt: below 5,000–10,000 Swiss francs, it's essentially impossible to be 100% Swiss-made given current labour and material costs.

The law doesn't require brands to disclose where individual components come from. There's no transparency mandate. And there are contractual agreements between Swiss brands and their Asian suppliers that specifically prohibit those suppliers from revealing which clients they serve. The opacity is structural.

The China Free-Trade Loophole

In 2014, the Switzerland-China free-trade agreement entered into force, setting import duties on many watch components to zero. The Swiss Made ordinance contains a provision stating that the 60% threshold can be adjusted when "an international treaty ensures that, as a result of close industrial cooperation, foreign and Swiss constituent parts are equivalent in quality."

In practical terms, this means components imported from China can be treated more favourably in the cost calculation. It's not a blanket exemption, but it creates additional flexibility for brands to source from China while still meeting the legal definition.

When you combine zero-tariff Chinese components with high Swiss labour costs, the arithmetic becomes remarkably accommodating. A watch can contain a significant proportion of Chinese-manufactured parts and still qualify as Swiss Made without any creative accounting.

What "Swiss Movement" Actually Means

There's an important distinction most buyers miss. "Swiss Made" refers to the complete watch. "Swiss movement" refers only to the engine inside.

For a movement to legally be called Swiss, it must be assembled in Switzerland, it must be inspected in Switzerland, and at least 60% of its manufacturing costs must be generated in Switzerland. Separately, at least 50% of the value of the movement's parts (excluding assembly) must be Swiss.

That second criterion is the important one. It means up to half the parts inside a "Swiss movement" can be manufactured outside Switzerland. In practice, this is common. Movement blanks and components are manufactured in Asia, shipped to Switzerland in kit form, and assembled there. The assembly is Swiss. The parts may not be.

ETA, by far the largest supplier of Swiss movements (and owned by the Swatch Group), operates manufacturing facilities in Thailand, China, Malaysia, and Germany in addition to Switzerland. This isn't secret information, but it's not exactly advertised either.

None of this is illegal. But it does mean that "powered by a Swiss movement" isn't the guarantee of provenance most people assume it to be.

The H. Moser Protest

In 2017, when the revised Swiss Made ordinance took effect, one manufacturer decided the whole thing was a joke — and said so publicly.

H. Moser & Cie., a Schaffhausen-based independent watchmaker, produces watches that are over 95% Swiss by value. They make their own movements. They produce their own hairsprings — one of the most technically demanding components in a mechanical watch, and something only a handful of manufacturers worldwide can do. By any meaningful definition, Moser makes Swiss watches.

Their response to the 60% rule was to remove "Swiss Made" from every single watch they produced.

CEO Edouard Meylan didn't mince words: "The Swiss Made label is meaningless. Worse than this, it gives credibility to the worst abuses in our industry."

To drive the point home, Moser created a one-off watch called the "Swiss Mad" — a functioning timepiece with a case made from actual Swiss cheese (Vacherin Mont d'Or, combined with a resin composite and machined to standard tolerances). Red fumé dial evoking the Swiss flag. Cowhide strap. 100% Swiss, right down to the dairy. Priced at CHF 1,081,291 — a reference to the date of the Swiss Federal Charter. All proceeds went to a fund supporting independent Swiss watchmaking suppliers.

It was a stunt, but the underlying argument was serious. When a brand that's 95% Swiss-made shares the same label as a brand that's 60% Swiss-made (with the other 40% coming from Chinese factories), the label tells the consumer nothing useful. It's a floor, not a standard.

Moser's protest highlighted a genuine split within the Swiss industry. On one side: manufacturers who want the bar raised to 80% or higher, who believe Swiss Made should mean something close to what consumers assume it means. On the other: brands who lobbied against tighter restrictions, arguing that globalised supply chains are an economic reality and that the 60% threshold already represents a meaningful commitment.

The Old Rules Were Worse

For context: the pre-2017 regulations were significantly more permissive.

Before the revision, the 50% value threshold applied only to the movement. There was no minimum Swiss value requirement for the watch as a whole. This meant that literally every external component — case, dial, hands, crystal, bracelet, crown — could be manufactured anywhere in the world. As long as the movement met its own 50% threshold, and the watch was cased up and inspected in Switzerland, it qualified.

Under those rules, a brand could import a complete watch kit from China — case, dial, hands, bracelet, everything — fit a Swiss movement (itself potentially containing substantial foreign components), have it assembled and inspected in Switzerland, and legally print Swiss Made on the dial.

The 2017 revision genuinely tightened things. The 60% whole-watch requirement is a real improvement. But the watch industry's critics (and there are plenty of them, including from within) argue it didn't go far enough. The Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry itself has acknowledged that the regulations have been a "controversial subject" for years, with "many voices raised to criticise the present definition."

What This Means for Buyers

None of this is an argument that Swiss watches are bad. Swiss watchmaking infrastructure is real. The expertise, tooling, and quality control capabilities concentrated in the Jura region are genuinely world-leading. A Rolex really is manufactured almost entirely in-house in Switzerland. A Patek Philippe really does represent extraordinary Swiss craftsmanship at every level. The higher you go in the market, the more "Swiss Made" tends to actually mean made in Switzerland.

The issue is at the low-to-mid range — roughly anything under £5,000 retail. In this bracket, the Swiss Made label tells you that a watch has some meaningful connection to Switzerland, but it doesn't tell you how deep that connection runs. Two watches sitting side by side, both marked Swiss Made, one priced at £800 and one at £3,000, can have radically different proportions of Swiss-manufactured components. The label makes no distinction.

So what should you actually look for?

In-house manufacturing claims. Some brands are transparent about what they make themselves versus what they source. Look for this information. If a brand talks specifically about their own workshops, their own assembly, their own finishing — that's a stronger signal than "Swiss Made" alone.

Supplier transparency. A growing number of brands — particularly independents — voluntarily disclose their supplier chains. This is still rare, but it's becoming a differentiator. If a brand tells you their cases come from a specific Swiss supplier, their dials are made in Germany, and their movements are assembled in Glasgow, you know exactly what you're getting. That honesty is worth something.

Price reality. If a Swiss Made mechanical watch retails for under £1,000, understand what that means. At that price point, substantial foreign sourcing isn't a scandal — it's a mathematical necessity given Swiss labour costs. The watch can still be excellent. Just don't assume the Swiss Made label guarantees wall-to-wall Swiss craftsmanship at that price.

Japanese and German alternatives. If provenance matters to you, consider that a Seiko Presage or a Grand Seiko is manufactured in Japan with extraordinary in-house capability, often at a higher percentage of domestic production than a Swiss Made watch at the same price. A NOMOS Glashütte is genuinely manufactured in Germany to an exceptional standard. "Made in Japan" and "Made in Germany" can represent tighter manufacturing provenance than "Swiss Made" — though neither label carries the same market premium.

The Independent Angle

Here's where this gets relevant to the kind of watches we deal in.

Many independent watchmakers — particularly British ones — don't bother with the Swiss Made designation at all. They use Swiss movements (usually from ETA, Sellita, or Miyota/La Joux-Perret) but are upfront about it. They don't pretend to be something they're not. A brand like Fears says their watches are "hand-built in Britain." Pinion says "designed, assembled and tested in England." Paulin says "designed and assembled in Glasgow, Scotland." These are honest descriptions of what's happening.

Meanwhile, the independent Swiss brands that are genuinely doing everything (or nearly everything) in Switzerland — companies like H. Moser, MB&F, Laurent Ferrier, Rexhep Rexhepi — tend to be priced well above the range where the 60% rule creates confusion. At £15,000 and up, Swiss Made typically means what you think it means.

The gap is in the middle. The £500–£5,000 range where most people are shopping. In this bracket, the provenance story gets genuinely complicated, and "Swiss Made" functions less as a quality guarantee and more as a marketing permission slip — a label that allows a brand to charge a premium by association with Swiss watchmaking heritage, regardless of how much actual Swiss watchmaking went into the product.

That's not a reason to avoid Swiss watches. It's a reason to look past the label and ask what you're actually getting.

The Bottom Line

Swiss Made is a legal minimum, not a quality standard. It means at least 60% of the manufacturing costs were generated in Switzerland, the movement meets its own Swiss criteria, and final assembly and inspection happened on Swiss soil. It does not mean the watch was designed, manufactured, and assembled entirely in Switzerland. For the majority of watches under £5,000, it doesn't even come close to meaning that.

The label has real value — it guarantees some Swiss involvement and it's backed by enforceable law. But it's not what most people think it is. And the gap between perception and reality is where some brands have been very profitably operating for decades.

The most honest watches aren't always the ones with the most impressive labels. Sometimes they're the ones that simply tell you what they are.