Switzerland is home to one of the largest Albanian communities in the world relative to its size. The overwhelming majority came from Kosovo, with sizeable groups from western North Macedonia and Albania, and their presence is so woven into Swiss life that some of the country’s most celebrated footballers are Kosovo Albanians. This guide covers how many Albanians live in Switzerland, where they came from, how the community formed, where they live today, and the mark they have made on the country.
It is part of our Albanians Around the World series.
Quick Facts: Albanians in Switzerland
- Albanian speakers: About 303,000 people named Albanian as a main language in 2024 (Swiss Federal Statistical Office), the large majority of Kosovar origin. The community is larger once naturalized citizens and the Swiss-born generation are counted. A conservative estimate from the official figures: about 300,000 people of Albanian origin (method shown below).
- Largest canton: Zurich, with 48,457 residents naming Albanian as their main language in 2024 (Federal Statistical Office).
- Main origins: Kosovo (by far the largest), western North Macedonia, and Albania.
- Where they live: Concentrated in German-speaking Switzerland, led by Zurich, Aargau, St. Gallen, Bern, Lucerne, and Thurgau.
- Famous connection: Swiss football stars Xherdan Shaqiri and Granit Xhaka are both of Kosovo Albanian origin.
On This Page
- How Many Albanians Live in Switzerland?
- A Conservative Estimate, and How It Is Built
- Where They Come From
- How the Community Was Built
- How the Diaspora Helped Free Kosovo
- Where Albanians Live in Switzerland
- The Economic Link: Remittances
- Albanians and Swiss Football
- Community and Everyday Life
- Frequently Asked Questions
How Many Albanians Live in Switzerland?
The clearest official measure comes from language data. In 2024, about 303,000 people in Switzerland, 3.4 percent of residents, named Albanian as a main language, according to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, one of the most widely spoken migrant languages in the country. The great majority are of Kosovar background, which places Switzerland, alongside Germany, among the two largest homes of the Kosovo Albanian diaspora anywhere in the world.
Nowhere is the community denser than in the canton of Zurich, where 48,457 residents named Albanian as their main language in 2024, about 3.6 percent of everyone aged 15 and over, the largest Albanian-speaking population of any Swiss canton. Counted by passport, Zurich alone held more than 32,000 nationals of Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Albania at the end of 2024. Once naturalized citizens and the growing Swiss-born generation are added, the community is considerably larger than any single count of foreign nationals suggests.
A Conservative Estimate, and How It Is Built
A conservative estimate from the official figures: about 300,000 people of Albanian origin in Switzerland. Switzerland is the one large host country where no modelling is needed, because the Federal Statistical Office asks residents about language. In 2024, 302,787 permanent residents named Albanian as a main language, and we use that figure directly as the floor.
For comparison, this is what the method used for other countries in this series gives when it is applied to Swiss country of birth records:
| Group | Official count (December 31, 2025) | Share counted as Albanian | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Residents born in Albania | 10,220 | All | 10,220 |
| Residents born in Kosovo | 133,851 | 90.79 percent, the Albanian share in Kosovo’s 2024 census | 121,523 |
| Residents born in North Macedonia | 90,263 | 24.3 to 66 percent (see below) | 21,934 to 59,574 |
| Total | 153,677 to 191,317 |
The North Macedonia range runs from the Albanian share of that country’s resident population in its 2021 census (24.3 percent) to the Albanian share among citizens living abroad who took part in the same census (about 66 percent). The second figure is our own arithmetic from the published totals: Albanians were 29.52 percent of all 2,097,319 people counted and 24.3 percent of the 1,836,713 residents, which leaves about 173,000 Albanians among the 260,606 people counted abroad.
The birthplace method reaches only about half of the language figure. The difference is mostly the Swiss-born generation, which country of birth tables cannot see, together with Kosovo-born residents who are still recorded as born in Serbia or Yugoslavia. The number of residents recorded as born in Kosovo rose by 23,749 in a single year, between the end of 2024 and the end of 2025, as old birthplace entries were recoded.
What the figure leaves out. The language question comes from a sample survey of private households, so it carries a margin of error and does not cover people in shared accommodation. It also misses people of Albanian origin who no longer name Albanian among their main languages, which becomes more common with each generation born in Switzerland. The real community is therefore likely to be larger than 300,000, but we do not put a number on what cannot be measured.
Last reviewed: September 18, 2026. Inputs: Federal Statistical Office, structural survey 2024, main languages (table su-d-01.08.01.01) and STATPOP, permanent resident population by country of birth (table px-x-0103010000_499); Kosovo Agency of Statistics, Census 2024; State Statistical Office of North Macedonia, Census 2021.
Where They Come From
Most Albanians in Switzerland trace their roots to Kosovo, but the community is not from one place. It also draws on the Albanian regions of western North Macedonia, around Tetovo, Gostivar, and Struga, and on Albania itself, along with smaller numbers from Montenegro and the Preshevo Valley in southern Serbia. Many of the earliest arrivals came in the guest-worker years carrying Yugoslav passports, which is why older Swiss records often listed them simply as Yugoslavs rather than Albanians. That mismatch between ethnicity and citizenship is a big reason the community was undercounted for decades.
How the Community Was Built
Switzerland’s Albanian community was built in stages across roughly sixty years.
| Wave | Period | Who and Why |
|---|---|---|
| Guest workers | 1960s to 1980s | Labor migrants recruited from Yugoslavia, many of them ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and western North Macedonia, who filled jobs in construction, industry, and hospitality and gradually settled |
| Rising repression | 1989 to 1998 | After Kosovo’s autonomy was stripped in 1989, worsening conditions pushed more Kosovo Albanians to join relatives already working in Switzerland |
| The Kosovo War | 1998 to 1999 | A large wave of Kosovo Albanian refugees fled the war, many to Switzerland, where family networks were already strong |
| Settlement | 2000 onward | Family reunification and a fast-growing Swiss-born second generation turned a migrant workforce into a permanent community |
The first Albanians arrived as guest workers in the 1960s and 1970s, when Switzerland recruited labor from across the Balkans. Many were Kosovo Albanians who expected to work a few seasons and return home. Instead, permit by permit, they stayed, and family reunification brought wives, children, and relatives. Switzerland’s seasonal-worker, or Saisonnier, system had shaped those early years: for a long time workers could stay only nine months at a time and could not bring their families, so the first community was made up largely of single men traveling back and forth, until longer permits and family reunification let households settle. As repression of Kosovo Albanians hardened after the 1981 protests in Pristina, a growing share of new arrivals were political refugees rather than laborers. When repression tightened over Kosovo in the 1990s and the Kosovo War erupted in 1998 to 1999, tens of thousands more fled to Switzerland, where they already had family to receive them.
How the Diaspora Helped Free Kosovo
The Swiss-Albanian community is not only large, it played a direct role in the birth of an independent Kosovo. After Slobodan Milosevic stripped Kosovo of its autonomy in 1989 and purged Albanians from schools, hospitals, and public jobs, Kosovo Albanians under Ibrahim Rugova responded by building a parallel state, their own underground schools, clinics, and institutions, run in private homes and funded almost entirely from abroad.
Switzerland became one of the financial engines of that effort. The government-in-exile, led by Prime Minister Bujar Bukoshi from 1991 to 1999, collected an informal three percent tax on the income of Kosovo Albanians abroad, and much of the money was channeled through Swiss accounts to pay the teachers, doctors, and officials of the parallel state back home (SWI swissinfo.ch).
When peaceful resistance gave way to war, the diaspora shifted from funding schools to funding survival. The Homeland Calling fund, known in Albanian as Vendlindja Therret, was based in Switzerland and gathered donations from Albanian communities across Europe and North America, money that was funneled to the Kosovo Liberation Army during the Kosovo War of 1998 to 1999. Published estimates put total diaspora funding for the Kosovo Liberation Army in the tens of millions of dollars. For families who had first left as seasonal workers a generation earlier, it was a way to fight for home from a distance.
Where Albanians Live in Switzerland
Albanians live in every canton, but the community is heavily concentrated in German-speaking Switzerland and its industrial cities. The canton of Zurich leads, followed by Aargau, St. Gallen, Bern, Vaud, Lucerne, Thurgau, and Solothurn. In the French and Italian speaking cantons, such as Geneva, Vaud, and Ticino, Albanians are present but at lower concentration. The map below shows how that settlement pattern falls across the country.
About 303,000 people in Switzerland name Albanian as a main language (Federal Statistical Office, 2024), most of them of Kosovar origin. Hover or tap a canton.
Canton figures count residents who name Albanian as their main language. Source: Swiss Federal Statistical Office, structural survey (2024, residents aged 15 and over).
In everyday terms, that means Albanian bakeries, restaurants, cultural clubs, and mosques are a familiar part of city life across German-speaking Switzerland, from Zurich and Winterthur to Basel and Bern.
The Economic Link: Remittances
The bond between Switzerland and the homeland runs through money as well as memory. Switzerland is one of the largest sources of remittances sent to Kosovo, the transfers that Albanians abroad send back to family. Across Kosovo, remittances are worth more than a tenth of the entire economy each year, funding homes, small businesses, schooling, and daily needs, and Swiss-based families are among the most important contributors. The relationship is so close that observers describe it as one of the most intense bilateral ties either country has (SWI swissinfo.ch).
Albanians and Swiss Football
Nowhere is the community’s place in Swiss life clearer than on the football pitch. Xherdan Shaqiri, born in Gjilan, Kosovo, in 1991 and raised in Switzerland, came up through FC Basel, moved to Bayern Munich, where he won three Bundesliga titles, and later won the 2018 to 2019 UEFA Champions League with Liverpool. Granit Xhaka, born in Basel to Kosovo Albanian parents, became captain of the Swiss national team; his brother Taulant chose to represent Albania, so the two faced each other when Switzerland played Albania at Euro 2016. Other Swiss internationals of Albanian origin include Admir Mehmedi, Valon Behrami, and Ardon Jashari, voted player of the year in Belgium in 2025 before his move to AC Milan.
At the 2018 World Cup, Shaqiri and Xhaka celebrated goals against Serbia by forming the double-headed eagle of the Albanian flag with their hands, a gesture that made headlines worldwide and captured the pride of a diaspora that had arrived as refugees a generation earlier. For more, see our guide to Albanian soccer players.
Community and Everyday Life
Beyond football, the Swiss-Albanian story is increasingly one of a settled, upwardly mobile second generation. Children of guest workers and refugees have moved into business, medicine, law, politics, and the arts, and Kosovo Albanian entrepreneurs have become a visible part of the Swiss business landscape. The best known is Behgjet Pacolli, who built the Lugano-based construction group Mabetex, famous for renovating the Moscow Kremlin, and became one of the wealthiest people of Albanian origin. Cultural associations, Albanian-language schooling, and mosques and Islamic centers anchor community life, while close family ties keep the connection to Kosovo and the wider Albanian world alive. Most Swiss Albanians are Muslim, with Catholic and Orthodox minorities, and faith in the community is generally practiced in the moderate, secular-leaning style common across the Albanian lands.
That second generation is now visible in Swiss public life. In 2023, Islam Alijaj, born in Kosovo and raised in Switzerland, became the first person of Albanian origin elected to the Swiss National Council, the country’s national parliament. Community media such as the Albanian, French, and German language platform albinfo.ch, founded by political scientist Bashkim Iseni, along with a dense network of cultural, sports, and Albanian-language school associations, help hold the community together and connect it to the wider Albanian world.
It was not always an easy path. Through the 1990s and 2000s, Albanian speakers carried a heavily negative public image in Switzerland, often stereotyped in the media and seen as poorly integrated. Two decades of settlement, schooling, visible success in business and sport, and a confident Swiss-born generation have steadily changed that picture, and today the Kosovo Albanian diaspora is widely described as one of the country’s success stories of integration.
Beyond football and politics, Swiss Albanians have become a visible cultural force. The singer Gjon’s Tears, of Kosovar Albanian origin, represented Switzerland at the Eurovision Song Contest, and the rapper Loredana is one of the biggest names in German-language music. The community’s size and confidence show at the Alba Festival in Zurich, first held in 2019 and billed as the largest Albanian music festival in Europe, and in the estimated 6,000 companies run by entrepreneurs of Albanian origin, a figure quoted in Swiss media that no official statistic confirms. In politics, figures such as Ylfete Fanaj, who presided over the cantonal parliament of Lucerne in 2020 to 2021 and in 2023 became the first politician of Kosovar origin elected to a Swiss cantonal government, show how far the second generation has come.
The community’s religious life is coordinated in part by the Union of Albanian Imams in Switzerland, founded in 2012, and by the umbrella association of Albanian Islamic communities known as DAIGS, which reported almost sixty member mosques in 2022, alongside a wide network of cultural, sports, and Albanian-language associations. The community is also served by broadcasters such as Alb’Swiss TV in Geneva, and albinfo.ch publishes a monthly print magazine alongside its website.
Featured Albanian Business Owners in Switzerland
Switzerland’s Albanian community includes founders profiled in our featured business owner series. Valdeta Thaci built the iLead Institute for Learning and Development, and Irena Loloci runs the skincare brand Rena Roots, registered in both Zurich and Arizona.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Albanians live in Switzerland?
About 303,000 people named Albanian as a main language in 2024 (Federal Statistical Office), the large majority of Kosovar origin. Counting naturalized citizens and the Swiss-born generation, the community is larger. A conservative estimate from the official figures is about 300,000 people of Albanian origin, with the method shown in this guide, and the real figure is likely higher.
Which Swiss canton has the most Albanians?
Zurich. In 2024, 48,457 of its residents named Albanian as their main language, the most of any canton, and the community is concentrated across German-speaking Switzerland.
Where are the Albanians in Switzerland from?
The great majority are Kosovo Albanians, with communities from western North Macedonia and Albania and smaller numbers from Montenegro and southern Serbia.
Why did Albanians move to Switzerland?
Many first came as guest workers from the 1960s and 1970s, and a large wave of refugees followed during the Kosovo War of 1998 to 1999. Family reunification did the rest.
Which famous footballers are Swiss Albanians?
Xherdan Shaqiri and Granit Xhaka, both of Kosovo Albanian origin, are among the best known, along with players such as Admir Mehmedi and Valon Behrami.
What role did the Swiss diaspora play in Kosovo’s independence?
A major one. In the 1990s, Kosovo Albanians in Switzerland helped fund Kosovo’s parallel schools and government-in-exile through an informal three percent income tax, and during the 1998 to 1999 war the Switzerland-based Homeland Calling fund raised money, reported in the tens of millions of dollars, for the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Sources
- Swiss Federal Statistical Office, language statistics and structural survey
- SWI swissinfo.ch: Kosovo and Switzerland, an intense relationship
- SWI swissinfo.ch: Kosovo in Switzerland, Switzerland in Kosovo
- Central Bank of the Republic of Kosovo, remittance statistics
- Wikipedia: Albanians in Switzerland
- Federal Statistical Office: Main languages of the permanent resident population, 2024
- Federal Statistical Office: Permanent resident population by citizenship and country of birth (STATPOP)
- Government of Kosovo: First final results of the 2024 Census (ethnic composition)
- Balkan Insight: North Macedonia census 2021, residents and non-residents counted
Related Reading
- Albanians Around the World: The Global Diaspora
- Albanians in Germany
- Is Kosovo Albanian?
- Albanian Soccer Players
- The Kosovo War: A Complete History
Author: Val Demiri
Valbona is an editor and writer at ALB Connection, where she covers the people, businesses, and culture shaping the Albanian diaspora. A journalism graduate of the University of Iowa, her work spans community profiles, success stories, and features on Albanian life across the US, Europe, and beyond. She is drawn to stories that celebrate Albanian achievement and keep the community connected across borders.
