How many doctors are there in Switzerland?
The short answer is 42,602. The longer one explains why that number is rising while care is getting tighter — and why every figure here carries its reference year.
The number people search for is quickly given: 42,602 physicians were practising in Switzerland. It comes from the FMH physician statistics for the reference year 2024, published in March 2025.
The year is not a formality. The FMH surveys annually, every edition shifts the values, and a text that writes "currently" is wrong a year later without anyone having touched it. Anyone needing the latest edition will find it at the FMH; what stands here is what the survey named above contained.
The figures at a glance
| Indicator | Value | Reference year |
|---|---|---|
| Practising physicians | 42,602 | 2024 |
| of whom women | 20,224 | 2024 |
| of whom men | 22,378 | 2024 |
| Share of women | 47.5% | 2024 |
| Degree obtained abroad | 41.3% | 2024 |
| Primary care density | 0.8 full-time equivalents per 1,000 inhabitants | 2024 |
| Working in single-handed practice | 39.6% (2014: 57.2%) | 2024 |
| Aged 60 and over | about a quarter | 2025 |
Why a growing number does not ease the situation
The profession grows every year. Practices nonetheless report longer waiting times, and patients report being unable to find a GP. That is not a contradiction but a question of three quantities, all pulling the same way.
First, demand grows faster. An ageing population needs more medical services per head, and that increase outpaces the growth of the profession.
Second, average working hours are falling. Where in 2014 the mean was 8.9 half-days per week, today it is 8.6. Two people on reduced hours appear in the statistics as two physicians and together cover less than one and a half used to.
Third, the growth is distributed unevenly. What matters for everyday care is not the total but primary care density, and that stands at 0.8 full-time equivalents per 1,000 inhabitants — a figure the FMH itself calls low.
The total has been rising for years. The number of full-time equivalents in primary care has not risen to the same degree — and that is what decides whether someone finds a GP.
Dependence on other countries
41.3 per cent of physicians working in Switzerland obtained their degree abroad. For comparison, the FMH cites the OECD average of around 19 per cent. Switzerland therefore meets its demand to an internationally unusual degree through professionals trained elsewhere.
The share has risen over the years: in 2014 it was 31 per cent. This is not a question of quality but of planning. A care system that depends for more than four tenths on other countries' training decisions can steer its own capacity only to a limited extent.
The age structure
About a quarter of practising physicians are 60 or older. That is the figure from which the coming decade can be read: this group will have to be replaced in the foreseeable future, on top of the growth that rising demand requires anyway.
The difference between the sexes is notable. Female physicians are on average markedly younger than their male colleagues — a consequence of women having made up a rising share of graduates for years. The generational change is therefore also a change in composition.
What follows for a practice
No single measure follows from these figures, but a sober expectation does: relief will not come from more staff. Anyone running a practice today plans realistically on the number of professionals per patient falling rather than rising.
That shifts the one lever within reach: how much working time goes on treatment and how much on administration . The fall in single-handed practices from 57.2 to 39.6 per cent belongs to the same picture — larger units share the administration a single-handed practice carries alone.
