Settlor moves abroad: keep, add or change the trustee of your trust

When a settlor moves abroad, the trust and its trustee do not move with them. The trust deed still governs, the assets are still held by the trustee, and the people who run the trust are the same. What changes is the world around it: a new tax system, a new legal tradition, new reporting duties for you, and sometimes a country that has never heard of a trust. The practical question is narrow: does this move call for a new trustee, or only for new advice around the one you already have?

This page looks at that question from the trustee's side of the table. It does not compare jurisdictions or work through the tax and succession rules of any particular country; those need an individual analysis from advisers in the places concerned.

Why a move rarely decides the trustee question by itself

Many settlors assume that leaving Switzerland, or leaving the country where the trust was first set up, means the trustee must change too. That is not how trusts work. A trustee's powers come from the trust deed and the governing law chosen in it, not from where the settlor lives.

A move does, however, put pressure on three points that a trustee influences:

• Information flow. Your new country may require you, or your family, to report on the trust. Your trustee must be able to supply what is needed, in the right form and on time.
• Decision-making. If you hold reserved powers or are consulted on distributions, a time difference or a lack of access can slow the trust down.
• Local perception. Some banks, notaries and authorities in the destination country treat a trust and its trustee with suspicion. A trustee who is used to explaining the structure helps; one who is not can leave you alone with the questions.

None of these makes a change of trustee mandatory. Each is a reason to test the current relationship before deciding.

Three honest options: keep, add or change

Keep the trustee and add advice

This is the most common outcome. The trustee is competent, responsive and properly authorised, and the move simply creates a need for local tax and legal input. You keep the structure, brief your new advisers, and ask the trustee to work with them. Your trustee's job is then to provide accurate records and explain how the trust is run, not to give tax advice for the country you are moving to.

Add a second trustee or a protector

If the concern is distance, you can strengthen the structure rather than replace it. A co-trustee in or near your new country can handle local contact, while the Swiss trustee keeps administration. Alternatively, a protector gives you a watchful presence with defined powers. Both add cost and complexity, and both need to be written into the deed or agreed through a formal appointment. See also whether a trustee with or without a protector suits your family.

Change the trustee

A change makes sense when the move exposes a real weakness: a trustee who is not responsive, who cannot supply the information your new situation demands, or who lacks the authorisation or the experience for what the trust now needs. The mechanics are covered in changing trustee step by step, and the warning signs in replacing a failing trustee.

A decision tree for relocation

The tree below is a starting point. It does not replace advice, and several of its branches depend on your destination and your family's residence.

Example: moving to a country that does not know trusts

Take a fictional settlor, Elena, who set up a discretionary trust while living in Geneva. She accepts a posting in a civil-law country whose legal system has no concept of a trust. Her family will join her within a year.

What does this change for the trustee question? Not the validity of the trust: the Hague Convention on trusts is the framework through which Switzerland recognises trusts, though recognition elsewhere varies. What changes is how people in her new country will see the structure. Her new bank may ask for the trust deed and a statement of who the beneficial owners are. Her local adviser will want to understand whether she has kept any reserved powers that could affect how the trust is treated. Her trustee must be ready to answer both.

The sensible reaction is usually to keep the Swiss trustee, provided it can document the structure clearly. Elena asks for an up-to-date summary of the trust, a list of the parties, a copy of the deed and any letter of wishes. She then hands these to her local adviser and asks for written advice before taking any distribution or making any change to the trust. If the adviser concludes that the structure sits badly in the new country, the options are to adjust it or, in some cases, to wind it up; the trustee's duty is to carry out valid instructions, not to resist them.

Questions to ask before deciding

The move checklist below is the entry point. Tick each item before you decide whether to keep, add or change.

• Read the trust deed: who can appoint and remove the trustee, and what powers do you still hold?
• Check the governing law and whether it allows a change of residence of the settlor without consequence for the trust
• Ask the trustee for a current summary of the structure, the parties and the assets
• Ask your trustee how it will cooperate with your new advisers and what it needs from them
• Find out what reporting your new country asks of you and which of it depends on the trustee
• Confirm that your trustee remains authorised and supervised; a regulated trustee must notify its supervisory organisation of relevant changes in advance
• Decide who in the family will be the contact person for the trustee after the move
• Update your address and identification details with the trustee, which has its own anti-money-laundering duties
• Review your letter of wishes so that it reflects your new circumstances

For a more general review, the annual trust health check gives a structure you can reuse.

What authorisation means for a move

A trustee established in Switzerland and acting professionally is an authorised financial institution under the Financial Institutions Act (FinIA, known in French as LEFin). The Swiss financial regulator, FINMA, grants the authorisation, and day-to-day checks are carried out by a supervisory organisation that FINMA itself authorises and oversees. Changes of facts must be reported to that organisation in advance.

For you, the point is practical: a Swiss trustee operates under a framework that applies wherever its clients live. Your move does not alter the trustee's own status, but it may alter what the trustee must verify about you. Our guide on what FINMA and SO-FIT approval means for you explains how to read that status, and the settlor-moving-country role of the trustee describes what a trustee does in practice. If you are examining your options more broadly, see switch trustee or stay and fix the relationship.

Signs that a change is justified

Some moves expose problems that were already there. Watch for these:

• The trustee takes a long time to answer simple questions or does not return documents you are entitled to.
• It cannot explain how it meets its own regulatory duties.
• It resists working with your new advisers.
• It lacks experience with families living in the country you are moving to.

If several apply, treat the move as the moment to reassess. If none applies, a change risks cost and disruption without real benefit.