Official Publications Centre (OPC)

The Official Publications Centre (OPC) manages the Swiss legislation publication platform on the admin.ch webportal. The OPC plays a key role in the Federal Administration, helping the federal offices to prepare texts for publication in the Federal Gazette (BBl) or the Official Compilation (AS), and keeping law texts in the Classified Compilation (SR) up to date.

Correction and production

Each year, some 40,000 pages of text are published in Switzerland’s three official languages in the Federal Gazette and Official Compilation of Federal Legislation. This corresponds to more than 2,500 publication records handled by 650 different users within the Federal Administration. Similar to proofreaders in a publishing house, the OPC ensures the correct layout of the official publications and checks the final text.

Compilation of laws

The Classified Compilation of Federal Legislation contains around 5,000 domestic and international laws currently in force. Each year more than half of the 65,000 pages in the Classified Compilation are amended and the relevant acts updated online the day they comes into force. This is done in the three official languages. The constitutions of the cantons are also published in French, German and Italian in the Classified Compilation. Although the Classified Compilation is not legally binding, it is an essential tool used every day by thousands of lawyers in Switzerland. Some laws in the Classified Compilation are also available in Romansh and English.

Other publications

The OPC also publishes documents relating to the launch of consultation procedures, updates the legal texts relating to the bilateral agreements with the European Union and publishes the Administrative Case Law of the Federal Authorities (ACLFA).

Distribution on the federal law web platform

All of the products published by the OPC can be found on the federal law web platform, one of the most frequently consulted Federal Administration web pages (with an average of 3.5 million page views and 0.8 million unique clients per month). 

The main legal bases which determine the work and products of the OPC are the Publications Act of 18 June 2004 (PublA, SR 170.512) and the Publications Ordinance (PublO, SR 170.512.1).