New rankings reinforce Greater Zurich’s position as a global business magnet

February 13, 2025

Business environment, Talent & innovation, Sustainability
News

The fDi European Cities and Regions of the Future 2025 report has once again ranked Greater Zurich among the best locations for business expansion. With top rankings in economic potential, connectivity, and business friendliness, the region remains a leading destination for international companies looking to expand.

Explore why global businesses choose Greater Zurich

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Greater Zurich at a glance – fDi Report 2025 results

#1 in Economic Potential 📈
#1 in Connectivity 🌍
#5 in Human Capital & Lifestyle 🎓
#1 in Business Friendliness 🏢

Furthermore, Greater Zurich and 3 of its cities received top 10 placements in their respective categories overall:

Greater Zurich region: #4 Mid-Sized European Region
Zurich: #2 Mid-Sized European City
Zug: #1 Micro European City
Lugano: #9 Micro European City

Why companies choose Greater Zurich – Explore the key factors

📈 Economic potential

A high-growth business destination: Expanding companies need a stable, innovation-driven environment to thrive. Zurich ranks #1 in economic potential, making it a hotspot for high-growth industries, top research institutions, and global investment opportunities.

Innovation & economic potential

🎓 Top talent & research

A magnet for skilled professionals: With Switzerland ranked #1 in global talent competitiveness, companies in Greater Zurich benefit from highly skilled, multilingual professionals and top-tier universities like ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich.

Global talent hub

🏢 Business-friendly & stable

A leading hub for companies: Zug’s #1 ranking in business friendliness underscores Switzerland’s low taxes, minimal bureaucracy, and strong pro-business environment, making expansion smooth and efficient.

Business-friendly environment

🌍 Connectivity

The best-connected business hub in Europe: Ranked #1 in connectivity, the Greater Zurich Area offers seamless access to European and global markets via Zurich Airport, high-speed rail, and a world-class infrastructure network.

Connectivity & infrastructure

🏅 Exceptional quality of life

Where talent thrives: SWitzerland is consistently ranked among the world’s most livable countries, offering top-tier healthcare, education, safety, and work-life balance, making it easier to attract and retain top talent.

Quality of life

What is the fDi Report?

Every year, the Financial Times’ fDi Intelligence ranks Europe’s top investment destinations, analyzing 330 cities and 141 regions based on key factors relevant to expanding businesses. Greater Zurich has consistently ranked among the top 10, reflecting its long-term attractiveness for global companies.

Check out 2024's report

Global business in Greater Zurich

Google Switzerland

After 20 years in town, Google is an integral part of the Zurich ecosystem, and enjoys the internationality, great partnerships and wealth of innovative ideas offered by Zurich as a business location.

OpenAI sets up office in Zurich

San Francisco/Zurich - OpenAI is coming to Zurich. The creator of ChatGPT has poached three chief engineers in computer vision and machine learning from the Zurich-based office of Google subsidiary DeepMind. They will work on multimodal models for artificial intelligence.

Salesforce

Since establishing its Zurich office in 2016, Salesforce has grown into a vital part of the region, leveraging Greater Zurich’s exceptional talent pool and collaborative environment to drive innovations like Agentforce, where autonomous agents and humans work closely together. In our conversation with Rami Habib, General Manager of Salesforce Switzerland, we explored how Salesforce is empowering businesses, fostering sustainability, and building lasting partnerships to shape a prosperous future for the region – because for Salesforce, Greater Zurich is not just a stopover, they’re here to stay.

DFINITY Foundation

The DFINITY Foundation, headquartered in Zurich, focuses on developing the Internet Computer, a third-generation blockchain that hosts secure and resilient services. Leveraging Greater Zurich's innovative environment and rich talent pool, DFINITY aims to advance decentralized blockchain technology for widespread adoption.

The AI Institute is coming to Greater Zurich Area

Boston Dynamics AI Institute coming to Zurich

Zurich/Cambridge - The Boston Dynamics AI Institute of the Hyundai Motor Company will establish a presence in Greater Zurich at the start of 2024. The team in place here is set to focus on core areas of the institute such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), hardware design, machine learning, mobile manipulation and robot ethics.

Disney Research

Zurich is home to the only Disney Research center located in Europe due to it's quality of life, talent, proximity to ETH Zurich, and the local expertise of visual computing.

International rankings

For years, the Greater Zurich Area has occupied top positions worldwide in terms of talent availability, innovative strength, competitiveness, and quality of life.

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New rankings reinforce Greater Zurich’s position as a global business magnet

Explore why global businesses choose Greater Zurich

Explore why global businesses choose Greater Zurich

Greater Zurich at a glance – fDi Report 2025 results