Where to live in Geneva, for British arrivals

Ville de GenèveCentral

The medieval old town on the hill and the shopping streets below it, with every tram line in the canton passing through Bel-Air. It is the most walkable address in Geneva and the one where you are most likely to be paying a great deal for very little floor area.

Ville de GenèveCentral

Left bank, lakeside, and the address most arriving professionals end up wanting. The Léman Express station opened underneath it in 2019 and turned a pleasant quarter into the best-connected one in the canton — Annemasse in fifteen minutes, the airport in twenty.

Ville de GenèveCentral

Directly behind the main station, and the quarter Geneva very nearly demolished in the 1970s before the residents stopped it. What survived is the Schtroumpfs — a set of deliberately absurd organic-architecture buildings — and the most co-operatively minded neighbourhood in the city.

Ville de GenèveCentral

The one part of Geneva that behaves like a city rather than a very clean office park. Pâquis is the red-light district, the immigrant quarter and the best eating in the canton simultaneously, wedged between the station and the lake, and it divides opinion more sharply than anywhere else here.

Ville de GenèveCentral

The university quarter, built around a vast gravel diamond that is a flea market on Wednesdays and Saturdays and a skate park the rest of the time. Younger, scruffier and more alive than Geneva generally manages, and the closest the city has to a student district.

CarougeInner

Built by the King of Sardinia in the eighteenth century as a rival to Calvin's Geneva, and it still feels like a different city — low Italianate houses, courtyards, artisans and by some distance the best bar and restaurant scene in the canton.

Ville de GenèveInner

Belle époque apartment blocks above the Arve gorge, the university hospital, and the quietest well-connected address in the city. Champel is where Geneva's doctors and diplomats live, and it is as calm and as costly as that implies.

Chêne-BougeriesInner

Leafy, expensive and full of international-school families, on the tram line out towards the French border. It is the commune with one of the lowest tax multipliers in the canton, which matters more to a high earner here than the rent does.

Ville de GenèveInner

Where the Rhône and the Arve meet, one brown and one blue, and the point where Geneva's alternative scene concentrated after the squats of the 1990s were cleared. Still the least corporate part of the city, and the best value inside the ring.

LancyInner

The Pont-Rouge development turned a suburban commune into the canton's second business district, and the Léman Express station under it makes Lancy one of the best-connected addresses in Geneva. It is also, so far, one of the least interesting.

Le Grand-SaconnexInner

The international quarter: the UN, the WTO, the Red Cross and a hundred missions and NGOs sit on or beside it, and so does the airport. If you have moved to Geneva for one of those organisations this is the obvious place to look, and the commune knows it.

Ville de GenèveInner

Geneva's last industrial quarter, now the largest redevelopment site in the canton — the Praille-Acacias-Vernets plan will put twelve thousand homes on what is still mostly warehouses and car dealerships. It is the one part of the city where new stock is actually arriving.

Ville de GenèveInner

Above the Rhône on the right bank, mixing 1930s workers' housing with newer blocks and a growing set of small restaurants. It is the cheapest part of the Ville de Genève and the one changing fastest.

Ville de GenèveInner

Right bank, residential, and the most ordinary place in central Geneva — which after a week of looking at Eaux-Vives prices starts to feel like a virtue. Good tram links, a real local high street and families who have been there for generations.

France voisineOuter

A French town of forty thousand that functions as Geneva's cheapest suburb. The Léman Express reaches Eaux-Vives in fifteen minutes and Cornavin in twenty, and a two-bed here costs less than half what it costs across the border — which is why so many people who work in Geneva live in France.

Le Grand-SaconnexOuter

Between the airport runway and the international quarter, which tells you both what it is good for and what is wrong with it. For anyone whose job involves a flight most weeks it is unbeatable, and for anyone who wants to sleep with the window open it is not.

ColognyOuter

The lake terrace above Geneva, with the best views in the canton and the lowest communal tax multipliers in it. Cologny is where Byron wrote and where a great many people who could live anywhere have decided to, and the arithmetic of the tax rate is a large part of why.

France voisineOuter

Voltaire's town, a mile from Geneva airport and the same distance from CERN, under the Jura. The Pays de Gex is the most anglophone part of France voisine — a great many CERN and UN families live here — and it has the school places and the bilingual services to match.

MeyrinOuter

Switzerland's first satellite town, built in the 1960s, and now defined by what sits on its northern edge: CERN. A large share of the commune works there or at the airport, and the international scientific community gives it a character no other Geneva suburb has.

OnexOuter

A 1960s satellite town on the plateau west of the city, and the commune with the highest tax multiplier in the canton — roughly double Cologny's. That is the trade Onex makes: the cheapest Swiss-side rents after Vernier, and the largest slice of your salary taken by the commune.

Plan-les-OuatesOuter

The watchmaking and life-sciences belt on the southern edge — Patek Philippe, Rolex and a cluster of biotech — with a village core that predates all of it. If you work in the ZIPLO industrial zone this is the obvious place to look, and almost nobody else does.

France voisineOuter

Immediately south of the border, with the Salève rising behind it and a TPG bus that runs into Geneva as though the frontier were not there. Smaller and quieter than Annemasse, and the standard choice for people working in the Plan-les-Ouates life-sciences cluster.

VernierOuter

The canton's second-largest commune and its most working-class, built around the Avanchets and Libellules estates. It has the cheapest Swiss-side rents within reach of the centre and the social problems that come with being the place people move to when they cannot afford anywhere else.

VersoixOuter

Lakeside, ten minutes up the shore from the city on a train that runs every quarter of an hour, with a public beach, a chocolate factory and the International School of Geneva's La Châtaigneraie campus. The most liveable of the outer communes if you have children.

Canton de VaudFringe

The first stop into Vaud along the lake, with a château, a small harbour and the Léman Express running every fifteen minutes into Cornavin. It is the standard answer for someone who wants Vaud's lower taxes without Nyon's size.

France voisineFringe

A French spa town at the foot of the Jura with a casino, a lake and a golf course, twenty minutes from the Swiss border and considerably further in feel. The Pays de Gex around it holds a large share of the CERN and international-organisation families.

Canton de VaudFringe

A Roman town on the lake twenty-five kilometres up the shore, in a different canton with materially lower taxes and a fast train into Geneva. It is the standard answer for people who want Swiss residency, a real town centre and a smaller tax bill than the canton of Geneva charges.

France voisineFringe

A French spa town on the south shore of the lake, forty minutes out, with the Alps immediately behind it and the cheapest rents anywhere in this section. The Léman Express reaches Geneva directly, and the lake ferry to Lausanne is a genuine commuting option.