Pisler Furniture Rental

The business: purpose-built for temporary living

Pisler Furniture Rental rents furniture and household essentials for people who need to furnish a space temporarily or flexibly. The company is based in Adliswil, near Zurich, and operates across Switzerland with over 20 years of experience in the rental market. Founded and run by Eric and Virginie Pisler, the firm serves expats, professionals, and anyone mid-relocation who needs to avoid the cost and commitment of buying.

The core insight driving Pisler's positioning is that a newly arrived person arrives with a suitcase, not a moving van. Rather than require you to source, purchase, transport and install an entire household of furniture before you've found your permanent place, Pisler supplies it ready-to-use, delivered and assembled the same day, and collects it again when you leave.

What it solves for someone arriving

When you land in Switzerland on a work contract, you face an immediate problem: apartments here are overwhelmingly rented unfurnished, and furnished options command premium prices. Buying furniture to fill a three or four-room apartment costs thousands of francs, takes weeks to arrive, and leaves you stuck with it when you move. Renting bypasses all three constraints.

Pisler's short-term rental (1 to 11 months) is designed exactly for this moment. You contact them with your floor plan or a list of rooms, they quote a price, deliver and install everything on a day that suits you, and at the end of your stay they collect it again. If you want to stay longer after month one, you pay only for the additional days you keep the furniture, not a full second month's rent. This flexibility is the real service: it lets you rent furnished for a few months while you search for a permanent place, then move to something better without penalty.

Long-term rental (12 months to 36 months or longer) works on the same model but with customized pricing. Pisler's site invites you to "browse our catalogue and furnish your new home with ease", implying you have time to pick specific pieces rather than settling for a package. The sliding-scale pricing model means the per-month cost drops as your rental period grows.

The specifics: services, pricing, and the arrival experience

Pisler operates five service lines: home furnishing (short and long term), corporate office furniture, events (trade shows, conferences, the World Economic Forum, private events), home staging (furnishing empty properties for sale), and what they call "home staging furniture rental" specifically for real estate marketing. For someone arriving, the home services are what matter most.

The firm's delivery model includes three elements: delivery to your address, professional installation, and pickup when you end the rental. All three are included for orders over CHF 1,300. The site emphasizes "flexible, sliding-scale pricing" but does not publish rate cards, so you must contact them for a quote. That quote is the only way to know what you'll actually pay, which is both transparent (you see the number before you commit) and also an extra step compared to shopping online.

Languages are a practical detail for anyone arriving. The site is available in French and English. The contact team speaks French, English, German and Spanish across the two principals, so if you need to negotiate rental terms in a language other than German or French, you have options.

The company publishes customer testimonials from expats and professionals across Switzerland. One calls the delivery "on time" and the team "so nice and kind". Another describes a full three-and-a-half-room setup in Geneva as "great experience" and notes the team was "very reactive and professional". A third praises "flexibility" and "high quality furniture". These are brief endorsements, not detailed reviews, but they suggest the firm follows through on the delivery promise.

What the site does NOT settle

The site does not publish prices or pricing formulas, so you have no way to compare cost per month, per room, or per piece before reaching out. You cannot see the actual furniture on offer, no product gallery, no photos of individual items, no style options. The "browse our catalogue" language is present, but the catalogue itself is not on the public-facing site.

Storage is never mentioned. If you rent for two months and want to keep some pieces while the lease ends, does Pisler hold them, and for how long? Does that cost money? The site does not say. There is also no mention of insurance, damage liability, or what happens if a piece arrives damaged. A rental contract would presumably cover these, but the terms are not spelled out in advance.

The site does not specify minimum order values for short-term rentals, though it does say delivery and installation are included "for orders over CHF 1,300". What if your needs are smaller? Do you forfeit installation, or is there a separate minimum for that? Also unanswered. Cancellation policy, notice period for pickup, and any seasonal blackout dates all go unaddressed on the public information.

Who it suits, and who it does not

Pisler is built for someone arriving in Switzerland on a temporary contract (one to three years) who needs to occupy an empty apartment immediately and does not want to buy furniture. The service is practical if you speak one of the supported languages (English, French, German or Spanish) and live somewhere in Switzerland where Pisler can deliver.

The short-term rental is especially valuable if you land in winter or at a time when furnished apartments are scarce, or if you want the freedom to move to a different city mid-contract without being stuck with furniture you bought. The sliding scale also rewards longer commitments: the per-month rate improves as your rental period grows.

The service is less practical for someone who needs to move into a specific style (minimalist, designer, historic), because you have no visibility into what pieces you're actually renting until you make contact and they show you options. It is also not a cost-saver for someone buying anyway, if you are planning to buy furniture and keep it after leaving Switzerland, buying directly is almost certainly cheaper over a multi-year horizon.

Finally, Pisler's service is not geographically universal. They operate across Switzerland, but a small village or remote valley may not be within their delivery range. And anyone who does not speak English, French, German or Spanish will have communication barriers with the contact team.

The verdict

Pisler solves a real problem for arriving expats: furnishing an empty apartment without the cost and commitment of buying, and without the stress of coordinating a delivery and assembly in a language you may not speak fluently. The firm has accumulated over two decades of experience doing this, they move quickly (same-day delivery is their standard), and customer testimonials suggest they follow through. The main friction is that you cannot shop by price or by style in advance, you must call and negotiate. For someone arriving on a tight timeline who wants to move in furnished this week, that is a feature, not a bug. For someone who has time to compare options and prices across firms, the lack of published rates is a limitation worth knowing about.