Welcome Service

A Family-Owned Firm Built on Personal Service

Welcome Service is a Swiss relocation specialist founded in 1990 by Catherine Burrus. The firm describes relocation as "a promise", Burrus's own words, and the business was explicitly built on a specific belief: in a digital world, the best Swiss relocation services rely on human relationships, not just process efficiency. This philosophy matters because many relocation firms are purely transactional, but Welcome Service positions itself differently as a relationship-first business.

Today the firm is run by Burrus's children, Laetitia Papilloud and Guillaume Bédat, who serve as managing partners. This generational continuity is unusual in relocation services and suggests a business that sees itself as a legacy to build over decades, not a quick-flip operation. The site emphasizes "solid family values" and says "we don't process applications, we walk alongside families through real life transitions," framing the service as accompanying people through major life changes rather than handling paperwork at arm's length.

The firm is backed by real scale: over 35 years of experience, 10,000+ successful relocations handled, and coverage across 26 Swiss cantons. It holds membership in both SARA (Swiss Association of Relocation and Immigration Professionals) and EURA (European Relocations Association), which signals adherence to professional standards in both the Swiss and European markets. For someone arriving from abroad, these accreditations are meaningful reassurance that Welcome Service is bound by a code of conduct and common-practice standards that extend beyond what one company promises on its own.

What Services Welcome Service Provides

The firm divides its services into relocation, immigration, and corporate offerings, allowing it to serve different customer segments without compromise.

For relocation, Welcome Service offers home finding (searching and identifying rental properties using local market knowledge), settling-in services that span "entrance inspection to bank account opening," schooling and education placement in private, public, or international institutions, temporary housing while searching for a permanent home, orientation tours led by their experts, full move management (coordinating international logistics and household relocation), intercultural training to help families understand "how Swiss life and work really function so the move feels natural from week one," and departure services for people leaving Switzerland.

Immigration services cover EU/EFTA visas and work permits, non-EU/EFTA immigration, and legitimation card procedures for staff of international organizations arriving under diplomatic status. This breadth matters: someone arriving as an employee of a multinational will have different permit requirements than a family relocating independently, and both differ from someone arriving as a dependent of an existing resident. Welcome Service claims expertise across all three scenarios and their variations.

For businesses and HR teams, the firm offers "executive relocation, a senior-led, end-to-end relocation for leadership hires from work permit to family integration, handled by one dedicated team," and "international relocation coordinating international assignments across the globe via our established EuRA network," which suggests partnerships across Europe rather than Swiss-only reach.

How They Organize the Work

The firm operates three office locations: Geneva (Rue Zurlinden 6), Lausanne (Avenue Tissot 2), and Zurich (Nebelbachstrasse 9, 8008 Zürich). Each office serves specific regions, Geneva, Vaud, Zurich, Zug, Lucerne, Saint-Gall, Basel, with regional staffing to maintain local knowledge of cantonal quirks and procedures while serving a national network. This geographic distribution is important because Swiss administration varies significantly by canton, and local knowledge cannot be replaced by central coordination.

Welcome Service offers initial consultation through a free 30-minute video call, available through their site's booking system. They commit to respond within 24 hours to written inquiries. The firm provides a digital portal called "REX Portal" that gives clients real-time tracking of their relocation. Each assignee is matched with a dedicated consultant who handles communication, progress tracking, and document sharing within the portal, reducing the need for clients to chase status updates or manage multiple email threads.

For HR and mobility managers, Welcome Service offers a command center within the REX Portal that shows "complete oversight of every assignment," allowing authorization of relocations, monitoring of active mandates, and access to essential data across all assignments. This technology layer suggests the firm can scale to handle multiple assignees for corporate clients without losing track of individual cases or falling into the "big firm impersonal service" trap they explicitly position themselves against.

What the Site Does Not Specify

Pricing is not published. Welcome Service requires a consultation to receive a personalized quote, which is standard for relocation but means someone budgeting or comparing options must contact them directly rather than shopping from a published menu.

The site does not detail how far in advance relocation needs to be booked, typical timelines from first consultation to arrival, or what remedies exist if service falls short. It does not quantify the size of the team or the firm's annual volume of clients. It does not specify whether the free 30-minute call is binding or for exploration only, though the phrasing "free 30-minute video consultation" suggests it's exploratory.

The extent of immigration support is not detailed, whether the firm can file permits on a client's behalf, negotiate with cantonal authorities, or primarily advises clients on what to expect and what documents to prepare. For someone navigating a complex visa situation or facing a specialized category (startup visa, family reunification, asylum), this distinction matters significantly but the site does not clarify it.

Specific language capabilities are not listed, though the site is published in English, French, German, and Italian, which strongly suggests multilingual staffing. No mention is made of how they coordinate international relocations beyond stating they use the EuRA network, whether they have formal partnerships or operate independently through trusted contacts.

Who This Suits

Welcome Service is positioned for four segments. First, individuals and families moving to Switzerland for the first time or returning after years abroad. The firm offers end-to-end coordination so families "can focus on the family" rather than navigating Swiss administration alone and juggling ten different service providers.

Second, HR and mobility teams at companies relocating one or several expatriates. Welcome Service becomes "an extension of your HR team, handling assignees with one Swiss contact and a clear policy frame," which appeals to multinationals where HR needs a single Swiss point of contact and a defined pricing structure rather than scattered vendor relationships.

Third, staff of international organizations arriving under diplomatic status. The site explicitly mentions "legitimation card procedures and the specifics of diplomatic-status arrival," which is a narrow expertise that most relocation firms do not have, so this positioning claims real specialization.

Fourth, executives and leadership hires arriving with families. The firm's "executive relocation" service promises "senior-led, end-to-end relocation" from permit to family integration "handled by one dedicated team," which appeals to senior professionals who expect high-touch service and cannot afford to have their family scattered across multiple consultants.

Welcome Service's strength is breadth and depth: they span relocation, immigration, corporate, and diplomatic arrivals; they have regional offices for local knowledge; they've handled over 10,000 cases in 35 years; and they position themselves as relationship-based rather than transactional. For a family relocating to Switzerland for the first time, or an HR team coordinating multiple expatriate arrivals, Welcome Service's combination of specialization and scale is worth exploring.