For the cantonal integration services: what the application offers, how it can be verified, and what a canton that references it receives.
Why
Candidates for naturalisation prepare in any case. In the absence of any indication from the competent service, they prepare with what they find: paid commercial applications, tools that do not state where their questions come from, materials without any declared verification. The demand exists and it finds a supply; when the authority indicates nothing, it is the market that decides what future citizens study. The candidate cannot tell them apart: on an app store listing, a tool that can be checked and a tool that declares nothing look alike. Whoever pays therefore does so without knowing whether those questions come from their own canton's catalogue, and no authority has any say over what they bought.
Building one's own tool is possible, and some cantons do so. The structural fact is that the cost does not end with the launch: a preparation application has to be maintained indefinitely.
| Item | Why it never ends |
|---|---|
| Content | changes when the procedure or the catalogue changes |
| Languages | have to be kept aligned with each other at every modification |
| Platforms | iOS and Android impose technical updates at every cycle |
| Security and data | require continuous attention, not a one-off effort |
It is a recurring commitment that competes with everything else in the service's mandate. The model of collaboration described here offers a third way: the canton has a living, up-to-date tool at its disposal without taking on the burden of maintaining it.
Requirements
A tool that a public service can point its candidates to must meet certain conditions that do not depend on the tastes of whoever is assessing it.
| Requirement | What it means in concrete terms |
|---|---|
| Free of charge | no paid version that unlocks the content needed in order to prepare |
| Without advertising | someone studying for a state examination is not an audience to be monetised |
| Respectful of data | offline operation, no mandatory account, no collection beyond what is necessary |
| Verifiable beforehand | sources declared and checkable by the office, not merely asserted |
An authority that applies these four criteria by itself narrows the field of what it can point to.
The application
On the individual question. The source is stated under every question, visible in the Swiss Naturalization Test application: where it comes from, whether the format has been adapted, whether it is federal material shown because the canton does not publish any of its own. For the cantons whose source is under automatic monitoring, the date of the last check also appears next to the question.
On the method. A public transparency page, in four languages, sets out the method and its limits, together with the service commitments on update and correction times. The method is documented at length in a public paper that describes how the content is obtained, verified and corrected — including the errors encountered and how they were resolved.
On honesty about the parameters. Where a canton does not publish the number of questions, the duration or the pass threshold, the application says so: those values are marked as estimates, not presented as official data.
On maintenance. The published sources are monitored automatically every day, for those cantons that publish one, and the changes detected enter the ordinary releases. When a cantonal office has reported a problem, the correction was distributed to devices the same day, without waiting for an update from the stores.
Coverage. Twenty-six cantons, four languages: French, German, Italian, English.
Working together
| Item | What it means in concrete terms |
|---|---|
| Priority channel | for reporting errors and for transmitting material |
| Own material integrated | the canton's official material enters the application, subject to agreement |
| Annual overview | usage in its own canton, aggregated and anonymous, with a minimum confidentiality threshold |
| Coordination | on public communications concerning the tool and the canton |
The precedent exists. The Anlaufstelle Integration Aargau provided the cantonal material for the naturalisation interview, and a notice drafted by the office was integrated into the application word for word.
The model
Since 8 October 2026 the Canton of Neuchâtel references the application on its own website, on the page that tells candidates how to prepare, alongside its own course and its own questionnaires.
The wording is the canton's own, translated here from the French; the original is on the page linked below:
« "Swiss Naturalization Test" is a free application, with no advertising, no account and usable offline, for preparing for the naturalisation test. Alongside the course "Vivre en Suisse et à Neuchâtel" and the individual preparation options already available, it allows candidates to practise at their own pace, wherever and whenever they wish, on the federal and Neuchâtel questions, with the official source shown under each question. Available in French, German, Italian and English. »
République et Canton de Neuchâtel, "Préparation à la naturalisation" page, 8 October 2026.
Verifiable here: ne.ch — Préparation à la naturalisation
The first step is simply pointing candidates to it, alongside the tools the canton already points to.
A presentation of the tool, including by video call, is available on request.
Vincenzo Casini · swisscitizenshiptest@gmail.com · swissnaturalizationtest.ch · Last updated: 10 October 2026
Swiss Naturalization Test