Which Multicheck fits which profession? All eight versions with prices

The Multicheck is not a single test but a family of eight versions, and the version is chosen before booking. Book the wrong one and you hold a certificate that is of little use at the company you want, and you pay a second time for the second attempt. This overview assigns each version to its occupational field, gives price and duration, and settles the questions that really come up before booking: repeating, cancelling, paying.

Who takes this test, and why

In Switzerland, young people leave lower secondary school at about 15 or 16 and most of them apply for a Lehre, an apprenticeship. Three or four years lead to the federal EFZ qualification, two years to the EBA. The apprentice is employed and paid by a company, the Lehrbetrieb, and attends a vocational school one or two days a week. This is the route most Swiss school leavers take, and it is not a fallback for weaker pupils: it leads to protected professions and, through the Berufsmaturität, to the universities of applied sciences and from there, via the Passerelle exam, to the regular universities.

Applying works like applying for a job. The young person writes to companies, usually a year or more before the start, and many companies want an aptitude test certificate alongside the school report. That is what the Multicheck is: a commercial product from gateway solutions ag, which trades as gateway.one, booked and paid for by the applicant and sat at one of over 35 test centres under supervision, with an identity check and a certificate in one person’s name. It is not a school exam. The content is pitched at the curriculum as it stands at the end of the 8. Klasse, the second-to-last year of compulsory lower secondary school, where pupils are roughly 14.

Education in Switzerland is a cantonal matter, with 26 cantons and no national school system, so what a school advises about these tests varies by canton. The test itself does not: the versions, the prices and the test period below are the same everywhere.

The short answer for the KV

If you want to know which Multicheck applies to the KV, the commercial apprenticeship, known in full as kaufmännische Grundbildung and by some distance the most popular apprenticeship in the country: it is the version Wirtschaft und Administration, which translates as business and administration. It costs CHF 100 and takes around 3.5 hours. It covers Kaufmann and Kauffrau EFZ among others, along with Fachmann and Fachfrau Information und Dokumentation, the information and documentation specialists.

Two confusions come up regularly here. The first: retail is not part of it. There is a separate version for that, Detailhandel und Service, which costs CHF 85. The second: a KV apprenticeship in a technical company is still a KV apprenticeship, so it does not call for the technical Multicheck. What counts is the profession, not the industry of the employer.

All eight versions with price and duration

The German names below are the ones on the booking page, which is why they are given in the original with an English gloss.

All prices are final prices in Swiss francs. The Gewerbe version, which used to stand in this list, can no longer be booked: it is being replaced by the Basic Check for the 2026/2027 test period. What that means in detail is set out in the article on the switch.

Which version belongs to which profession

If your profession does not appear in any row: the provider’s version pages list the full set of professions per version, and the training company knows it most precisely anyway. A phone call before booking costs nothing and, in case of doubt, saves a hundred francs.

Why Attest and Detailhandel cost less

The price difference follows the length of the test. The Attest test is aimed at the two-year EBA apprenticeship, tests a correspondingly narrower profile and runs about 1.5 hours, hence CHF 60. Detailhandel und Service sits in between at about 2.5 hours, hence CHF 85. The remaining six versions run up to 3.5 hours and cost CHF 100 each.

From that follows a rule that gets overlooked in practice: the cheaper version is not the easier choice for the same profession. An Attest certificate documents suitability for an EBA apprenticeship, not for an EFZ apprenticeship. Anyone applying for a three-year apprenticeship who submits the Attest test has paid forty francs less for the wrong document.

Repeating: two attempts, and the note on the certificate

Within one test period, which runs from the end of May to the end of May, two attempts per occupational field are possible. There is no minimum waiting time between them. The second attempt within the same period is, however, noted on the certificate, and the training company can see that note.

Anyone who wants to avoid it has to spread the two attempts across different test periods and leave at least three months between them. Two further points matter: an abandoned test counts as an attempt, and questions left unanswered are scored zero. So someone who realises on the day that it is not going well loses more than the appointment by walking out: they lose one of the two attempts.

When the certificate arrives

After the sitting, the provider makes the certificate available for download in the user account within two working days. In May and June processing takes longer, because that is when the bulk of the roughly 30‘000 sittings a year happen. So do not put the appointment in the week before the application deadline. Two weeks of margin is a realistic figure, three is more comfortable.

Cancelling and rebooking

The practical conclusion: with a cold coming on, do not wait and see, but decide on the day before the three-day deadline. A postponed appointment costs nothing, a test sat through with a fever costs one of the two attempts.

Who pays

In principle the applicant pays. Many training companies do, however, hand out vouchers that cover the full amount of between CHF 60 and CHF 100, and individual municipalities and cantons offer financial support. For the latter, the provider points expressly to the regional careers guidance service, the Berufsberatung, which every canton runs.

The sensible order is therefore: first ask the company you want to apply to for a voucher code, then ask the careers guidance service, and only then book yourself. Book first and ask afterwards and the voucher is usually no longer credited.

When to book the appointment

The test period runs from the end of May to the end of May the following year. Inside that window you are free to choose your date, and that leads to a queue: May and June are the months with the most sittings, and those are also the months in which certificates take longer to produce.

That gives a simple planning rule. Count backwards from the application deadline and put the test appointment at least two to three weeks before it. That leaves a margin for producing the certificate and for the case where you fall ill and have to postpone. Put the appointment in the last week and a bout of flu leaves no alternative, and in the worst case you lose both the appointment and the deadline.

Common mistakes when choosing the version

Three mix-ups regularly cost a second booking. The first is the industry instead of the profession: a commercial apprenticeship in a machine-building firm calls for Wirtschaft und Administration, not TEK. The second is retail against the KV: both count colloquially as “commercial”, but each has its own version at its own price. The third is Attest instead of EFZ, described in the section above.

A fourth point is not a mistake but an uncertainty: Mediamatik appears under ICT and under Media und Design depending on the focus. In borderline cases like that it is not logic that decides but the training company. Ask there which version should appear on the certificate before you book.

What all eight versions have in common

However different the occupational fields look, beneath the surface all eight versions test largely the same groundwork. German and mathematics at lower secondary level, plus sections on logic and concentration. The version mainly determines which applied examples are used and how the sections are weighted.

The logic section works with item formats that come very close to a classic matrix test: a pattern is shown, a rule sits inside it, and the rule has to be applied to a new case, under time pressure. Whether the rule sits in shapes or in number sequences changes the demand little. That is exactly why the results of individual sections hang together more closely than their names suggest. How these items are built is set out in understanding matrix reasoning.

And if no version fits

For skilled trades, since the Gewerbe version fell away from May 2026, there is the occupation-neutral Basic Check at CHF 100. Anyone who does not yet know which direction to take is also better served by it than by a guessed Multicheck version.

As a free first orientation there is also the Berufs-Check from Yousty: 90 minutes, taken anywhere, no charge. It does not replace a test centre certificate where a company expressly asks for one, but it is useful for getting a picture before booking. All the procedures placed side by side are in the overview of aptitude tests for an apprenticeship.

If you would like to get to know the item format from the logic section before booking an appointment: our free test takes 25 minutes and gives an orientation value. It is not an aptitude certificate and not a substitute for the Multicheck. What else works before the appointment is set out in preparing for the Multicheck.