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Fishing on Lake Geneva: permits, rules and useful addresses

Updated 17.10.2026

Where to get your permit on each side of the lake, who sets the rules, what you can catch, and where to buy fish from professional fishers.

Who sets the rules?

Lake Geneva is shared between Switzerland and France: fishing is governed by a Franco-Swiss agreement and its implementing regulations, applied by the cantons of Vaud, Geneva and Valais and, on the French side, by the Prefect of Haute-Savoie. Closed seasons, minimum sizes, hours, catch limits and permitted gear differ from shore to shore and change from year to year: this guide does not copy them, so as never to give you an out-of-date figure. Before fishing, read the current year's text, for example the brochure “Découvrez la pêche dans le Léman”, an extract from the legislation (2024 edition).

A few principles never change: a child may fish only under the responsibility of a permit holder; a fish caught in the closed season is released at once; catches are entered in the record book; unwanted introduced species are not released; live crayfish do not leave the lake.

The permit

  • Geneva: lake permits in four categories (trolling and gambe for the year, gambe for the year, for a month or for a day). Annual permits require the SaNa certificate of competence. Buy online (e-démarches and the Pêche GE app), at the permit counter or, for a day, at an approved shop. Residents of Vaud, Valais and Haute-Savoie get their permit where they live. Geneva also allows fishing without a permit under certain conditions: see the canton's page.
  • Vaud: day and weekly permits on sale at approved resellers (shops, tourist offices) — 3 on the app's map, full list on the canton's website.
  • France: the AAPPMA APALLF card is the only one that allows fishing on the whole French side of Lake Geneva; annual, weekly or daily, from an agent or on cartedepeche.fr. Trolling requires an option reserved for members.
  • Free fishing without a permit: it exists only on the Swiss side, within limits set by the canton.

Vaud outlets on the map

The lake's fish

The regulations list 22 species. The most sought after: perch, which follows the thermocline in summer and drops to the deep shelves in winter; whitefish (féra), an open-water fish that keeps to cold water in mid-water; Arctic char, the most cold-loving, at great depth; lake trout, which hunts along drop-offs and edges; pike, lying in wait in the weed beds; burbot, a bottom fish that rises in winter; and coarse fish (roach, bream, tench, carp…) of the shallows.

This is what the app's Fish and fishing menu draws on, combining depth, modelled water temperature and season. A habitat map, not a fish finder: a favourable zone promises no catch.

Shops, associations, guides

Fishing tackle shops (12 on the map, including 3 sole traders, shown in the app)

Associations and guided trips

Buying fish from the lake

34 professional fishers around the lake sell their fish (8 — Geneva, 13 — La Côte, 3 — Lausanne and Lavaux, 4 — Riviera and Valais Chablais, 6 — French shore). They are on the app's map (Fish and fishing menu), with their phone number when published. Sales depend on the day's catch: call before you go. The list comes from the Association suisse romande des pêcheurs professionnels.

With the Navleman map

Fish and fishing menu: favourable zones, species by species, up to four days ahead, then professional fishers, shops, associations and guides, and permit outlets.

Open the Lake Geneva map

See also

The Nature, fishing and diving guide, plus: Reserves and natural habitats, Diving.

Sources