The shift from market support to cross-compliance based direct payments have increased transaction costs of farmers who increasingly complain about substantial administrative burdens with the direct payment scheme. Administrative burdens are one part of transaction costs arising at farm level due to administrative activities that are only conducted because of regulation requirements. A survey among 100 Swiss farmers was conducted in spring 2019 to analyse the costs of administrative burdens due to cross-compliance standards. Farmers were asked for their annual time requirements for collating information for the up to 14 forms they have to provide to proof compliance with cross-compliance standards. Group comparisons and regression analyses were applied to test for significant differences in time requirements across farm type, production system and sociodemographic characteristics of farmers. Applying the Standard Cost Model, the costs of administrative burdens were calculated for the Swiss farming sector as a whole and for different farm types. Time requirements vary widely between farmers and can only partly be explained by the farm type and production system. In our sample, organic farmers need 40% more time for collating information to proof cross-compliance as compared to conventional producers. Furthermore, specialized dairy and diversified dairy and crop producers need significantly more time then specialized crop producers. Age and education of farmers was not found to affect time requirements. The costs of administrative burdens was calculated to be 151 Mio CHF for the Swiss agricultural sector. On average, 5.7% of the budget spent on the six main direct payment programs are needed to cover the costs of these administrative burdens. Crop farmers, either organic or not, bear a rather insignificant share of the sectors administrative burdens. To effectively reduce costs of administrative burdens of the Swiss direct payment scheme, the focus should be on the biggest group of farmers, namely the specialized dairy producers contributing 34% to the sectoral costs. Future research on administrative burdens with the Swiss direct payments scheme should further develop the survey design and identify additional obligation related factors and farm and farmers` characteristics that contribute in explaining differences in time requirements.
