How to find trusted and reliable pet sitters in Geneva

For any pet owner, being away on holiday or a long weekend brings a massive headache: pet care.

If you have an existing network of neighbors, friends, and family to lean on in the city, it’s easy. However, when you’re new in town, you’re left scrolling through random Facebook offers and random business pages. Geneva has plenty of pet-sitters, but vetting for credibility is the real challenge. How do you vet a stranger who will have access to your apartment and, most importantly, care of your precious fur baby while you are away?

We’re going to break down the dos and don’ts when searching for pet sitters, how much you can expect to pay, and how to find reliable care.

How much does pet sitting cost on average?
How to look for pet sitters?
The vetting process

How much does pet sitting cost on average?

First, let’s talk money – we’re in Geneva, after all. You can bet that the high cost of living here translates directly into expensive pet care, so you need to factor this into your holiday budget.

Service	Price Range (CHF)	Notes
Cat Drop-In Visit	25 – 45	Per visit, which can be as short as 15 mins. Extra costs may incur if you live far from the city center (or from the sitter).
Dog Walking (1 hour)	30 – 55	Varies by individual/company and whether it’s a private or group walk.
Dog Overnight Boarding	60 – 90+	Per 24-hour period. Often requires the dog to stay at the sitter’s home.

Prices jump significantly during peak holidays (Christmas, Easter, summer). If you have a holiday planned during the peak times, book early and expect a premium.

How to look for pet sitters

The reliability of your sitter is directly tied to where you find them. You are essentially trading insurance for cost.

Pet sitting platforms

You might be familiar with some of these sites, like petsitting24 or trustedhousesitter. Essentially, pet owners can find available pet sitters through these platforms based on a set of criterias like location, rates and experience.

Biggest pros:

Professional insurance is by far the biggest benefit. There is more protection for both pet owners and pet sitters. For instance, if your pet sitter loses the keys. Or if they accidentally left the water running and flooded the apartment. Very often the professional insurance (RC Professionnelle) would cover these types of incidents.
Verified Reviews – You can usually see reviews from other clients and see exactly their experience with pet sitting.
Easy replacement – If your sitter cancels last minute, the platform usually helps you find a replacement quickly.

The cons:

You’re often paying a premium for the convenience and insurance, in the form of platform fees.
Every platform operates differently – some have annual memberships, others don’t have fees. You need to figure out what works for you (but we’ve got some notes)

The following platforms and companies have a presence in the Geneva region and can be used to find pet sitters:

Rover.com – Rover is an international platform that connects pet owners with pet sitters, arguably the largest and most well-known pet-sitting platform in the world. There are a decent number of sitters based in Geneva on the site. Their biggest selling point is the “Rover Guarantee”, which provides strong financial backing for medical costs and property damage, and its platform-assisted cancellation system. It’s commission-based, meaning the owners are footing for extra platform fees per sitting.
Pawshake.com – Pawshake is another global platform that connects pet ownerships with pet sitters, very similar to Rover – they also have “Pawshake Guarantee” to cover unforeseen incidents. Payment is made online to Pawshake, which pays the sitter after the service is complete. Pawshake and Rover both help assist the owner in finding an alternate sitter using the platform, in the case of cancellation.
Petsitting24 – This is a Swiss platform that operates as a direct directory, not a commission-based service. Owners can browse and contact sitters for free, and once a connection is made, all payment and contract details are handled directly between you and the sitter (cash, Twint, or bank transfer). There is no platform commission, so rates tend to be cheaper but Petsitting24 does not provide any insurance or cancellation backup.
Cat in a flat – This platform focuses exclusively on cat sitting, specifically home drop-ins. If you have a cat and want to find enthusiastic cat lovers, this could be a good option. They also offer a form of insurance called “Cat in a Flat Guarantee”.
TrustedHousesitters – TrustedHousesitters is different from the other platforms because the actual pet care is free. Owners pay an annual membership fee to access a global network of verified travellers (sitters) who stay in your home in exchange for looking after your pets and property. This model is excellent for long-term trips and high-presence care, and the platform offers an Owner’s Guarantee for peace of mind, but it requires you to be comfortable with a stranger living in your home (welp). The annual fee is roughly CHF 120 per year, so I’d say if you need more than 5+ days of pet sitting per year, it is well worth the cost.

🔥 Hot tip: These platforms often only verify identity and run basic background checks, but they do not vet skills or quality of care. You need to do the vetting yourself.

Pet Hotels / Boarding (Pension)

If you have a dog that needs a rigorous routine, or you prefer a professional facility rather than a sitter’s home, specialized Dog Hotels (Pensions) offer the most structured care. These are almost always located outside the city center (like in the surrounding Vaud or rural Geneva communes) because they require large outdoor spaces. The costs can easily run from CHF 75+ per night.

Informal Networks (Word-of-Mouth / Social Media / Neighbors)

This includes recommendations from friends, community WhatsApp/social media groups. The supply of informal sitters is abundant—you just have to post on groups like ‘Expats in Geneva‘ and you’ll likely get 20+ DMs from online strangers. There are also a dozen of pet specific groups like Woof Watchers, Geneva Expat Dogs, House & Pet Sitting Switzerland, and many more.

While recommendations from someone you know and trust help narrow the field, it remains critical to do your due diligence and vet every sitter yourself. You have to see if you and your pet vibe with the sitter! Informal sitters is often the most cost-efficient way to find care, but it comes with the trade-off of assuming all the risk. Meaning, if the sitter causes property damage or your pet injures someone, they likely have no professional coverage, leaving you to cover the costs.

✨ Personal take: (Try to) Meet your neighbors. I was lucky enough to win the neighbor lottery – all the neighbors on my floor own a cat and are also super cool and wonderful people. It’s also a fantastic way to build neighborhood relationships. If you see a neighbor with a dog or cat, strike up a conversation about their pet care methods. Or, try posting a small, friendly note in your building’s lift proposing a pet-sitting swap. You never know who you might meet!

The Vetting Process

Once you have a potential sitter, we recommend a few vetting steps:

Mandatory Meet-and-Greet: Most sitters will come for an introductory visit to your home for a meet-and-greet. You want to suss them out and see how they act around your pet and the questions they ask. More importantly, you want to ask them questions. For instance, how would they respond if your pet is not eating or acting depressed while you’re away? What would they do in an emergency situation?
Verifiable references: For informal sitters that weren’t recommended by someone you know, ask for references from recent clients for a peace of mind.
Write a pet care guide & express clear expectations: Have a written document with details of feeding, walking schedules, medicine, pet preferences and personality, emergency vet info, etc. The more detailed the better, most pet sitters appreciate the info!

It’s also important to address what your expectations are for the visit. For instance, do you have a set time you want them to visit? How long is the sitter expected to stay? Will they send daily videos/photos? All these things should be expressed before the pet sits.
Payment: Have an agreement on payment, whether it is in cash or via a bank transfer like Twint or IBAN. It’s common to pay the sitter in full before the service occurs.

🔥 Hot tip: It’s best to have a vet authorization form ready, which is a document that grants permission to another person to make medical decisions for your pet and/or for a veterinarian to treat your pet while you are away or incapacitated.

Hopefully this guide helps shed some clarity on pet sitting in Geneva. The real important thing isn’t finding the cheapest option (though, of course, costs matter) but to find someone you trust so that you can go and enjoy your holiday and not worry about your pet while you’re gone.

Whether you sign up for one of the bigger platforms like Rover or you end up with a local sitter from the neighborhood, the whole thing still comes down to your personal vetting. Don’t be scared to ask for references and those high-pressure “What if?” questions.

It takes some effort initially, but once you find that person—that reliable, pet-loving unicorn—you’ve officially solved the pet problem and can go forth on your holidays.