Official foreign visits by representatives of the Swiss state serve to foster and strengthen mutual relations. On account of growing international integration, in recent years, the number of foreign trips undertaken by members of the Federal Council has increased. Today, the President of the Confederation also travels abroad more often than in the past. Until the early 1990s, the President was not allowed to leave the country while in office.

As a rule, official Swiss visits abroad are working visits. Official state visits, i.e., a visit by the head of state to the head of state of another country, are rare. The reason for this lies in a peculiarity of the Swiss political system: in Switzerland the head of state is not the President of the Confederation, but the Federal Council as a whole. The full Federal Council has hardly ever travelled abroad as a body. In this sense, the last state visit took place in 1906, when the Federal Council travelled to Domodossola for the official opening of the Simplon Tunnel. As a rule, nowadays the President is received abroad in accordance with the protocol reserved for official state visits.