i am just about to import a car from Hungary, and i just wonder whether anybody tried to import a car to Switzerland with the original license plate from a country and with the original car registration document in the given country (still under the name of the old owner).
So the car is not deregistered in Hungary nor registered for export yet.
This way i could safe hassle and the money to have a temporary license plate on the car from Hungary...
And after the customs registration in CH i would need to send back the license plate , as in Hungary there is 15 days to announce the change of ownership.
So i would only need a temporary license plate from Strassenverkehrsamt for 1 day when they do the technical check.
I would appreciate for any opinion, if you had an experience doing it this way, or to say whether it is viable process at all.?
I did the same last week when importing a car from Poland. The car was still registered in Poland under the name of the car dealer, we did not deregister it and did not apply for export plates in our name. The only issue we had was that we forgot to file export papers in Germany, and Swiss customs did not want to process the import until Germans stamped the papers confirming export from the EU.
We had no issue at the border, the customs officer was happy to take the VAT bill from Poland and original registration papers, no questions asked. At the Strassenverkehrsamt, nobody cared about the current owner in Polish car papers. They took Polish papers and plates, explaining they will be sent to the Polish embassy in Bern, and gave us an official letter confirming that the car has been registered in Switzerland. This is very useful since we can use it to cancel the Polish insurance without waiting for the authorities to confirm the deregistration.
Summary: there's no need to obtain export plates as long as it is currently registered in an EU country and you have valid insurance. You can drive it to the border.