Anyone can drive your car - but if they pay you to do so, the insurance is invalidated. Futhermore if they crash - the insurance is invalid - and they (the insurance company) would come after you - and not the driver!!
Re-read the conditions - I have yet to find a "normal" insurance policy that includes an allowance for "hire or reward" - which is exactly what you are doing.
Well it is true. This Forum exists to give advice to ex-pats, in English, about Switzerland. You can always ask the customs officer next time you cross a border. The onus is not on us to prove that we are giving you good advice, the onus is on you to know the laws.
There was a posting from an Englishman, about 5 or 6 months ago. He hired a German van, drove to UK and brought his stuff back to Switzerland. He was in big trouble at the Swiss Basel border as the customs officer warned him he was in serious trouble with smuggling the van. He was given a temporary import certificate, for a fee, and he had to take the van out again within 2 days.
The safest attitude is to stop at the border, show the customs your rental car papers and your passport, and ask for a temporary import certificate. That way you cannot be charged with smuggling the car as you have declared it. I think the certificate costs CHF 20,--
And don't forget, the Swiss Zoll / Douane officers and police can stop you anywhere without reason and ask for your papers, proving your car is legally here.
Thank you for the tip ! Please let us know how you go on Sunday.. if there are no restrictions on driving the car in Switzerland then that is fantastic !
Out of curiosity has anyone tried this in more recent years?
Searching for 'Mulhouse-Bale Airport France' does seem to give rental prices about half the price compared to the Swiss side!
Just doing a search at the moment as I've got a load of in-laws flying into Basel in a couple of weeks and so need an extra car. The price difference is ridiculous. Compact car on the Swiss Side? 200 chf thank you very much, on the French side? 55 Eur. So I can rent it, purchase an extra vignette and still pay less than half of what it would cost on the Swiss side. And then have a spare vignette too.
Now the only question is if I rent the car in my old man's name to avoid any hassle at the boarder, although he is a very nervous driver. Or rent in my name and take the risk... in 7 years and about 800 boarder crossings I've only been stopped once so I think I'll go for the latter.
Hi,
I just did a search and found something interesting (relevant to UK) is that as expected you cannot drive etc. BUT look at point 3) an exception is made for a Hire Car. Could that be an EU law.
If you are a resident in the UK, you cannot drive a non-UK car in the UK. Since there are no residency cards in the UK, whenever you are stopped by a police officer and he thinks you are actually a resident (for example if you have a UK driving licence, or have UK debit cards in your wallet), then he might confiscate your car which might be destroyed, unless you can prove you are not a UK resident, or you are working in more than one EU countries, and spend more than 6 months (185 days) per year outside of the UK.
If you are not a resident, then you can drive the car for at most 6 months (per year), but your car does need to have valid MOT and Insurance from the originating country, which you have to prove to the officer in case it's needed. You also have to prove to him that you are not driving the car for more than 6 months (for example if you show him the ferry / tunnel ticket). Every day your car is in the country counts, so if you leave the country, but the car is still there, it's still counts towards the 6 months (as your ferry/tunnel ticket is still showing the date). Exiting and re-entering the country won't reset the 6 months (although you will have a fresher ferry/tunnel ticket, so it becomes easier to prove you just arrived to the country)
There are only three possible options for a UK resident to drive a non-UK car completely legally:
1) If the car is not yours, the registered owner is not a UK resident, and he is sitting with you in the car (in this case he is considered to be the driver)
2) If the car belongs to (or to be more precise is registered in the name of) an EU based company, and you are working for that company.
3) If the car is on a lease in an other country (for example it's a car hired from France)
A few questions/points about car hire from Basel airport.
1.) It seems that rental prices have stabilized between the French and Swiss sides at the airport. My 4 day rental for a Volkswagen Polo is 120 CHF from Enterprise, which is similar in price for a comparable car from the French car rental agencies.
2.) I am driving to go skiing in Grindlewald. Will my rental car come with snow chains and the vignette sticker? Or will I need to purchase those separately?
3.) Any tips or discounts for toll roads, gas, etc? Thank you!
If you hire in CH the vignette will already be fitted and it will have winter tyres so there is a good chance you wont need chains. In switzerland there are no toll roads so just drive, gas fill up away from the main roads in the towns
Thank you! I will be sure to inquire about the winter tires and will definitely fill up on gas in some of the town off the main highways
Thread resurrection!
Decided to hire a car for my holiday in France from the airport, but left it 'till the day before departure before looking.
Tried my usual company, Europcar, but they were sold out on the Swiss side and the Baselstadt address wanted CHF680 for 8 days hire. No thanks.
Then I tried Enterprise on the French side, they had one, €300 for 8 days, so I called them to double check (this was at 8pm and I wanted to pickup at 9am the next day).
Turns out their booking system is not real time, and despite the website saying they had availability, they actually had no cars available.
So I called Hertz on the French side, they assured me their system was real time, and if I booked online and called back, they'd reserve the car I needed rather than I take pot luck the next day. So I booked online, called them 2 minutes later, and there was my booking on the system, and they reserved me the appropriate car (Pug 308SW).
Cost for 8 days, €220! (The same car from Hertz on the Swiss side was €400). They also don't record damage up to 25mm (dings or scratches).
I asked about driving it into CH, and they said up to 7 days was fine. No idea what the restriction was after this, whether legal or Hertz regs.
All in all, I was very happy with Hertz and the cost.
Here's my experience as of two days ago with renting a car from the Basel area. I found the CH price was triple the FR price. On Sixt, the cheapest per diem price for a two-day rental was USD$92 on the CH side, versus USD$33 pd in FR. Likewise, for the same time period, Priceline showed USD$30 pd on the CH side, whereas I booked on the FR side for USD$11 pd (not a typo). The trick is to enter "Mulhouse" or "Mulhouse Basel" or MHL rather than "Basel Mulhouse" or BSL.
The 7 day restriction for a Swiss resident is due to customs, you would be importing a car so liable to pay duty & vat on the car.
We had better rates renting in and around Basel at either Hertz or Eoropcar. Try Expedia too.
I recently hired a van for 24 hours from Enterprise at the French side of "Mulhouse Airport" to bring some personal belongings back to Basel from storage in France. Understandably, I was stopped at the border, so I explained the contents of the van -- no problem. But the Swiss border guard told me that as a Swiss resident I was "not permitted" to hire a vehicle from abroad to drive into Switzerland! That doesn't make any sense to me. Anyone know anything about this? If the vehicle is in Switzerland for less than seven days, could there be any issue at all?
It sounded like he was just doing his bit for Swiss protectionism (although he didn't pursue the issue -- I just got sent on my way with no penalties).
ETA: OK, now that I've read more posts in this thread plus another thread on the topic, it looks like the border guard may have been correct!