Custom declaration for my parents car

Transportation, Travel and Trips
1
Good morning everyone,

I have read several threads on the forum but could not find a case history that reflected my case.

I will briefly summarize my situation : I have always lived in Italy and hold dual citizenship, recently (a couple of months) for work reasons I relocated and moved my residence to Switzerland.

After a few weeks I proceeded to change my Italian driver's license to the Swiss one (I changed it right away since it was about to expire and it didn't seem smart to pay for the renewal and within a year to pay again for the license change).

In Italy I always used a small utility car registered in my parents' name and never bothered to put it in my name, which was the car I used for the move to Switzerland. At the time I was not informed that I had to declare that I was entering with my car in Switzerland, and for that reason I have not yet made such a declaration.

Anyway after trying to inform myself through various sources I seem to have understood the following :

- Any foreigner who comes to reside in Switzerland has one year to change his license to a Swiss license (during the first year of residence he is allowed to drive with such a license, at the end of the first year of residence it will be forbidden to drive without a Swiss license)

- If you have correctly declared the car at customs through a simple form (and I understand without cost) the same applies : you can drive the foreign license plate car for the time limit of 1 year and then you need to change the license plate to the Swiss one.

Now turning to my specific case and the information I was able to gather:

- Now that I have preemptively converted my license to the Swiss one, I am forbidden to drive any car without the Swiss license plate (so I have somehow burned the 1-year "settling-in period" by having converted the license)

- After asking for some information in a non-commercial customs I was told that it is necessary to bring a declaration from my parents that I have been driving such a car for a few years and that it is enough to go to a commercial customs to register such a declaration and eventual form to be in compliance.

Ultimately here are my doubts and questions:

1. I would like to be sure before going to any customs to make declaration a summary indication of the costs that I would have to incur, because in my view before making such declarations I should proceed to make the transfer and register the car in my name (cost of about 300 euros in italy) and then proceed with the above, but apparently from the customs have not mentioned this step that I would gladly spare myself and of which I would appreciate confirmation.

2. As mentioned above I would like to understand if it would be convenient from an economic point of view to import my car or would it be better for me to sell it and reappear a used one locally: in addition to the eventual cost of transfer (if mandatory) are there other costs to be expected in customs? I have already budgeted 100 euros for testing + 50 euros for the new license plate so a total of about 500 euros being wide.

3. I was told that the mechanic's checks are much stricter than in other nations, is there a risk of not passing the test ? If I do not pass it what additional expenses should I take into account ?

4. Now that I have a Swiss license, if I went to Italy, would I be prohibited from driving any car with Italian license plates ? Would this be solvable by getting a Swiss international driver's license ?

5. Out of curiosity, how much of a fine have I risked till now if I was stopped with a Swiss driver's license driving my parents' car with Italian plates ?

To give you some more information, the car is a Citroen C1 with at least 6/7 years (if not more) on its back.

Anyway I plan to go in the next few days to resolve the issue by asking in a commercial customs, but I would like to be sure that it is not convenient for me to take the car back to Italy and buy another one directly.

Thank you in advance for your answers and I hope I have not missed any posts with specific answers to my questions applied to my specific case.

2
No. The license doesn't matter, where you are resident matters.

Again, the license doesn't matter, it's residency that matters.

How long have you been a Swiss resident?

Tom

3
OP says a couple of months - take that to be 2 or 3?

4
Best check with both CH and I customs, as the rules may be slightly different.

Once the car is imported, you can drive it for up to a year on CH plates, but not at all if you haven't imported it and are resident here!

Import it, and take it for inspection before the year is up. If there are too many problems, take it back to Italy and sell or junk it.

To avoid taxes, you should have declared it as part of your move, but in any case a 7 year old C1 has little or no taxable value, so it probably doesn't matter much.

Tom

5
No - you are only prohibited from driving with non-Swiss license plates inside Switzerland. You can drive with Italian plates in Italy, if this wasn't the case it would mean that no-one basically could rent a car abroad.

Keeping the car in your parents' name might have some advantages, for example they (or someone else, not you) can use it to come visit you. If the car is registered in your name, it would be prohibited of being driven on Swiss soil.

6

As Tom says your driving license is irrelevant. All you need is a valid driving license.

For the car, the customs status must be in order. Driving an Italian plated car in Italy is not a issue. Driving a Italian plated car in Switzerland needs approval from Swiss customs. If you have relocated this is rather simple.

I would have been easier if the car was already listed on your form 18.44 (you filled in form 18.44 and get it stamped, right?) This is also possible if it is your parents car which you regularly use.

  1. Why would you change the registration in Italy, specially of this insures extra cost? Not needed.

  2. Depends on how much has to be fixed. If the car is in immaculate condition it is a easy pass. Otherwise see it as routine maintenance.

  3. Again depends on condition of the car. I do not know the condition of your car. Some peoples car look like crap after 6 years others not only look like new after 12 years but are in perfect condition.

  4. AFAIK this is not a issue. But considering the Guardia di Finanza can impound your car it is risky if not all is 100% in order.

  5. Once again your driving license is not the issue at hand. The issue is: You are a Swiss resident and you drive a foreign car w/o customs approval. In very worst they can charge you 5 time the VAT and car duty as a fine plus the VAT 7.7% and car duty 4% owed (based on cars value according EuroTax). Or in other words: A fine of around half of the cars value.

https://www.bazg.admin.ch/bazg/en/ho…-effects-.html

https://www.bazg.admin.ch/bazg/en/ho…ts–etc–.html

https://www.bazg.admin.ch/bazg/en/ho…craft/faq.html

7
But don't you mean here a foreign reg car you own after a certain amount to time?

Because I can't see why you can't drive any car you like where ever you want so long as your licence is valid for it and car's insured (and you don't pass the 12 months rule of having it in Switzerland on foreign plates if you own it).

After all, I too would delay as long as humanly possible getting AG plates

8
Customs rules.

Same applies to EU residence using a Swiss registered car in the EU.

Risk of having it impounded, and massive fine (VAT + 4x penalty)

Tom

9

Because you cannot simply bring valuable goods into the customs area and use it as you like. In general anything you bring in must be declared and duty, tax has to be paid.

Obviously, doing so for all things would be a tremendous bureaucratic headache and thus a few expectations were implemented ( Like the CHF 300 rule ), some based on international treaties. The most well known is the one for tourists which is based on the Istanbul Convention on Temporary Admission . In its Annex C, Article 5, Section b you find:

(Similar provisions for commercial vehicles)

You can easily see when one or more conditions might not be met. In that case you cannot use the vehicle. In Article 7 Section b we also find:

As far as I know Swiss Customs permits such uses. This is handy if you want to drive your friends in their own car to a wine tasting tour in the Laveaux, or you have to drive the car back home after a bad skiing trip were they broke their leg.

Thus, for any thing else you need customs approval, which is granted in certain cases. The most well known is the 1 year exemption when you move your residence from abroad. The other possibilities including their formalities are listed on the Swiss Customs website: https://www.bazg.admin.ch/bazg/en/ho…-benutzen.html

10
Sell it and buy another one here ?

11
I think the idea is the following: if you allow residents drive foreign-plated cars, quickly you would find yourself in a situation where everyone is driving a car with 's plates that happens to be owned by their "friend" from that country, who pays 2$ per year of insurance, never does periodic car checks and never pays the fines the car collects in Switzerland.

As a country you want to be in control of the cars that are driving on the road and held their owners accountable. You can either:

- forbid foreign cars, or make their (even temporal) import very bureaucracy heavy and basically kill car-based tourism

- by default forbid your residents to drive a foreign car in your territory

12
somehow though they would still have to prove that rando car was in switzerland all this time. and what about those swisses that drive around on plates from another Kanton... surely they should be even more on the witch hunt list.

13
No, just that it wasn't legally imported.

Italy is worse, they impound them all the time (Swiss registered cars driven by Italian residents)

Tom

14
Same rules applies to pianos, fridges, cooking ranges, lathes, computers, sofas, TVs, etc.

Actually, cars have more relaxed rules, as you can actually use a car which has not cleared customs. Try to rent a sofa abroad and see how that works at customs.

15
So just to give a quick update to everyone on what I did and the info I received:

- I went to the closest commercial customs with my car, my car's paper, form 18.44 compiled, my documents and a declaration from my parents that I have been using my car for more than 6 months. After a long line the officer examined and made a copy of everything and finally gave me this paper (cost of 20 CHF) with which I can drive in Switzerland etc.; I should always bring in the car with me this paper.

- He also said that I should be fine driving 1 year in Switzerland without changing plates and that I will receive some letter from the office regulating the cars etc.

- After a few days I received a letter from "department volkswirtschaft und inneres" stating I should bring my car documents etc. for the inspection by 30 days.

I called them the day after explaining the situation and basically they confirmed me the 1 year period for changing the plate (they sent me another letter) and probably got confused because I had swiss documents and thought mistakenly I've been living here for a long time.

- So basically after 1 year I should send them (to "department volkswirtschaft und inneres") my car's document etc. to book an appointment with them for the inspection of the car and the new license plate. So in the end the total cost for now has been 20 CHF and we'll see in the future.

That's all for now folks, thank you again for your help

16

You have one year from the date you became a Swiss resident, not one year from the date you imported the car.

Middle example on Page 13 of ASA directive 1
https://asa.ch/wp-content/uploads/on…1_D/index.html

17

@Swisspotato, did you parents declare that they gifted you the car more than 6 months ago (i.e., the car is your property), or did they declare that you have used it for more than 6 months (i.e., the car is their property)?

18
Hi arcus, sorry for late reply.

I just stated that I've been using the car for more than 6 months.

19
@op you did not mention exporting the car from Italy, that is usually the difficult and expensive part. But maybe rules have changed.

20
Why should exporting be difficult and expensive?

At least we now know that importing into Switzerland is simple and cheap.