Does anyone here has experience on moving out of Switzerland and keeping on driving with the Swiss plates for some time?
I'm going to move to Norway for one year and they don't let you register a car without paying import duties (even if you have owned it for more than 6 months). However, they allow you to drive with foreign plates (and insurance) for up to one year. So this is what I'm up to.
I called my insurance company and first they told that it is not possible to keep the Swiss insurance policy unless you have a valid address in Switzerland, but it might be possible to get temporary plates and then a temporary insurance policy. So I went to SAN and asked for temporary plates. They told me that the information was wrong and it's actually legal to keep the normal plates for up to one year after relocation before returning them. I called the insurance company again and now they said that there's no problem... I just have to tell them the new billing address abroad, no other changes to the policy are necessary.
However, I feel a bit uncertain. Wondering if there are some nasty surprises that may pop up... so it would be nice to hear about your experiences.
You should be able to do what you want, that is temporarily import the car to Norway, without paying import duties & tax. I don't have direct experience with this, but know a friend who did so without any great difficulty. You can also refer to the full details (in english, german or norwegian) on the Norweigian customs site. The essential point is that you need to document to their satisfaction that you will not be remaining in Norway for more than one year (i.e. not taking up permanent residence there). At their discretion however, they may extend your authorization for a second period of 12 months. Usually you would support your intent to only be a temporary Norweigian resident by demonstrating that you are maintaining a permanent residence in Switzerland. But they will let you document it other ways too, say by way of employment contract, declaration and by showing other ties to another country.
You need to maintain the Swiss plates and insurance for the period that you are in Norway and may not lend, sell or use the vehicle for commercial purposes. It's explained pretty well in the following link. You might want to follow up with a call or two just to ensure that there haven't been any recent changes though & discuss what they would prefer to see in terms of documentation.
http://www.toll.no/templates_TAD/Art...epslanguage=EN
It is likely that there is a clause in your policy that drops the insurnance down to the legal minimum for the country you visit in the event of being out of Switzerland for x number of days. Check that. Otherwise, shouldn't be an issue.
Thanks for the comments... I'm not so much worried about the norwegian authorities, the rules seem to be quite clear and I have a one year work contract to show them. It's the Swiss insurance I'm more concerned about, but I guess it's fine.