Renting in Lorrach, driving in Switzerland

Transportation, Travel and Trips
1
Hello community,

Please can you help me with this: I am a non EU expat in Switzerland with Swiss driving licence. Can I rent cars from across the border from SIXT in Lorrach say for a weekend and drive in Switzerland?

I have found SIXT Lorrach to ve much cheaper than SIXT Bad bahnhof with a full liability insurance.

Thanks for your help,

N

2

I believe the answer is no, you’re not allowed to drive a foreign hire car here with a Swiss driver’s licence since the law changed a few years ago.

3
You can but you have to get a temporary certificate at customs: https://www.bazg.admin.ch/bazg/en/ho...-benutzen.html

4
Thank you IFL. Would you know by any chamce if there is any fee for such a certificate?

5
From what I can find, the form is without fee.

6
It does not work like that. You need to inform the car company as they own the car and they will provide you with a car plus documentation that has been cleared for entry to Switzerland.

7
Thank you Jim and IFL. Appreciate your quivk responses. I will check this with Sixt and customs folks.

8
And "not all there"! :-B

9
I am not aware about such a law change, must be pretty recent. At least last time I checked (January 2022) the driving license is irrelevant, an a person with a Swiss license can legally drive any car. AFAIK there has no change science than.

However, a Swiss resident cannot simply bring valuable goods into Switzerland which have not been taxed nor simply use them if they were brought by a tourists. There is a CHF 300 limit. As a car is worth more some customs formalities are needed. It like that since the dawn of time, or at least longer than anyone of us is alive.

Been there done that. You can use a rental car for 5 days ins Switzerland (up to 8 from day of rental) when you get customs approval. Just get the form from a manned border post and return said form when you leave Switzerland with the car.

It works exactly like that. Stop, get form, use car for 5-8 days, stop when you return (they might want to see the car, stupid me parked it behind the customs office!), return car. All you might need is an approval that you can use the car abroad.

Here from the page linked by IFL

10

I thought there had been some change a year or two back where EU drivers couldn’t drive Swiss licenced cars and vice versa. I remember reading threads here about it and it causing chaos with car rental companies at airports. But I couldn’t find the right word search to find any threads and googling didn’t help either.

11
I remember that as well Medea!

12
I thought a Swiss resident couldn't drive an EU car in Switzerland, but no idea where I picked that up.

Edit: It's certainly not allowed in the opposite direction (an EU resident driving a Swiss car into the EU) https://lenews.ch/2016/06/01/new-eu-...n-switzerland/

13
Not your driving license is important (apart that it should be valid for the vehicle you are driving), but your residency. If you are a Swiss resident and want to use a non-Swiss vehicle in Switzerland you must get approval from customs. And as said, has been like this for ages. Current rules: https://www.bazg.admin.ch/bazg/en/ho...-benutzen.html

As a general rule: One cannot easily drive a foreign plated car in the customs area where you have your place of residence. That would be a tax and duty violation.

The EU rules are as follow and given in Article 215 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/2446 ( consolidated version )

Note: 2a was added May 2018 with Commission Delegated Regulation 2018/1063

While the press the press in 2016 once claimed that this was all new , it existed before but was less enforced. Except when it actually was: https://www.thelocal.ch/20140606/ger...border-mistake

Anyway: EU resident can use a rental car from outside the EU customs union (since 2018), and Swiss resident can also use rental cars from outside of Switzerland for a limited time if they get permission from customs.

14

Maybe it was longer ago than I thought.

15
Thank you everyone, this is very useful! For now, I want to may be once a month rent a car for 24-48 hours, and be able to drive both in Switzerland and Germany. I think this should work, and I will anyways double check both with customs and the rental company.

Or I might just change my mind given the hassle, and how less frequently I am going to rent the car.

But the information is totally worth it, its been on my mind for some time.

Thank you again, and a nice weekend.

16
Rubbish.

17
As said: Been there, done that. First hand experience.

18
Like the UK joining the EU.

It’s funny how our perception of time works and how different it is for different things.

19
Do you have an official link to back this up?

It’s very easy to refute a post but if it is indeed wrong you should at least have the courtesy to provide a link to the correct information.

20
It's the residence that matters, not the license, and it's been the law for 50 years or more.

Tom