A car from Germany to Switzerland: the process in eight steps

Germany holds the largest used-car population in the German-speaking area, and sheer volume pushes prices down. For a sought-after model, dozens of comparable cars sit side by side there; in Switzerland it is often a handful. A seller inside a dense supply negotiates differently from one whose car is the only one of its kind for miles.

The second reason is the make-up of that stock. Large diesel engines and high mileages are more common in Germany, four-wheel drive and automatic gearboxes rarer and dearer. Swiss demand runs the other way round. That is an observation from what is advertised on either side rather than a law of nature — but it explains why estates with big engines and cars rated to tow are the ones that cross the border.

What the advertised price does not say: between it and Swiss plates sit customs duty, vehicle tax, import VAT, the transfer, the inspection and registration. The sum works when the gap is larger than all of that together — and for young models in demand here it rarely is.

The order is not a matter of taste. Each step needs a document produced by the one before it, and at two points there is no way back: no declaration at the border means no assessment decision, and without that decision the road-traffic office will not take the car.

Three documents decide whether registration is an office visit or an expert report. The certificate of conformity — COC across Europe — holds the technical data in standardised form, including emissions and noise figures. Registration certificate parts I and II prove who owns the car and what has happened to it. The last roadworthiness report shows what an examiner most recently saw.

The COC is where an import tips over. If it comes with the car, the Swiss inspection is a formality. If it is missing, the road-traffic office demands its own evidence on emissions and noise, and that is the largest single item after the duties. Ask before you view the car and have a photo sent — not an assurance that it is “somewhere in a drawer”.

Only then the contract. It should record that the car is sold for export to Switzerland, who deregisters it, who returns the plates and when papers and keys change hands. Buying from a dealer, add the question of whether the invoice shows VAT separately or is issued under the margin scheme — that decides whether there is anything to reclaim at all.

A car being imported into Switzerland does not stay on German plates. Deregistration happens at the German registration office, where the plates are invalidated. Until that is done, vehicle tax and the insurance obligation keep running in the exporting country — the item buyers most often overlook, because it only shows up months later as a direct debit.

For the drive itself there are three routes: a German short-term plate, an export plate, or no plate at all and a trailer instead. The export plate is the clean way across the border, because it is issued expressly for that purpose and comes with insurance valid in the destination country. Which one fits when is covered in its own piece on the transfer.

Plan the drive for a weekday and for a staffed crossing. That is not a detail: anyone crossing an unstaffed border in the evening or on a Sunday has no declaration, and clearing it afterwards costs more time than any detour.

The competent body is the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security. You declare on entry, at a staffed post, with the car present. Purchase contract or invoice showing the price, the foreign vehicle papers and your ID are presented. Anyone importing on someone else's behalf also needs written authority.

The output of this step is the assessment decision, known in Switzerland as form 13.20A. It is the document without which nothing proceeds: the road-traffic office asks for it, and without it there are no plates. It also carries a deadline by which the car has to be registered.

Opening hours differ widely between customs posts, and smaller crossings are not staffed continuously. A phone call the day before is the cheapest part of the whole import.

Three levies fall due on import, and they are assessed on three different quantities. That is why you cannot estimate them by applying one percentage to the purchase price.

Current rates for customs duty, vehicle tax and import VAT are published by the BAZG. They change, and a figure in a guide that is older than the last change is worse than none — the reader relies on it and gets it wrong. What practically never changes is the basis of assessment, and that is set out above.

Do the sum for yourself in this order: purchase price plus transport to the border gives the value that matters. Duty on that, by weight. Vehicle tax on that. Import VAT on the total of all of it. Anyone using a flat mark-up on the purchase price instead regularly underestimates the last item, because import VAT applies to the already increased figure.

On top come the cantonal fees for inspection and registration, plus the plates themselves. They differ from canton to canton; your cantonal road-traffic office lists them.

Third-party insurance must be in place before registration. The confirmation reaches the road-traffic office electronically; you do not present anything yourself, but the policy has to be running or the appointment is cancelled. A call to the insurer with the chassis number is normally enough.

On emissions and noise, step one pays off. Where the COC exists, its figures are normally enough. Where it is missing, the office requires its own test, with an appointment and a fee, and for cars never built for the European market that becomes an individual assessment. The price advantage of an overseas import regularly dissolves entirely at this point.

Every imported car is presented to the cantonal road-traffic office, however recent its German roadworthiness test. A valid German test does not replace the Swiss inspection. The competent canton is where the keeper lives, not where the car happens to be.

Bring the assessment decision, the foreign vehicle papers, the COC and proof of insurance. The technical condition is checked against Swiss rules — which include points that do not matter in Germany, among them the design of certain lighting equipment and tyres in the sizes entered in the papers.

As an order of magnitude for planning: clearance in a day, an appointment at the road-traffic office in one to four weeks depending on canton and season. With an individual assessment, rather two to three months. That is an order of magnitude and not a promise — appointments are scarcer in spring than in November.

Three situations turn a cheap purchase into an expensive one. The first is the missing COC, because it turns the inspection from a formality into an expert report. The second is a heavy car with a low price: duty is assessed on weight, so it lands hardest on exactly the cars where the price advantage is smallest in absolute terms.

The third is a defect that only turns up at the Swiss inspection. On a domestic car you negotiate about it with the seller; on an import you are in the destination country with the car, the seller is abroad, and the contract probably excludes any warranty. An independent workshop inspection before purchase is therefore not a luxury on an import but the insurance against exactly this.

And one situation where the sum almost always works: an older, highly equipped car with a large engine, plentiful in Germany and sought after in Switzerland. There the price gap is wide, the duties are low in absolute terms, and the COC is present because the car was built for the European market.