Only two a day?

Well a passport allows me to enter the country; my Auslaenderausweis allows me to stay in the country. Two different documents, two different purposes.

So why do I *need* to show my Ausweis again?

The purpose of presenting your Auslanderausweis is to show the purpose of your entry, aka your status.

If you just show your passport then it's assumed you're coming as visa waiver, and such an entry has a limited duration of 3 months. If you want to stay longer, then you need a visa. If the officer questions your purpose for traveling and coming to Switzerland, and you say that you live here, then you will definitely be asked to produce your permit.

When you show your Auslanderausweis, it is this document that they will scan for your crossing, not your passport, as this records your entry as one of a resident.

Funny. I also flew to London last week, was asked the same question and it left my colleague and me wondering WHY they would ask this....

My guess it that it is a check... your passport doesn't state your address, but they can see it in the computer. So if they ask you where you live, and you say Zurich whereas the computer says Basel, they will probably have some more questions for you....

The only time in the last 18 years I showed the Swiss officer my Auslanderausweis - he said in a very grumpy fashion that it was not a travel document & he was not interested.

I could think of much more uncomfortable questions then just where I live :-) Take it easy. It's their job to be skeptic.

If you compare our customs with the US immigration, it's a joke, they don't even ask questions.

Be aware that passport control is NOT federal customs authorities, but Cantonal Police, and so it may either have been just curiousity of that policeman or his completing some statistics.

Unfortunately, many of such border-chaps know more about you than you do yourself !

Next time I travel through I'll ask them to tell me my favourite pop group.

It possibly IS in the police-computer

You mean Ghost in the Machine, I think, Wolli.

Just to speed things up, no other questions..just a short thank you, that's all.

So funny

i've had innumerable hilarious experiences leaving and entering swissland.

20 years ago, driving my 1965 vw bus i went off on one of my regular short excursions to france via the lac de joux and les rousses.

the swiss border guards stopped me and had a good scout around the van while checking on my ID. after about 25 minutes one guy started going in french about hash i said no , ain't got none.

5 minutes later after lots of gesticulating and foaming at the month on his part i finally realised that he was telling me that i didn't have a SEE HASH (CH) sticker on the back of the bus..........

i said i'm still in switzerland, why do i need one?

he sent me on my way and i arrived at the french sentry box where they had been looking on obviously fascinated by the whole show.

they asked me where i was going and i said i'm just getting out of CHuffland for a wee while.

they laughed and said yes, they could understand that was a good enough reason to come to france.

When we were going on family holiday once, my mother was taking us kids and we were going to meet my father at our destination, since he was working there. We were stopped because there was a child with the same name as my brother, with the same date of birth, who was the subject in a custody dispute! So it looked like my mum was trying to flee the country with her children to stop the father getting custody... Took about half an hour to get that sorted out (in the days before biometric passports eliminated human contact at airports).