Hello,

I'm planning to leave Switzerland as of end of October, to go back to Italy.
After all the time, money and energy I spent to import my car to CH, I don't know what to do now...does anybody know the procedure to export a car? Do I need to do anything in Switzerland before leaving (pay taxes, cancel insurance, give back the Swiss plate etc), or can I deal with the whole matter in Italy?

Thanks for any help you can provide me with!

Well do not know about Italy. But basically something like this.

You can import car worth under 6000€ easy without paying customs duty if car was originally manufactured in EU. If worth is more than 6000 you need to get EUR.1 from Swiss customs (you can ask the official importer in Switzerland for needed papers). All is lot easier if you have the car with you when exporting and importing it.

Then you need to pay VAT for the worth of the car to import it to EU. And I guess you do not have car tax in Italy, then that is it, next take Italian insurance and for to local MFK,

In Switzerland you need to give your plates back to STVA and mark you car registration paper invalid. Remember to ask it back to register car in Italy with original papers.

Likely easiest is to first go to STVA give your plates and registration papers to them. Take export plates (will cost something like couple hundred CHF with insurance).
Then drive to border and export car out of CH. Walk to next desk that reads import in Italy customs. And there you go.

I bet you can also take insurance from Italy based on car chassis number or such.

What car is it? Maybe you can sell it...?

Hello Finnt,

thank you very much for your reply: this is very helpful! My car is a FIAT Punto from 2004, so I bet it is worth much less than 6,000 chf by now! ;-)
I will drive back to Italy on my last day, so I assume I can do everything then at the border as you suggest.

Cran, I was considering selling it, but as said the car is not worth much anymore, I doubt I'd get many offers for it...and then I'd still need to buy a new one in Italy. If not too expensive, I'd prefer to bring it back with me after all.

Thanks again!

Hi,
I'm also leaving Switzerland to Germany at the end of september and don't know what to do with my car. It is a Saab 9-3 2005. Do someone know if it is worth to take it or keep it and sell it at any price here?
Thanks

There you go...

Switzerland:
http://www.autoscout24.ch/de/autos/s...&yearfrom=2005

Germany:
http://suchen.mobile.de/auto/saab-9-...EXPORT&lang=en

You could start a non reserve time limit auction on here?

For a bit of fun, you might get a good price?

I'll give a CHF1000 a piece

Thanks finnt. Onei, maybe 1000 CHF is already too much for my car

By the way, one friend already advertised my car here, but it was deleted since it is not his car...so have to wait to get my full access here and try to sell it for 1000 CHF

Hi were also leaving CH beginning of October and just come back in shock from the garage, omg..... we paid CHF12 900, 15 months ago for our Renault Espace and now just been offered CHF 3300, any suggestions on how to sell the car or do we take is with us to the UK?? Looking forward to any feedback:

Advertise it here? Use autoscout24.ch? A bit radical, I know.....

Do you really want to take a left hand drive car to the UK? You'll probably never be able to sell it, although I know there are some UK garages who do sell left hand drives to Brits who are about to move to Europe. This might be your best bet.....if you can't sell it before you leave.

Welcome to the club But don't sell it to the garage, they are crazy. You can get better price elsewhere. I Will try to sell my car here or autoscout but it is not free of charge!

I'd sell it here on EF or autoscout or ricardo.
Don't even know why people entertain the dealers - they are out to fleece you for as much as they can & profit themselves as much as they can.

You'll also get Fk-all for it in comparison in the UK as (a) the market is way cheaper & (b) it's a lefty.
If you're tight on time though, you can however get another year's drive out of it in the UK before you have to re-register it. You could always just bring it back here at some point & sell it with the help of some nice friends.

If it's any help, left-hand drive cars in the UK are not that cheap. They used to be but nowadays there are quite a few dealers specialising in them for Brits with second homes abroad and they're mostly sold as premium-priced. I spoke with a dealer last year and he said they had higher margins than right hand drive cars because it's a specialised market - but he said he sold fewer than he would if he were selling RHD vehicles, so it's swings and roundabouts.