Since one thread has taken a slant towards what happens at the border with regards to whether they ask for documents or about your shopping, I thought it's worth having a thread to compare notes.

Basic information I'd suggest posting/profiling....

• Direction of travel - in or out of the country (Switzerland)
• Crossing-point (at least Kanton)
• Plates on card (eg. ZH AG SZ TI GR GL etc - or do you have foreign plates?)
• Type of car (cabrio, estate, SUV, etc)
• Reason for tug

I'll start....

• My most-used crossing-point has to be near Mendrisio - direction Varese going into Italy
• Leaving the country - never stopped
• SZ plates (used to be ZH)
• Experience in cabrio, estate and SUV
• Usually anything to declare

More musings.....

• I have to say with a cabrio we were never stopped.
• When we got our estate, we were stopped immediately - usually to check our shopping.
• I can remember a couple of glances at passports in 5 years.
• I have had to show car and licence once in that time.
• I have had to pay custom charges once in that time.
• I have crossed that border many times with my dogs - no documents required.

I do believe that most border guards are looking more for the TI day-shoppers there so plates from Svizzera-Tedesca are waved through - although the exception is often ZH because everyone hates ZH

Next?

My most common border crossings are the main ones - Chiaso, Basel, Geneva, etc. I'm white-skinned and have ZH plates. Drive a small 4WD, usually has a huge pile of diving gear in the back and no shopping bags.

I pretty much never get stopped. Sometimes I get asked if I have anything to declare - I answer "no" and they wave me through. Most times they just wave me through. I travel sometimes alone and sometimes with a single passenger (also white-skinned).

A friend of mine is half Italian and tells me he is always stopped, he has ZH plates. We guessed it is because his skin is slightly darker in colour.

Would be good to actually find out from a border guard what their formula is

We've crossed through Basel border 3 times this year on trips back from the UK and the car being full to the brim of personal belongings and shopping, in fact a few weeks ago we drove back from the UK with many bottles of home made sloe gin stashed in the boot (I would guess highly illegal??!!) we've never been stopped once, we drive a right hand drive car with English plates so maybe they just see us as tourists

Nicky

I often drive to Germany via Austria crossing at eg Diepoldsau. Also cross at Basel to Germany and France, sometimes Italy (not in Basel obviously!).

At the thes other crossings I would describe my treatment as "normal", either waved through or believed when I say nothing to declare. At the Austrian crossing back into CH I almost invariably have a document check.

Last time I took my life in my hands and complained (politely).. "I am a good C permit holder with a clean nose that pays a bucket load of taxes... why am I being singled out and checked EVERY time." To paraphrase, the answer seemed to be that he expected me to have "my window wound down ready to talk to him".... go figure everyone else has them up. So now I turn off the radio, wind down the window and make sure any sunglasses are off and try and find a neutral facial expression. Seems to work.

Also worth considering is asking for a green nothing to declare octagon. I had one given me in Basel once by a helpful "brandli"...

Daniel

PS Anyone know a good route back from France Besancon way to CH, avoiding the dreaded queue that can build up at the border... my part of the bargain is:
- if you do go through the main crossing
- once you cross the border, DONT GO IN THE TUNNEL,
- take the right slip road, T junction turn right, T junction turn left, turn left at the roundabout, stay in right lane
- you totally by bypass the TUNNEL and the dreaded red light sequence at the end of it

Absolutely. I can imagine that doing anything that makes it look like you don't want to talk to them will get you stopped. I always slow down with the radio off and the window open. If you drive at a speed that looks like you aren't expecting to stop, then they may stop you. The "polite" approach has always worked for me - once or twice I drove a little too fast and had a passport check as a result.

Sure, obvious when you think about it, but why did my "behaviour" seem to have such a bad effect there and not elsewhere.... some bizarre genetic trait of border guards with both Swiss and Austrian blood???

An observation from my husband. He always gets stopped when driving over the border either on his own or with another guy in his car. It doesn't matter which crossing it's happend at so many. Whenever he is with me and more recently me & our son he has never been stopped. He drives a nice car & looks pretty presentable so don't know what's up.

We also witnessed at the crossing near La Chaux de Fonds (can't remember what it is called as it was a few years ago) some guy lieing about the amount of meat he was carrying and getting caught out. The customs guys ripped his car apart to search it.

Living in Basel, we cross the border a lot. Our apartment is about 1km from the French border and a few km from the German.

We have a business in Germany, so I am crossing at least several times a week and my husband goes over daily (but doesn't drive).

We used to own a 1982 Audi 100 - we were stopped constantly in that car.
We now have a 2004 VW Polo - rarely stopped

The itty bitty French border by our apartment is the worst. It is manned by Swiss for both sides, and until we got the VW, they were very strict with checking. I can't tell you how many times they have pulled us over, run my passport and dug through the shopping in the back. Always disappointed to hear we were vegetarians, which we told after they spent a few frantic minutes of searching through our bags for meat.

About half the time, cross from Switzerland into Germany on the Autobahn and I've not been stopped there yet (sure, now that I say that..... ) but I see a lot of Italian and Eastern European cars stopped there.

The other half, I normally cross over the local shopping border, which has massive traffic jams. We're sometimes stopped there, often with very surprised border guards hearing we have nothing with us. Some have even checked the car, because they didn't believe us.

More often than not, particularly at the shopping crossing, we notice the cars that are stopped usually have obvious auslaenders in them, or cars from out of the immediate region.

My husband used to have trouble with a particular German border guard when he would walk over that border every day. He finally broke down and picked up a bus pass and now just takes the bus over the border. The man would come running from across the road just to stop him and ask for ID. Of course, the husband got annoyed . I think he just enjoyed getting my husband a little worked up about it.

__________________

I must say I have never had a problem at the borders but I guess that has something to do with driving a mercedes. I have other friends who have big Beamers who also have never had problems. I also have noticed a completely different attitude recently at the border. I now see many are only open(for checking on the CH side) in the afternoon which means if I want something illegal I need to go early in the morning. Have not had a problem yet but I always am prepared to declare it if there happens to be a guard there...

As to how they do it, it is (was based on info that is now 3 years old) a threefold system:
1. If the person is suspicious looking - alone dark skinned, wearing sunglasses and having the window wound up were quoted as suspicious.
2. Driving a vehicle that obviously has shopping in.
3. If the last digit on the number plate matches the daily random number(0-9).

As for the route back from Besancon have done this many times to ZH and have never taken the route you are suggesting. Simply carry on over the Rhein and head to Basel on the A5 - you then miss the mind boggling pleasures of little big city 2 ie little city big traffic problems and if there are queues at the border you can take the A96 to Lörrach which if you stay on it brings you out by Rheinfelden motorway all the way over the border and back onto the A3 past the Basel roadworks...

At busy times, they simply stop the next car when the checking staff are available. I get checked about 1 in 8 crossings.

dave

Thanks for the route tip looks good. Since having sat nav brain disconnected, its obvious if you look at a good old map, although I wouldnt have been sure about the A road at Rheinfelden.

Maybe the BMW and Mercedes are viewed as sedate and law abiding ;-) Porsches mustnt be. Concur with the guy/guys alone vs couples, which is bizarre really. We do all our smuggling as a couple!

Once, after a day trip to germany on and Easter friday. Usual document check, then he wants to see in the boot, oh no here we go. So I open the trunk for the border guy. The only thing in it is one Sprungli easter egg I bought for my wife at the airport shop on the way up in the morning (yeah organised or what?!). His eyes light up... "Sprunglischoggi... issccht guuueett." That was the end of the search !!!!

Lou, I have observed exactly the same - when we travel together, I guess we look like Mr and Mrs Average. When partner travels with a guy, they are stopped.
And for the records - our experiences have been with a Golf, a 4WD and a sports car. When going into CH, I'd say we are waved through 95% of time, and asked if we have anything to declare 5%. We drive with ZH plates, most often through borders near Singen and Basel. We've never been stopped leaving CH.
Another purely personal observation - cars from the Balkan states seem to almost always be stopped.

The Porsche is fine when we go through as a couple.....but stopped when driven by my beloved and a mate. The BMW never seems to raise any eyebrows. Perhaps a little too boring....

Meat has been mentioned a few times in this thread. What's the deal with meat?

=DM=
(mostly vegetarian)

meat is expensive here and cheapo over the border. Most "gunrunners" smuggle large amounts of bovine products into the country

Customs Allowances in German : http://www.ezv.admin.ch/zollinfo_pri...x.html?lang=de
Run it through Google for translation.
dave

Dave, a link to the PDF (German) might make it easier for people to print?

Duty free
Meat : 0.5kg
Meat products such as sausages : 3.5kg
Other meaty stuff (inc rabbit, venison and game) :30kg

Total value under 300chf

Rabbit stew it is then.
dave

I believe thats per person per day irrespective of age, so make "Carrefour" a family and kids day out, offer to take friends kids too!

I didnt realise the distinction between beef, pork, lamb, horse, goat, mules, donkey and ass (funny obsession about equine varieties). and all other meat (ostrich, venison, rabbit etc) which is 20kg but effectively unlimited since no duty on excess amounts (but VAT maybe payable I guess)

Poultry and offal falls into the 3.5kg allowance too.

Did you see the duty for butter >1kg. 16chf per kg! I didnt know that cheese was upto 5kg seperate from butter.

Interesting thanks.

Yeah it pppd, but kids don't qualify for the alkie bevs allowances. There are reduced allowances for people that cross the border every day.

I might try and track down some french game meat and bring her , sorry it, home.

What about German wild boar ? Hog Roast time ?

dave