Question to you all,

My wife drove her German plated car into Switzerland late last year, and we're now in the process of getting Swiss plates on it.

She has a form 1844 that has about 20 stamps on it from the Zoll from when she came across the border, but the local garage fellow is asking us for our form 13.20A. We've gone back through our paperwork and we don't have that form--we have everything else listed to get your car registered.

Was there some other process we had to accomplish to get this form after she arrived in Switzerland?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Paul

Back from the garage, and I'll answer my own question so anyone in future searching on this topic can have some additional information.

The form 13.20A is for new cars, the 13.20B is for used cars. From what I could gather this morning my wife should have received this when she crossed the border with our car, but because all the customs details were taken care of by the moving company (including those for the car) she was unaware and simply drove over without being stopped, or stopping. The car was "imported" via the form 1844, but we did not get this additional form.

It seems it's not to worry though--the local garage says they can arrange the form for us. I hope this is the case, and there is no complication in switching the car to Swiss plates.

Best Regards,

Paul

you need the 13.20 form when you want to get the car registered here in Switzerland.

What the customs guys at the border should have done is register your car with the chassis number in their system and give you the 13.20 form with a "Stamm-Nummer" on it. The Stamm-Nummer is required when you want to insure the car.

If your garage can sort this out for you then great (they will probably charge though )

Or you could call these guys (Zoll) and get the 13.20 from them. I also had my motorbike imported and the moving company forgot to request the 13.20. So I went to their Zollinspektorat in Zürich ( Freilagerstrasse 47
8047 Zürich) and sorted everything out there. took me 30min. They are very helpful.

Thanks for the information! I'll see what the Garage has to say--they're looking at the car now.

I'm wondering, could I just go back to the crossing point? I mean, I'm in Basel, about 1 km from the station.

I think this stems from the moving company doing all the paperwork for us--my wife simply didn't know that she should stop and request this.

Well, part of the reason for these forums is for future help to others, and hopefully someone wanting to come will search something like importing a car to Switzerland, needed customs forms, or something

Paul

I am sure you can go back to the border and talk to the guys there. Make sure you take your 18.44 with you where you should have declared your car as a personal import. And take your registration papers for the car as well.

We drove our car down here when we came and didn't do anything at the crossing point except for buying the vignette. The removal company took care of everything and sent us both forms through the post a week or so later.

Have you tried asking the removal company?

EDIT : We got a 13.20A for both our cars and neither of them were new. One was 2 years old and the other 4 so I don't know what their definition of new is.

Hi,

That's also good information--if all else fails we'll call the moving company-though they did seem pretty efficient with the paperwork, so I'm surprised they dropped the ball on this one.

Again, the garage-fellow seemed to take it all in stride--and we know him, so fingers crossed.

I'll post the final outcome just for information.

Paul