Hi all,

My wife and I will be visiting her parents for Christmas and New Year. We plan to get her parent's car and visit Italy for 2-3 days. The car is registered in Switzerland and her father is the owner, I am an EU resident (not Italy) and was wondering if there's any permit in Switzerland that he'd need to give me for driving his car over the border.

Thanks in advance!

As a resident of the EU customs area you cannot simply bring valuable goods into the customs area.

Doing so, if there is not a specific exemption or you get customs approval, is considered smuggling, you can be fined up to a multiple of the goods value, and the goods can be confiscated.

Unfortunately the Union Customs Code and all its implementing regulations do not foresee any exemption for what you intend to do (it would be possible with a commercial rental car). Thus, as a EU resident you can drive the car only in Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Büsingen. and to the Euro Airport Basel Mulhouse if you use the special customs road from Basel.

Relevant is Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/2446 in particular the mentioned Article 215. Please check the consolidate version for the current text of Article 215 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-cont...R2446-20190725

PS: The Italian Guardia di Finanza are known to be super strict regarding such rules.

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On Strike - ChatGPT knows more than I, so use it (or doesn't it?)

Thanks, but that's not my worry, as I have double citizenship with non-EU passport and I can simply enter Italy as non-EU resident.

My idea here was whether a document is needed for me to legally leave Switzerland with a car registered in CH that's not under my name.

Passports have nothing to do with your residency, you can be resident in EU without having an EU passport.

Unless you mean "if needed, I will flash my other passport and will pretend that I am not an EU resident" - which might work, but it's a whole other dangerous game IMO, since you'd be lying at that point

It is not about you entering Italy, no matter what passport you have you can't drive a car you don't own across the border to Italy. It is illegal and you can expect the car will be seized and you will have to pay about 10% of the value of the car plus import fees to get it back.

That would be hilarious, as you would be illegally in the Schengen zone.

Thanks for that. Do you have any source for this information? I've never heard of a country forbidding such a thing. My concern was leaving the country of origin, for example, in Bulgaria, there's an official document that the car owner needs to complete and have stamped by the police, which would allow another person to leave the border with his car.

Why illegally? Not all non-EU countries need Schengen visa for tourism.

This is wrong. Car ownership is not the issue at hand and entering Italy with a car which is not owned by the person which drives it is a daily and common occurrence. There is absolutely nothing illegal about it (if the actual owner is o.k. with it).

The problem is solely the place of residence within the EU customs area.

The only non-EU passport which might do the tricks are the Norwegian, the Swiss, and the Liechtenstein passport, as all those are part of the Schengen area but not part of the EU customs union. Otherwise your foreign passport would need a stamp when crossed the Schengen border. In absence of this stamp you would need a residence permit from an EU or EFTA country. With neither stamp in your third country passport nor residence a permit, your stay in the Schengen area is very, very questionable and in case of person which is not other wise a citizen of an EU or Schengen country would be very most likely illegal.

Now, your very own stay is not illegal as you are an EU citizen. Your right to stay in other EU countries does not come from the passport but from the fact you are a citizen of an EU country.

__________________
On Strike - ChatGPT knows more than I, so use it (or doesn't it?)

Maybe just a thought : Could you go to a legal notary and do a "bailment agreement" (not sure if this is the correct english translation) ? Or any kind of paper done at a notary (where the owner gives you full access to the item and use it abroad )and just ask for it in IT + EN/DE

Right, thanks a lot for the useful explanation here. So, I'd just enter Switzerland with my non-EU passport and get a stamp from Switzerland's border/Schengen and I could drive non-EU car that is not mine in EU.

On the other hand, I was not able to find any info about any permit for driving someone else car and passing Swiss border. In my country, this is called "Permit to drive someone else's motor vehicle", but my father in-law asked someone in Switzerland (from his insurance company) and they told him that I can drive the car in Switzerland or any other country, there's no such document here. Just wanted to double-check this information.

By the way, I've traveled to France, Germany, and Italy on many occasions with his car, but he was always the passenger and I was never stopped by the border police or customs officers of any of the bordering countries, so wasn't really aware. This time, I'll be traveling without the owner of the car, that's why I wanted more info.

40%, not 10%!

Tom

A EU-resident cannot drive a CH registered vehicle outside of CH + FL.

Citizenship doesn't matter.

Simple.

Tom

What about non-EU resident?

No problem.

But you are EU resident!

"I am an EU resident"

Tom

And don‘t think ‚oh nothing will happen‘. Remember too well making an urgent payment for the release of the car of the CEO that his driver (not a Swiss resident) drove from Switzerland to Germany. It was a lot of money to pay!

I think it is 110% (5 times the Italian VAT)

For those which want a signed piece of paper for peace of mind:
https://www.tcs.ch/mam/Digital-Media...e-passages.pdf

here one with even more languages

https://www.schumpf-partner.ch/wp-co...s_Fahrzeug.pdf

To be signed in front of a notary public.

I do that for US visitors, notarized and aposillad.

Tom

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I'm an EU citizen, but I am not been living/residing in the EU since 2020.

I see many groans on this thread, not sure why I'm understood negatively, I'm just a tourist that needs to go as a tourist to Italy with a CH car, nothing is wrong, and no criminal is being done.

Thank you very much sir for this document!!! This is exactly what I was looking for. <3

Do you mind sharing what's the price for this service in Switzerland?

Make up your mind before crossing the border!
You can quickly get into trouble if you make false declarations. Italian customs or/and the Guardia di Finanza are allowed to impound your car if you break the EU customs rules!

Yup, not lying here, just a mixed resident with citizenship.