Dear All,

I can't find the answer easily and hence I thought I could post it here.

I understood that after 12 months of residence in Switzerland, one can not use a foreign license to drive here in Switzerland. One has to swap a license or do a practical exam to get a Swiss driving license.

I am curious if you can’t use your driving license of your home country while visiting other EU countries as well (e.g. during vacation).

As a concrete example, I am from non-EU country X. I can come to EU countries as a tourist (e.g. Schengen visa), and using my driving license from my home country X, I can rent and drive legally without any problems.

Does this change if I am living in Switzerland for more than 12 months? i.e. I am not allowed to drive in Switzerland. But also, I can't simply go to Spain/Italy as a tourist and can't use my home country license to rent & drive?

Not trying to find workarounds! Just trying to understand what is legal and what isn't!

If your home country licence is valid there then it’s perfectly legal to fly or take the train to another country and rent a car to use there.
As a Swiss resident you can no longer legally drive in Switzerland with that licence but that doesn’t prevent you from using it as a tourist in other countries.

Also it is important to note - if you become a Swiss resident and transfer your foreign driver's license, they don't require you to give up your foreign driver's license (at least, they didn't for me).

They put a little sticker on the back of my US license that said "Not Valid in Switzerland" and now I have two driver's licenses - or at least did until the US one expired.

I cannot tell you if it's different for the country from which you come, or if it's standard policy in Switzerland, however.

It’s the case for non-EU licences, EU licences are retained and sent back to the country of issue.

They took mine non-EU, in 1985!

I’ve never had a problem* using my Swiss license anywhere else, including my home country.

*some struggle to find the expiry date. I just tell them it expires the day before my 80th birthday and they write that down.

I just tell folks that we don't age in Switzerland, no need for driver's licenses to expire.

Legally you have to check each countries legislation if a driving license which is not valid in your country of residence is o.k.

Normally no one cares, but if things really go south and the worst of the worst happens, this can become an issue.

Example Germany has this clause in § 29 FeV:

Question: If you are not allowed to drive in Switzerland, constitutes this as as a driving ban as mentioned in the German regulations?

Answer: I do not know the answer, as this is a fine technicality depending on too many definitions. Maybe yes, maybe no.

If you are on a CDL you do not need to exchange it for a Swiss one.

https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1...3_2423_2423/fr

And you need a consistent story - you can't claim to a tourist for the license and use your Swiss residence permit to justify your continued presence in the Schengen Area and so on.