What about dual citizenship? Switzerland promotes dual citizenship and being both resident in the UK (national) and Switzerland (C permit), I need both UK and Swiss licenses!

But I haven't been able to figure out if this is possible!

If I apply for the Swiss driver's license they will confiscate the UK one and that will make it illegal for me to drive in the UK!

Does anybody know if there is an exemption possible if you have dual citizenship (UK-Swiss)?

Thanks,
HG

Is it illegal to drive in the UK without UK license?
In Switzerland you only need a Swiss license if you're a resident and only after a year. If it's the same in the UK you can just have the license in your country of residence and use it on the occasion you are in your other country of citizenship.

You can't be resident in 2 (or more) countries at once. I have dual nationality and a Swiss licence. It works in the UK (and the rest of the world as well)...

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm also resident in both countries at the same time. So I spend time both in the UK and in Switzerland and pay taxes in both countries. So all is legit, except the driving license issue, because both countries demand a national driver's license if you live there for more than a year.

As far as I have heard they don't confiscate your national license, but only make a stamp on it that it is not legal in Switzerland. This stamp can be easily removed by the way...

This is what I have heard too. They did confiscate the license like 10 years ago (as my friend got his original license taken away and couldn't drive when back home) but i know they changed it now. At least, they returned my old license with 'not applicable in swiss' when i got my new swiss license a week ago.

I presume that it depends on where you spend more of your time. Also, where do you have cars registered?

I thought that they did confiscate your license if it was an EU or Schengen area liscense. This seems to be what everyone has reported. My liscense wasn't confiscated but I am from the USA and they did stamp it on the back, "Non Valable en Suisse."

Without reading the 52 pages on this subject, I would like to reiterate the need to photocopy your national driving license before you hand it to the Swiss authority for exchange. The original national driving license is not confiscated, it will be sent back to your home country (For UK licenses, to the DVLA in Swansea)

Your new Swiss driving license is valid everywhere, you now live here. When you leave Switzerland and return to reside in your home country, you can ask for the original driving license to be returned to you, hence the advice to make a photocopy of the original.

Thanks for all the info!

I'll better apply for the Swiss license soon I guess.

Cheers,
HG

A long read but thanks for all the useful info

Hi All,

I've looked through some of the pages in this thread but can't find a definite answer to my situation.

Basically I've been here on and off since July 2010 - I registered as having left Switzerland last January, but came back and (re)registered in March of last year.

Can anyone hazard a guess as to whether I can still drive here legally on my UK licence? I've always been on 'L' permits, and some of the posts in this thread suggest that this makes a difference.

The thing is that I have a car back in UK and would really hate to have to give up my UK licence because I think it is going to hammer the insurance premium...

My guess, and guess it is, is that you will have to get a CH licence in March (within one year of re-registering in CH).

When you do, the motor registry (Strassenverkehrsamt) will "cancel" your UK licence by placing a cancellation sticker on it. This peels off very easily ... just sayin'. As far as I know, the Swiss authorities have no right or ability to cancel a foreign licence and I believe they do not notify their UK counterparts ... but this is subject to verification by someone who knows better, and also assumes that Zug acts the way other cantons do. (In my case, my UK driver's licence was returned to me with the sticker attached -- it wasn't sent back to DVLA in the UK.)

They'll take away your UK one, and send it back to the DVLC for cancelling - this is an EU-wide agreement; it's only people from the US, Canada, etc, who get to keep their licences with a little sticker, as the Swiss authorities have no reciprocal agreement with those countries.

The alternative, I suppose, would be to keep quiet about your UK licence and take a test for your Swiss licence rather than just exchanging it. Then you could keep it. Of course, you'd still be committing insurance fraud as you're not actually resident in the UK at the address you've presumably given the company.

It's all very tiresome, isn't it - it's ridiculous that there's no simple way to drive your own car in the country in which you originally took your test. (The issue won't be price so much as actually finding an insurer to cover you.)

Edit: Sorry 22 yards, just read your last sentence and realised you're not Australian, as I'd assumed from your avatar! No idea why you didn't get your UK licence taken away, I've never heard of anyone else keeping theirs before.

__________________
'Chance favours only the prepared mind.'

I missed this point in the OP ... good point. Don't even try to defraud an insurance company. It will end in tears and it won't be the billion-pound financial services firm who will be crying.

(Panto voice) Oh yes I am!!! I just had a UK licence, that's all.

So, maybe some dozy clerk in the BL registry got things wrong for me, then.

Thanks everybody who replied.

I have been honest with the UK insurance company. Explained that I still live in the UK/consider myself a UK resident and am just working abroad for the duration of fixed term contracts, so hopefully that is okay (fingers crossed )

What's caught my eye is a couple of posts in this thread like this one: [Drivers licence] Conversion and questions where the person says that nobody was interested in him/her changing their licence while they were on an 'L' permit.

I think my preferred solution is to get a fresh Swiss licence, but I might be up against a bit of a time limit (want to buy a car here soon-ish)...

If you have a UK licence, getting a Swiss licence is a breeze and doesn't take much time at all. All you need to do is to take an eye test at any optometrist and take the test result in to the Strassenverkehrsamt, hand your UK licence over, pay a fee (of course) and your shiny new Swiss licence will arrive in your mailbox shortly afterwards. It takes half an hour for the eye test and another half an hour to get the Strassenverkehrsamt process done.

Sorted.

The biggest issue is that in the UK you can not drive a private car with UK insurance with a swiss licence. Why because UK insurers will not insure non - EU licences.
To keep a UK licence you need to have test to acheive a Swiss licence by taking a Swiss test. The logic goes one test one licence. If you take a test in the UK and get a licence and swap for a Swiss one then you have only have one licence.

Quinn direct insure uk cars with a swiss licence and you are able to drive out of the uk for up to 90 days.

It was pretty straight forward as a US citizen with a B permit.
I went to the Gemeinde, filled up a form and got my eye test at a local shop.
Within two weeks I received my Swiss license, and within four weeks I received my US license back.
The Swiss even transfer my motorcycle license.