Swiss vignettes no longer required? Forums

pamal

Pam and I have just come back from a couple of weeks in our m/h in central Europe. Our journeys took us into and out of Switzerland four times. 1. from Austria. 2. from Italy near Lugano. 3. again from Lugano but not the same one as 2. 4. from Leichenstein. We were never asked about a vignette and the usual officials who sell them simply were not there. Passports were looked at once. Does this mean that the vignette is no longer in use.
Incidentally we came quite a long way through Austria without any special charge being asked for. We did not use the motorways however.
Pamalan

bognormike · Moderator

Hi Pamalan,
two questions

1) is your van over 3500kg
and 2 ) did you use the autoroutes?

If you are under 3500kg, you need a vignette for autoroutes, but not normal roads. Over that you need to fill in a form at customs & pay the rate for the period in the country, and this is for ordinary roads as well as autoroutes.
I wasn't aware of any changes. Perhaps you didn't go on the autoroutes, or were very lucky Cool

pamal

Our van is under 3,500kg and we did use the autoroutes (main ones) quite frequently. We have been in Switzerland in previous years and were then made very aware of the need to pay up but this time there seemed to be far fewer border guards and with the weight of traffic a couple of the times there was nowhere to park and nobody seemed to be bothering.
It would be interesting to know if we were simply lucky but I doubt it.
Pamal

bognormike · Moderator

looks like you were luck! Not like the efficient Swiss Cool

ianhibs

Or I just payed 40 swiss francs for nothing last week. I stopped at the border and asked about under 3500 kg. They extracted the money from me in the shake of a duck's tail.

Ian

Vennwood

Just got back from Kandersteg and on entering Switzerland we didn't get the option to "pay or not to pay" we were immediately filtered off and told to obtain a "permit" from the office. This was Basel and granted we are rather large at 8 mtrs
That said we did find out that the Swiss have a very orderly table for this sort of thing and in true Swiss fashion the table was very clear on MH's over 3500KG The daily rate was SF 3.75 par day or SF 58.50 per month or SF 650 per year. They also have a 10 day rate of SF32.50 I was given to understand that below 3500KG the rate would be the same as a car or caravan but this was not verified

MrRob

We (7 meters/4.2 ton) crossed in and out of Switzerland 4 times in March .... Tried to pay but were waved on by the Police ...... apparently when the office is closed there is no way to pay ...... traveling through the night might have some advantages but you do miss the view.

and the Austrians let us off as being less than 3.5 ton too ..... and we had a trailer Wink

...

Grizzly

rickwiggans · Last edited by rickwiggans on Thu Aug 02, 2007 8:54 am; edited 1 time in total

As G says, as you approach the Austrian borders there are signs telling you to stop at the next office, or garage or whatever, and buy a sticker. Incidentally, having lived and worked in Switzerland, I can confirm the vignette is alive and well. It is your responsibility to get one, and if they aren't on sale as you cross, you are supposed to go to the post office.

Rick

Or course one of the problems is that the various systems are different - be easier to know what to do if there was some consistency. Some chance!!

MrRob