Smartphone declarations in effect by July
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Meat, alcohol and cigarettes will be easier and cheaper to bring into Switzerland for most tourists as of July. New duty-free allowances go into effect for Switzerland 1 July, the federal customs office announced Wednesday, noting that with the new option to declare larger quantities in advance via smart phone, the customs process should be speeded up.
Key changes include easier supermarket loads
Key changes for your average honest tourist or anyone bringing gifts: you can bring in duty-free CHF300 worth of goods per person per day without declaring them. “Sensitive” items remain subject to limits and separate tax scales. But the list of what’s sensitive is now shorter and you’ll be able to bring over the border: fruit and vegetables, cut flowers, milk products with the exception of butter and cream (1 kg limit) and eggs as long as you’re within the CHF300 limit.
Meat: more fresh, less smoked
The meat allowance goes up from CHF500 of fresh meat to 1kg a day per person, which means that a family of four can finally bring in a French gigot d’agneau, for example. But beware anyone who has been fiddling the system by calling their fresh meat smoked because the special exemption for up to 3.5 kg of smoked or cured meats now ends. Watch that meat weight: the tax if you’re over the limit is CHF17 per kilo.
Wine and spirits, separating sellers from drinkers
You’ll now be able to bring in 5 litres of wine and 1 litre of stronger alcohol as part of your CHF300 total duty-free allowance, compared to the previous allowance of 2 litres of wine and 1 of stronger alcohol, which means that a carton of six bottles of 75 cl of wine can come in free. However, the duty on quantities above the limits is higher and the several tariffs for different degrees of alcohol that were used in the past are gone. As of July:
- Up to 18% alcohol, you’re allowed 5 litres free and the tax above that is CHF2/litre
- Above 18%, you’re allowed 1 litre and the tax is CHF15/litre.
Until July you pay from CHF3.50 to CHF23 depending on the type of alcohol, if you’re over the limit. The new limits were set after considerable debate inside the government, with Swiss wine producers reportedly pushing for “sensitive” product limits. Not necessarily so, a customs official recently told GenevaLunch.com. The problem, he says, is not so much protecting the wine industry from enthusiastic individual drinkers, it’s catching commercial smugglers, many of whom run several small imports to try to get in under the radar as individuals importing wine, in order to sell foreign wine cheaply.
Cigarettes
Smokers can relax a bit, with the allowance system simplified. You can now bring in 250 cigarettes or 250 gr of tobacco items. Note that for tobacco and alcohol, you must be 18 years old to import them.
Details for now and the future
Current customs regulations and limits Customs regulations and limits as of 1 July 2014