UK → SWITZERLAND Removals to Switzerland from the UK

Switzerland is not in the EU. A lorry from London therefore reaches a real customs border on the way to Zurich, Basel, Bern or Geneva. The export declaration goes in on the UK side. The import is declared at a Swiss customs office that handles commercial goods, and on our route that office is at Basel, where the motorway from Germany enters the country. The export side is ours too. The UK declaration goes in before the ferry, so the file is complete when the lorry reaches Basel. Your goods travel the whole way under goods-in-transit cover of up to £20,275 per event.

Two things follow for your plan. First, Swiss customs decides at that office whether your furniture comes in free of duty and tax as removal goods, on the conditions below. We put the case to them rather than promise its outcome.

The relief rests on one declaration, Swiss customs form 18.44. It is for people transferring their domicile into Switzerland, and the conditions printed on it are short. The goods must have been in your personal use abroad for at least six months, and they stay in your use after the move.

They arrive within two years of the date you moved. You list them, and anything that does not meet the test goes at the foot of the list as dutiable. A non-EU arrival also shows the Swiss residence paper, and the office may ask for the lease, the work contract or the confirmation that you registered in your commune.

A British passport is a third-country passport in Switzerland now, and that sets the order of the move. Switzerland admits third-country workers only when they are highly qualified, as managers, specialists or skilled professionals. Your future employer must show that nobody suitable could be found in Switzerland, on pay and terms customary for the region and the trade. The Federal Council caps these permits with annual quotas, left unchanged for 2026. The permit comes before the work, and the employer starts the application with the canton.

So the permit date is the move date, and we would rather hold a collection window for it than collect early. The permit, or the assurance of it, doubles as the residence paper that form 18.44 asks a non-EU arrival to show. That is why the two timelines belong together.

Switzerland asks you to register with your new commune within fourteen days of arriving, and before you start work. The cantonal migration office issues the residence permit that follows. People moving on this lane often worry that the registration certificate in our pack cannot exist yet. The commune will not issue it until you have moved in. That is normal. The lease, the work contract and your residence paper carry the case until the certificate is in hand. We tell you which of them the office is likely to want for your situation.

So the sequence that works is to arrive first and register within the fortnight, then take delivery. A collection window can be set so the lorry reaches Basel after your appointment rather than before it. Where the gap is longer, we can hold the goods on the UK side through our removals and storage service, by arrangement, when space allows. The form allows for a hitch too. Where something blocks the import, a flat that falls through or a permit that arrives late, the relief survives. It can still be granted once the obstacle is gone, within three months of it clearing.

The Swiss form is specific about what counts as removal goods. Household provisions and tobacco in usual quantities count as removal goods. So does alcohol within limits: up to 200 litres at 25 per cent or less, and up to 12 litres above that.

A cellar beyond those figures pays duty in the ordinary way. None of it goes on our van, because we do not carry food, tobacco or alcohol: what you bring, you bring yourself. You may send a follow-on load, but you declare it at the first import and bring it within the same two years. The form also covers the second home. That covers furniture for a house or flat you buy or rent in Switzerland for your own use. Your domicile may stay abroad; the six-month test is the same. It must arrive around the time of the purchase or the lease.

The Swiss roads close to vehicles over 3.5 tonnes every night from ten until five, and all day on Sundays. So our vehicle does not drive the last leg overnight or on a Sunday, whatever the hurry. The same weight class pays Switzerland’s heavy vehicle charge by the kilometre driven; it is the carrier’s cost, inside your price.

The route we record from London to Zurich takes 10.4 hours at the wheel, which puts day 2 as the earliest any range here begins. Your own vehicle delivers within 2–4 days and the 15 m³ within 2–6 days. A shared 5 m³ load delivers within 2–9 days, the wider figure coming from the other moves it travels with. The collection window depends on the size. A 10 m³ part-load gives a 3-day window, because the lorry gathers other loads around it, and the 15 m³ a 2-day window. You are packed and ready from the first of those days.

We tell you the arrival time the day before loading. The thread below shows what an honest estimate on this lane looks like when the ferry, UK customs and Basel all sit between loading and your door.

Removals to Switzerland carry the lowest weight allowances we publish, and it is better to know that first. Fifteen cubic metres may weigh no more than 800 kg here, the 30 m³ no more than 1,600 kg, and there is no 20 m³ between them. Only our Norway lane shares these allowances; every EU lane carries more. We check those limits at loading. A flat with a lot of books reaches 800 kg before the van looks full. So send a rough list or photos before you book and we will tell you which size you are in. Outgrowing it later costs only the locked step to the bigger size.

We last read our quote tool on 13 October 2026. London to Zurich came out at £1,490 at 10 m³ and £3,103 for a 30 m³ vehicle of your own.

You fix the price at booking with a 25% deposit, settle the balance when the vehicle loads, and nothing changes at the border. Swiss VAT or duty can arrive separately if customs decides the relief does not apply, for instance where the move happened more than two years ago. That is the office’s charge, not ours. The additional-crew add-on sits outside the price for the same reason: the quoted figure is van-side, and our fixed price removals page lists the few charges that can ever be added.