Exporting to Switzerland. An hour's drive away, and it behaves like another continent.

Switzerland borders Italy, also speaks Italian and happily buys Italian products. And it remains, from a customs point of view, a third country like Brazil.

This guide applies to food in general. For two products the path changes before the country does: wine travels with excise and its accompanying document, and olive oil has marketing and labelling standards all of its own. Whoever exports one of the two to Switzerland reads this guide and the product one.

This piece is part of the guide to export operations for the small food producer and opens the series on individual markets. If you first need to understand who pays transport and duties, the answer is in Incoterms: who pays what.

The template, to download

One file, two sheets. The first is the checklist of the steps a shipment to Switzerland goes through, with the source next to each row. The second takes net weight, pack and cartons and calculates the gross weight on which Swiss customs applies duty, then import VAT at 2.6%, and tells you how much all this weighs on a single unit.

File	What it contains	Link
SwitzerlandExcel, two sheets	Fourteen checklist rows with the source, and the calculation of duty on gross weight and VAT at 2.6% per unit.	svizzera-checklist-dazio-peso-lordo.xlsx

The files are free. There is no form in front of them, we don't ask for an address and we receive no notification when someone downloads them. The rate for your tariff heading isn't in the sheet, on purpose: it changes by product category and is read in the Swiss electronic customs tariff with your product's code.

The real surprise: it is a third country

Proximity is deceptive. Many first-time exporters treat a shipment to Lugano like a shipment to Milan, and discover the difference when the lorry stops. You need the export customs declaration on the Italian side, the import one on the Swiss side, and the full set of documents.

The practical consequences are three: someone must appear as importer in Switzerland, lead times lengthen by one step, and cost items multiply. None of these is serious, all three surprise whoever hasn't budgeted for them.

The health certificate, usually, isn't needed

Here Switzerland is simpler than you might expect. The Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office writes, for imports from the European Union: «Grundsätzlich können Lebensmittel ohne Zeugnis in die Schweiz importiert werden», meaning that in principle food can be imported without a certificate.

There are exceptions and they should be checked for the product: food of animal origin from third countries is subject to special requirements, and for wild mushrooms from Eastern Europe a certificate is mandatory. The general rule, for a processed plant product of European origin, remains that.

The flip side of the simplicity is in another line of the same source: importers ensure, as part of their own self-monitoring, that the goods comply with legal requirements. The check doesn't disappear, it shifts to your buyer, who will consequently ask you for documents and sheets.

Duty is paid on gross weight

It is the point where the sums change compared with any other market. The Federal Office for Customs and Border Security calculates duties on gross weight, with rates expressed in francs per 100 kg. Gross weight includes, verbatim, «the actual weight (net mass) of the goods and that of the packaging, filling and supports on which the goods are presented».

Actual transport materials are left out: containers, reusable pallets, fastening structures. Inside, on the other hand, are the jar, the cap, the label, the carton. For a food product in glass this is an item that really weighs, and it should be calculated before quoting, not after.

A product in glass and one in a pouch, with the same content, pay different duties at the Swiss border. The pack is a commercial decision that becomes a customs item.

Item	How it works in Switzerland	What changes compared with an EU market
Customsdeclaration	You need the export declaration on the Italian side and the import one on the Swiss side, with the full set of documents.	Within the Union neither step exists. It is the difference that surprises most, because the distance is the same.
Dutybasis of calculation	In francs per 100 kg of gross weight, packaging, filling and supports included.	No duty between Member States. And where duty exists, it is normally calculated on value: here on weight, so the pack enters the sums.
Taxon import	Reduced rate of 2.6% for foodstuffs and additives, against the standard 8.1%. Alcoholic beverages excluded.	In intra-Community supplies the tax isn't paid at the border. Here whoever imports pays it, and who imports depends on the Incoterm.
Labellanguage	At least one official language of the Confederation. Italian is one of them.	In another Member State you need the language of that market. Here the Italian text holds up, if the content complies with Swiss rules.
Certificatehealth	In principle not required for food from the European Union, with exceptions for animal origin and wild mushrooms.	As within the Union, but responsibility shifts to the importer's self-monitoring, who therefore asks you for documents.

The import tax

On top of the duty comes the Swiss value added tax on import. Since 1 January 2024 the standard rate is 8.1%, the reduced rate 2.6%, the special rate for accommodation 3.8%. Foodstuffs and additives fall under the reduced rate of 2.6%, with the exception of alcoholic beverages.

The 2.6% is good news for those selling food, because the cost of entry stays contained compared with other markets. Who pays it, and how it is recovered, depends on who appears as importer, and so on the Incoterm you wrote in the offer.

The label can stay in Italian

The Swiss Ordinance on Foodstuffs and Utility Articles, in Article 36, requires the particulars to be given «in at least one official language of the Confederation; exceptionally they may be written in another language only if consumers in Switzerland are thereby informed about the foodstuff sufficiently and unambiguously».

Italian is an official language of the Confederation, so an Italian label meets the language requirement. It is a concrete advantage over markets where a translation is needed, and it is worth telling the buyer because it lowers the entry cost of your product.

The language requirement isn't the only one, though. The content of the label must comply with Swiss rules, which on nutritional values, names and some particulars don't coincide with European ones. The check should be done before printing the batch, as for every other market.

Proof of origin, which pays here

Switzerland is among the countries linked to the European Union by preferential customs agreements. It means that with the right proof of origin your buyer pays a reduced duty or none, and that this proof is a real sales argument: it lowers their landed price without touching yours.

Below €6,000 the declaration is made on the invoice, above it you need the EUR.1 endorsed by customs or a registered status. The difference between the two documents, and how to choose, is in EUR.1 or certificate of origin.

When three countries' rules don't fit in one person's head

With Switzerland alone, the list is learnt in a week and stays. With Switzerland, the United Kingdom and a third market, each with its own thresholds, deadlines and documents, the list stops fitting in anyone's head, and the first thing to get lost is always a date.

That is when deadlines should be taken out of memory and put in a place that watches them on its own, with operational deadline alerts. With a constraint that matters more than the technology, written in Ethics: the system prepares and flags, but no document goes out without a person having read and approved it.

Questions and answers