1,935 kilometers of border in a museum

Room 1

Panel 1

The first customs map of Switzerland was created in 1825. Until 1849, there was a labyrinth of border and inland duties, as well as bridge and road tolls. The posts at which duties were due hampered trade and transport.

Switzerland forms a common customs territory with the Principality of Liechtenstein; both are also members of the Schengen Area. Checks have since shifted from fixed locations at the border to mobile operations in the border area. This does not mean that transporting goods illegally has become easier: smugglers today never know in advance when they might be stopped and checked.

This 1850s office was full of the clatter of typewriters. The customs officer uses his nimble fingers to type away on his Remington typewriter. In those days, these men dressed in blue with peaked caps were still called the “Guardia di finanza”.

Today, the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security (FOCBS) has around 4,700 employees. As part of the digital transformation, the previously separate professions of “customs expert” and “border guard” were merged into a single role: “customs and border security specialist”. This means that comprehensive checks on goods, people and means of transport can be carried out by a single entity – with the help of various apps.

The choice of trade route was influenced by the levels of custom duties and fees. During the last third of the 17th century, the movement of goods over the Gotthard Pass declined because the taxes charged between Basel and Bellinzona were too high for the long-distance merchants, thus meaning they switched to the Graubünden mountain pass routes instead.

Panel 2

Today, import duties account for less than 10% of the approximately CHF 23 billion that Swiss Customs collects each year. Parliament's decision to dispense with industrial tariffs in the future will reduce this share even further. Nevertheless, the collection of taxes and duties at the border and in Switzerland is becoming increasingly important: value added tax, heavy vehicle charges, motorway tax stickers, beer tax, spirits tax, tobacco duty, etc. Thanks to the DaziT transformation programme, these taxes and duties are collected digitally and in a uniform manner. The processes have thus become much simpler for customers.

In 1823, there were over 400 cantonal customs duties in Switzerland. In addition, communes, corporations and private individuals shared various rights to customs duties. The Federal Constitution of 1848 gave the Confederation the right to abolish intercantonal trade restrictions.

Swiss Customs is not only responsible for implementing the Customs Act. It checks compliance with hundreds of regulations at the border, such as foodstuffs, animal, plant and species protection, traffic carrying hazardous goods, radioactive and toxic substances, trademark protection and much more.