In international postal traffic, “every goods shipment from abroad must be registered and customs duties and VAT must be paid”, and this also applies to luggage containing personal effects. If the contents are classified as personal effects by the custom authorities, no duties are usually applied. However, local customs authorities are entitled to decide which tariff to apply to the items in question. In the case of personal effects, the customs authorities may need to obtain additional information from the recipient to carry out an assessment and enable the items to be cleared through customs. This is a routine process but may require additional time and therefore delay delivery of the consignment. It is not possible for the postal organization to speed up or otherwise influence this process, as the consignment is not within their scope during this stage of handling.

We recommend that you complete, sign and enclose this declaration in addition to the waybill described below.

A waybill containing all sender and recipient information and a content declaration must be enclosed with every international consignment. If the documents are created at the counter, a charge of CHF 5 will apply.

How to declare content:

Line 1: “personal effects for ordinary personal use”

Lines 2–5: roughly group together similar items

e.g. “7 items of cotton clothing”, “2 artificial leather shoes”

Print and sign the completed documents and affix them to the luggage. Fold the documents once to A5 size and affix them to the case in such a way that individual pages can be removed and reaffixed. You can obtain a transparent, self-adhesive document pouch from your Swiss Post branch, and this must be affixed directly to the luggage. We recommend also using adhesive tape to firmly secure the pouch and avoid loss of any documents. Alternatively, you can use your own tags or similar (e.g. to avoid leaving traces of adhesive on your luggage).