Van life in Switzerland: rules, registration and stays

Switzerland is not an EU member state, and that changes two things a van traveller coming from the EU needs to plan for separately. First, any motor vehicle or trailer up to 3.5 tonnes gross weight needs a motorway vignette — a CHF 40 annual sticker or e-vignette, sold only as a single-year product with no day or month option — to use Swiss motorways and expressways, identified by green road signs; ordinary cantonal roads are free. A motorhome or campervan over 3.5 tonnes is exempt from the vignette but instead owes the distance-based heavy-vehicle charge (PSVA/LSVA); a towed trailer or caravan needs its own separate vignette regardless of the towing vehicle's weight. Second, because Switzerland sits outside the EU customs union, bringing in a vehicle — even temporarily — is a customs matter, not a formality: the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security (BAZG) is the authority to check with before a long stay, rather than assuming EU free-movement rules carry over.

There is no federal low-emission zone in Switzerland, and no national wild-camping rule either — overnight parking with a van is governed canton by canton and commune by commune, with real variation in what is tolerated. In some places, a single night in a public car park without 'camping behaviour' (no awning, chairs or table set up outside the vehicle) is informally accepted; in others, sleeping in a parked vehicle is itself treated as wild camping and prohibited. Overnight stays are banned everywhere, regardless of canton, inside national parks, cantonal nature reserves, federal hunting-ban areas and wildlife rest zones. Because the rule genuinely changes at the cantonal or even communal line, checking with the specific commune or its police before relying on a roadside stop for the night is the only dependable approach — the cantonal breakdown available from Swiss touring-club sources is a starting point, not a substitute for that local check.