Tax calculator

Car tax calculator for Switzerland

Putting a car on the road in Switzerland costs more than the price you agree with the seller, and the difference depends on the car rather than on what you paid for it. This page works out what the taxes come to, so you know the real total before you commit. Bringing a car in from abroad changes the sums, and that case is covered too.

Work out the tax

Enter what the registration document says and you get the tax due here: the one-off charge when the car is first registered, and the annual one where the country levies it. The calculation uses the rates currently in force. Your answers stay in the page's address, so a result is easy to share or come back to.

Estimate the Swiss automobile tax and import VAT on an import, and the annual cantonal vehicle tax.

The canton you live in: it sets the annual tax.

Field 36 of the vehicle registration document.

The invoice price, VAT excluded. Convert a foreign price at the customs selling rate.

Freight and other costs up to the first Swiss destination.

Field 37 of the vehicle registration document.

Field 33 of the vehicle registration document.

The efficiency category, A to G, on the energy label.

What this calculator covers

Two very different bills sit on a car. One falls due once, when the car is first registered in Switzerland — new or imported, it makes no difference to whether it is owed. The other, where the country charges one at all, comes round every year for as long as the car stays on the road.

The calculator gives you both, using the rates in force now. It is an estimate to plan around, not an assessment: the tax office works from the paperwork, and a figure it has not seen is not binding on it.

What you need before you start

Everything comes off the car's own documents, and getting one field wrong moves the answer more than people expect.

  • The date it was first registered — anywhere in the world, not the date it arrived in the country. This is the single most important input on an import.
  • CO₂ emissions, and which cycle measured them — WLTP and NEDC give different numbers for the same car, and the scales that read them are different too.
  • Fuel or energy source — electric, hybrid and gas cars are treated separately, and often far more kindly.
  • Engine capacity or mass — which of the two matters depends on the country.

Why an import rarely costs what you expect

A used car brought in from abroad pays the registration tax on arrival, even though it has been on the road for years somewhere else. What usually softens that is age: most countries reduce the bill as the car gets older, and the reduction can be large enough to decide whether an import is worth doing at all.

How that reduction is worked out differs sharply from country to country, and so does what counts as the car's age. Run the numbers before you commit to a car abroad, not after it has been shipped.

Common questions

Is this what I will actually be charged? Treat it as a close estimate. It applies the published rates to the figures you enter, so it is only as right as those figures — and exemptions that depend on your circumstances rather than the car are not applied automatically.

Does it cover electric cars? Yes, and they are usually the cheapest case by a wide margin. The relief is not identical everywhere, though, so the number is worth checking rather than assuming.

Where do the rates come from? From the tax codes themselves, and they are updated when those change — usually each January. The vehicle tax guide sets out the rules behind them, with the official sources.