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Swiss road rules for visitors: speed limits, the motorway vignette, blood-alcohol limits and the Raser threshold that turns speeding into a crime.
This explainer covers what a visitor needs before driving in Switzerland: you drive on the right in a left-hand-drive car, speeds are in km/h, dipped headlights stay on day and night, and every motorway and expressway requires the CHF 40 annual vignette. It also computes the Via Sicura threshold — the excess above the posted limit at which speeding stops being a fine and becomes a crime carrying at least a year's imprisonment, a two-year licence withdrawal and confiscation of the vehicle.
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Enter any posted limit and see the exact speed at which Swiss law reclassifies the offence as a crime.
The annual price against the fine plus the vignette you still have to buy.
0.5 per mille for ordinary drivers, 0.1 per mille for learners, probationary and professional drivers.
50 km/h inside built-up areas, 80 km/h outside them, 100 km/h on expressways signed green and 120 km/h on motorways signed blue. Tempo-30 zones are widespread in residential quarters and Begegnungszonen drop to 20 km/h with pedestrian priority. Enforcement is dense and the penalties escalate steeply, so the defaults are worth knowing before you rely on signage.
CHF 40 for the year, valid from 1 December of the preceding year to 31 January of the following one, so a single sticker or e-vignette covers fourteen months of use. Driving on a motorway or expressway without one costs a CHF 200 fine plus the CHF 40 vignette you still have to buy — CHF 240 in total — and checks are routine at border crossings.
0.5 per mille, which is 0.05 g of alcohol per 100 ml of blood, for a driver on a full licence. It falls to 0.1 per mille — described in law as an alcohol ban rather than a limit — for learner drivers, anyone inside the three-year probationary period, the qualified person supervising a learner, and professional drivers. From 0.5 per mille the licence is withdrawn for at least three months.
Under article 90 paragraph 4 of the road traffic act, exceeding the limit by 40 km/h in a 30 zone, 50 km/h in a 50 zone, 60 km/h where the limit is 80, or 80 km/h where it is 120 makes it a Raserdelikt. That carries a minimum of one year's imprisonment, licence withdrawal for at least two years and confiscation of the vehicle — including a hire car, whose loss then becomes a civil claim against you.