Swiss Road Tax Disk
 

Can you tell me about the Swiss Road Tax Disk? I'm planning on staying in Meersburg, but want to visit Mainau and travel around the lake. Won't I be in Switzerland? What does it cost?

The vignette is needed to travel on main Swiss roads, and my experience is that it hard to tell which are the minor roads, so be careful! Generally you can buy the vignette at points just before the border crossings, and it attaches to the inside of your windscreen. It is only available on an annual basis and costs about 35€. Fines for driving on a main road without the vignette are much more than that!

The vignette is only for limited access highways. If you plan on driving only through a small area of Switzerland, you can avoid the vignette, but do not cross the border via superhighway, because then yoou must buy it. I suggest you look at a detailed map of where you want to go to see if there are secondary roads that you can take and if it is worth your while.

Are you renting a car? Make sure to ask your rental agency if they have a vignette.

Michael is correct. You only need it for the Autobahn. They sometimes do vignette inspections on an entrance or an exit of an autobahn so I'd recommend having it.

If you avoid the autobahns, you shouldn't have any problems driving without a vignette.

Hi gp,

I suggest that you get the disk.

In researching for our upcoming trip, I discovered that Austria and Switzerland have a neat trick of turning roads into limited access highways near the borders.

You can easily be on a byway approaching the border which becomes a highway at the border, and then goes back to being a byway.

((I))

I am still confused on where to get it. We are flying into Zurich in June and driving to Salzburg. I think we cross into Germany on the way. We then will drive from Salzburg to Venice.

(My husband LOVES to drive by the way.)

Anyways, do I need the vignette in Switzerland before we get to Austria and if so, where do I buy it?

Same thing with Austria, when we cross into Austria, can we buy one at the border?

We will be traveling highways for these trips. We were just planning on figuring it out when we got there but advance information would be helpful - we are not generally the types to "wing it." Too anal...

chicagolori, we're driving from Munich to Grindelwald in mid-May, and the route takes us thru Austria. We've decided to stay off the highways/Autoroutes and take the scenic way, stopping to take in some of the ambiance of the area. Someone gave us some great driving directions/route to take. Something you might want to consider. ((b))

The official Austrian tourism website has info on driving in Austria--including the toll stickers, International Driving Permit (License), security vests, etc. Note that the IDP does not replace your regular driving license--you're supposed to carry both.

http://cms1.austria.info/xxl/_site/u...770/index.html

Basically you do need an International Driving Permit to drive in Austria. The toll sticker can be purchased at gas stations, post offices, "sundries" stores around the border before entering Austria, and you're required to have a security vest in the car.

The website says the sticker is required for "motorways and highways." Not sure how these are defined or if they're just using both terms to mean Autobahn/freeway type roads.

Sorry, I messed up with the long website addy.

We did run into one of ira's surprise multi-lane highways driving from Munich to Hohenschwangau. We didn't get a sticker as we didn't intend to drive on any Autobahns in Austria.

Driving from Linderhof through northern Austria was fun until we got just north of Reutte heading back into Germany. All of a sudden we were on a multi-lane highway maybe a couple of miles from the border.

I had visions of a herd of Austrian police cars waiting and watching for unaware tourists driving this last little stretch without the toll sticker.

But we made it without a problem.

Author: gpreiss3
Date: 03/19/2006, 04:27 pm
Can you tell me about the Swiss Road Tax Disk? I'm planning on staying in Meersburg, but want to visit Mainau and travel around the lake. Won't I be in Switzerland? What does it cost?



You can easily cross the border from Germany into Switzerland, drive around the Bodensee without using any restricted access highway and save your money not buying a vignette. We did it last year. Just use a decent map. It's actually more scenic this way albeit slow or much slower in high season.

Two different things here:

Austria has its own vignette/autobahn-tax-sticker. You can buy it for shorter terms than the one for Switzerland which is only available for a year.

Before you rent your car, tell the rental company that you'll be driving in Austria and also in Switzerland, they may have a car with the stickers already on the windshield.

If they don't, insist on being reimbursed if you have to buy them. The stickers are not personal or transferable, they go and stay with the vehicle.

You buy them at tabacco and newspaper shops, in autobahn rest area shops, in southern Germany near the Swiss borders even post offices have them, etc. etc.

WK

>had visions of a herd of Austrian police cars
On the spot fines have been increased to min. 400€, max. 4000€. They take credit cards.

logos--do they offer the "convenient" option of dynamic currency conversion?

ping for future reference

>dynamic currency conversion?
I bet they do, they would do anything to make the customer happy ;-). It gets more expensive if you complain, so smile...