Case studies

Merchandise and the Swiss border

Mathias Kom, The Burning Hell
- August 2023 -

My band is from Canada, and though we’ve toured in the EU roughly once or more per year since 2008, we don’t always make it across the border into Switzerland as well. I must admit that part of the reason for this is the challenge that Swiss customs bureaucracy presents, and the notorious reputation that Swiss border guards have for thorough, time-consuming van searches. In theory, it should be straightforward, but in practice, depending on where you’re crossing and which agent you get, it can be a bewildering and frustrating experience.

Many years ago, we were headed to Schaffhausen and crossed at a very quiet rural border station. We expected to get stopped and questioned about our merchandise, but instead they hauled us all out of the van and into the customs building, where a drug-sniffing dog gave us a thorough examination, and then did the same to the entire contents of the van. The dog was old and very cute, but we resisted the urge to pet him, since his human handler was the only one growling at us. We’ve never crossed any border with illegal drugs, but it made us nervous anyway. Once the dog had sniffed of our boxes of T-shirts and records, I was sure that the next step would be filling out the import paperwork for our merchandise. Somehow, this didn’t happen, and they sent us on our way. We were so frazzled by the experience that we didn’t say anything and just drove on to our gig.

This brings me to my first piece of advice: if you approach the Swiss border and the guard waves your van through, you should stop anyway and explain that you have merchandise to declare. The reason for this is that it’s equally possible you’ll get stopped on the way out of Switzerland, and if you get asked about merchandise there, you won’t have any documentation to show from your entry to the country. I really don’t know what might happen in this situation, but I’m sure there’d be some sort of fine involved for not declaring your imports. Based on the price of everything else in Switzerland, you probably wouldn’t want to have to pay this. So, whatever you do, make sure you stop on the way in. If you’re like me and you get frantic about time, but also always seem to be late to everything, you should budget an extra couple of hours for your crossing just in case.

Here's how it’s supposed to work: you have a neatly printed, itemized list of all your merchandise (not just records and CDs, but T-shirts and anything else you plan to sell in Switzerland), including the number of units of each item, the value, and the place of manufacture. Better yet, you’ve filled out this form online in advance. In reality, you’ve probably just played a gig the night before your crossing in Freiburg or Stuttgart or Munich, everyone is exhausted, you’re already late, nobody has a printer, and maybe your German or French isn’t good enough to figure out the online form.

So, here’s how it really works – for us, and for every other band I’ve ever talked to about it. You count your merch (yes, every single unit) the morning of your crossing. Write it all down on a piece of paper, including the price of each item. Note that the price should be how much you sell things for, not the per-unit cost to you to manufacture. If you’re very clever and well-organized, you can print out a list of everything you’ll be carrying in advance, with space to fill in how many units you’ll actually be bringing into Switzerland when the time comes to cross the border – this would obviously look a bit more professional, and I think about that every time I write out a list by hand on a piece of paper taken from our drummer’s journal.

When you stop at the border, open the back of the van and show the customs agent the boxes, along with your list. They may decide to count everything to double-check your numbers, so it’s smart to reorganize the van before you cross the border to have all the merchandise easily accessible. If you have paperwork from your record label or receipts from your t-shirt manufacturer, these are great to have on hand in case they ask for further official documentation, but this has never happened to us. Don’t worry about your equipment – there are no import formalities for instruments or other gear you’ll be using to play gigs in Switzerland. All you need to think about is the merch, and do be sure to count it carefully in advance: this will save you so much time and frustration at the border. It might also help to dress as neatly as you can, avoid smelling like stale beer from the night before, and apologize for not having the list printed out on the official form. In our experience, this always works out, and the guards will direct you into an office nearby.

At smaller crossings, this might be just a little shed; at bigger ones, it can be quite a large building, but typically it’s obvious where to go, and if you get confused someone will point out the right window or desk. Show your passport and your hand-written list to the agent on duty, explain your situation again, and get your credit card ready: you’ll need to pay tax in advance on every commercial item you want to import. Let’s say you have 100 T-shirts that you usually sell for 20€ each, but you only expect to sell ten of them to Swiss fans: you still pay tax on 100. Depending on how much merch you’re travelling with, this could add up to a lot, so make sure your credit card can handle it. After they take your money, they’ll give you a receipt and a stamped form. Use whatever method works best for you to avoid losing these documents: when you exit Swizterland, you’ll need to give these to the customs agent along with the same hand-written note with updated numbers showing how much merchandise you sold in the country, and they’ll process a refund for the rest of the tax directly to your credit card.

It's theoretically helpful, but not necessary, to use the same border crossing to enter and exit the country. On our last tour (May 2023), the agent who processed our fees at the Basel crossing asked us if we’d be coming back the same way; we told him we would, and the date, and he said “oh, I’ll be on duty then, just come see me when you leave.” In practice, it wasn’t so easy: it was an early morning leaving Switzerland and I missed the little parking lot I was supposed to use at customs. I parked at the McDonald’s just a few metres across the border and walked back to the big customs building. Once inside, I found a huge group of truckers waiting around, and a very exasperated-looking agent (not our friend from the way in) took one look at me and told me I was in the wrong place. I should take “the tunnel,” she said, gesturing into the bowels of the building. I bravely, blindly set off, and a Romanian trucker headed the same way took pity on me and showed me where to go: down several flights of stairs into a deep sub-basement, and then through a dimly-lit, narrow concrete tunnel that ran under the entire motorway to the other side. The fluorescent tubes were flickering creepily, and if it hadn’t been for my cheerful new trucker friend, it would have been a scary experience. But we made it through without any horror movie consequences, and found ourselves in a maze of tiny offices and dark stairwells. Each office seemed to be connected to a different transportation company (I recognized the names from the sides of passing trucks on various European tours over the years), and each had a clerk inside. My friend started asking me questions in Romanian, and though it’s not a language I speak a single word of, I gathered that he was asking which firm I worked for so he could show me the correct office. Eventually I think I managed to communicate in a strange gumbo of French, Spanish, and Italian that I was in a band, and the look he gave me when he understood was a beautiful combination of bewilderment and pity. He shrugged, I shrugged back, and I set off into the warren of corridors and stairwells. Eventually I found my way to the lobby, and there was our original customs agent, sitting behind his usual desk. We chatted about the tour, he took my documents back, stamped them, and filed the official ones away in a drawer somewhere. I went to the cashier and presented my credit card again: they first charged me tax on the goods that we had sold, then in a second transaction they refunded the full amount I had paid on the way in. As I was leaving, the agent said, “don’t forget your document!” and gave me back the extremely unofficial piece of paper we had written everything down on. It’s a nice souvenir to have, and a reminder that this process – while governed by a complicated series of laws and formalities – can also be somewhat flexible, and very different for everyone.

So, I want to stress again that the way we’ve done things over the years is not the perfect, official way, and if you have a tour manager and a portable printer and the means to do everything correctly with the online forms, that’s excellent. But if you’re in a DIY band or you’re some other kind of independent artist, it’s important to know that as long as you try your best to do it correctly and are as honest as possible at the border, the worst that will happen is you’ll have to spend some time waiting in a queue or wandering through a dark tunnel and trying to learn Romanian.

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Touring with a Carnet ATA

by Sebastian Eppner
– August 2022 –

Our first problem was that we understood much too late that Brexit made everything quite complicated for us as a band. Since the booking agency wanted to take care of the work permit, we thought all our problems were solved. In fact, this part also worked out without any major issues (which is why I have little to contribute to the application for entry and work permits in this report). However, we only realised much too late that there was a real obstacle due to the new customs border: It is no longer easy to enter England with a car (or bus) full of equipment. The solution to this problem - as we learned - is called "ATA Carnet". As a "beginner", applying for and getting this document took us about 2-3 full working days.

For inspiration, we got a list from an artist friend of ours who once needed it for a US tour. We had the impression that the more detailed and consistent the list, the fewer questions, and potential problems at the borders. Making the list is the most complicated and time-consuming part of the new Brexit touring ‘sport.’ Each piece of equipment taken must be noted on the list with its serial number (if there is no serial number, it is good to make up your own and stick it on the piece of equipment), its current value (i.e., the value at that time, eBay Classifieds helps with the estimate), approximate weight and country of origin. Where serial numbers are missing, printed photos are useful, which can be attached to the Carnet and certified. When preparing the Carnet, we wondered what should be included (e.g., also power cables and the cables for our instruments?). I don't have a definitive answer. For example, we put all the cables in a photo and then in a bag and put them on the list as one item with an estimated value and weight.

When you have the list for the whole band, you must print it on the official document (the actual ATA CARNET paper document, a few green sheets). You can get this document for a few euros at your local Chamber of Industry and Commerce (Industrie- und Handelskammer, IHK) – in Berlin, at the IHK Berlin at Fasanenstraße. If you have enough time, you can have it sent to you. But we were in a VERY big hurry and went there ourselves (you can get it during their office hours).

The IHK's online filling-in help is extremely error-prone and regularly shatters the layout of the document (this is a well-known, but irritatingly unsolved problem). Every misprint means that you must buy another official document, which means not only money but also time wasted! Therefore, experienced border crossers print the document with their own template. As soon as we had the official document, we "copied" it in Excel and then tried it out with many test printouts until the list seemed to fit well on it. Only then did we put the sacred green sheets in the printer and printed on them. I was in a hurry at the time and aged about three years. So, allow plenty of time.

Update (August 2023): The problem has now been solved by the IHK Berlin. In future, the application can be submitted online, i.e. you no longer need to print your own forms.
Information by the IHK

The printed document must be returned to the IHK (go to the counter in person or send it in by mail). It will now be examined and stamped. In our case, it cost 120 euros for a total value of about 7,000 euros. From a total value of 15,000 euros (at least in 2021 according to my recollection, you should confirm this again by phone), the Carnet becomes much more expensive and complicated (you then need a guarantee). If you are in a hurry, you can get the stamps on the same day, which only costs a small surcharge (I think it would be around 20 euros). If you have enough time in advance, you can also do it by post.

You don't need an appointment for this, so I was there quite early to avoid queuing. You get another stamp from the Berlin customs office to certify that the list is in order and corresponds to the equipment you have with you (in our case, they didn't even look at the equipment).

Now you must show the Carnet and have it stamped a total of 4 times during the tour at the borders (when leaving the EU, when entering the UK, when leaving the UK and when entering the EU). Getting ALL FOUR stamps is important, as the Carnet must be returned to the Chamber of Industry and Commerce at the end of its validity. They check that all the stamps are there.

This is especially a problem when leaving the country, because normally (if you're not a truck driver) customs don't play a role when you leave the country, and there are special places that we weren't familiar with. Maybe these experiences (port of Calais and port of Dover) will help:

Port of Calais, EU exit: Behind the immigration UK control and before driving onto the ferry, there is a small roundabout. Next to it, there is a kind of corrugated iron hut. To find it, look for the easily overlooked sign "ATA" or "ATA CARNET" at the roundabout. In this hut, we encountered two Louis de Funès-lookalike gendarmes, who were very interested in German Krautrock, liked to stamp everything, and joked about German customs officials. Entering the EU: You can follow the yellow lines on the asphalt to customs, where there is a kind of mobile home with offices where strict customs officials look at the Carnet again. It takes around 30 minutes.

Port of Dover, UK entry: When you get off the ferry, look for a customs officer and wave your ATA Carnet. They will know where to send you (not on the motorway, but in the direction of Dover town centre, then up to the BP petrol station and then left over the bridge to "MOTIS", which is the actual customs office). Don't be surprised if you can't reach the button that opens the barrier to the car park (it's built so high that only truckers can reach it from their windows). Just get out and climb up the pillar. We talked to customs; These acrobatics are officially expected from smaller bands. After parking, go to the Customs office with all your papers, they will help you there. It takes a good 30 to 60 minutes depending on how busy it is. Leaving the UK was the same as entering, same place, same procedure.

Generally, only random checks are made, and even that is apparently quite rare. I suspect that a detailed and consistent Carnet makes the process easier. I know from acquaintances that when spot checks are done, the more valuable items on the list tend to be checked more.

Note on using the Carnet several times: The document is a kind of master document that is valid for a full year. You can go to the Chamber of Industry and Commerce within that year and just get some new annex sheets (very cheap, only a few euros) and start on a new tour. However, you cannot add any new items to the list during the year! But you can reduce it for a trip. It is therefore recommended to write a bit more on the list than you will take with you on the first trip, and then tick off what you will NOT take with you when you set off. Example: If you sometimes travel with and sometimes without a drummer, you should put the items belonging to the drum set on the list one after the other (e.g., items 40 to 47). Then, when you set off without a drum set, you can simply enter that items 40 to 47 are not part of this journey. The principle has its limit in that the price of the Carnet depends on the total value of the list.

The same applies to the countries to which you want to travel. It does not hurt to write more countries on the Carnet when issuing it, because the Carnet can then also be used in these other countries in that year (as far as I remember, at no extra charge).

Another hint: The document is always written in a name, in our case the name of the band leader. This person must then always be present when stamping. If you want to simplify this, e.g., because there is a tour manager, you can enter representatives when you apply, who can also present themselves to customs on their own.

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