Customs Tariff Act
(CTA)

¹ All goods brought in­to or taken out of Swiss cus­toms ter­rit­ory must be as­sessed in ac­cord­ance with the Gen­er­al Tar­iff in An­nexes 1 and 2.⁴

² The fore­go­ing is sub­ject to ex­cep­tions laid down by in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies, spe­cial pro­vi­sions of acts or by or­ders of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil made un­der this Act.

¹ Goods shall be as­sessed on their gross weight if no oth­er as­sess­ment unit is provided.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall is­sue pro­vi­sions in­ten­ded to en­sure that goods are as­sessed on their gross weight, in or­der to pre­vent any at­tempt to evade duty and any un­fair ef­fects that this meth­od of as­sess­ment may en­tail.

³ Where the duty as­sess­ment basis is 100 kg, the weight for clear­ance pur­poses shall be roun­ded up to the next 100 g.

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may in­crease in­di­vidu­al Gen­er­al Tar­iff rates of duty uni­lat­er­ally if this is con­sidered es­sen­tial in or­der to achieve the ob­ject­ives of such an in­crease.

¹ When the in­terests of the Swiss eco­nomy so re­quire, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may tem­por­ar­ily ap­ply cus­toms duty agree­ments and the tar­iff rates res­ult­ing there­from. It may also ap­ply tar­iff rates res­ult­ing from agree­ments tem­por­ar­ily, in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 2 of the Fed­er­al Act of 25 June 1982⁶ on For­eign Trade Meas­ures.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may pro­por­tion­ately re­duce any rates that prove to be too high in com­par­is­on with re­duced rates laid down in tar­iff treat­ies.

³ When the in­terests of the Swiss eco­nomy so re­quire, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may, ir­re­spect­ive of any tar­iff treaty and hav­ing con­sul­ted the Eco­nom­ic Policy Com­mis­sion:⁷

a.

re­duce du­ties ap­pro­pri­ately;

b.

or­der the tem­por­ary total or par­tial sus­pen­sion of the du­ties ap­plic­able to cer­tain goods;

c.⁸

set tar­iff quotas.⁹

¹ No duty is paid on the ex­port of goods that are not lis­ted in the ex­port tar­iff.

² In the event that, as a res­ult of ex­cep­tion­al con­di­tions abroad, the rates of duty in the ex­port tar­iff prove to be in­suf­fi­cient to pre­vent the flow of the goods lis­ted therein abroad, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may in­crease the rates of duty for as long as cir­cum­stances re­quire and fix rates of duty for goods that are clas­si­fied in the cus­toms tar­iff as be­ing ex­empt from duty.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil must re­duce or ab­ol­ish the rates of duty in the ex­port tar­iff if they are no longer ne­ces­sary for the guar­an­tee of the na­tion­al sup­ply.

⁴ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may make the duty-free ex­port of goods lis­ted in the ex­port tar­iff sub­ject to con­di­tions or charges.

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may in ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances, and in par­tic­u­lar in the event of dis­astrous in­stances of force ma­jeure and short­ages or rises in the prices of food­stuffs and es­sen­tial goods, or­der tem­por­ary re­duc­tions of duty and by way of ex­cep­tion ex­emp­tions from duty.

If, as a res­ult of for­eign meas­ures or ex­cep­tion­al con­di­tions abroad, Switzer­land’s for­eign re­la­tions are in­flu­enced to such an ex­tent that es­sen­tial Swiss eco­nom­ic in­terests are pre­ju­diced, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may, for as long as the cir­cum­stances re­quire, modi­fy the rel­ev­ant rates of duty, or, in the event of ex­emp­tion from duty, in­tro­duce du­ties, or take oth­er suit­able meas­ures.

Stat­ist­ic­al re­cords shall be main­tained on the im­port, ex­port and trans­it of goods over the Swiss cus­toms bor­der (For­eign Trade Stat­ist­ics).

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil is au­thor­ised to ac­cept the modi­fic­a­tions re­com­men­ded by the Cus­toms Co­oper­a­tion Coun­cil in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 16 of the In­ter­na­tion­al Con­ven­tion of 14 June 1983¹⁶ on a Har­mon­ised Com­mod­ity De­scrip­tion and Cod­ing Sys­tem and to amend the Gen­er­al Tar­iff.

² It may in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3 para­graph 1 let­ter c of the afore­men­tioned Con­ven­tion in­clude tar­iff lines from the Gen­er­al Tar­iff in the Work­ing Tar­iff as stat­ist­ic­al lines, provided that this does not lead to any change in the tar­iff bur­den.

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil is au­thor­ized to modi­fy the Gen­er­al Tar­iff tem­por­ar­ily if an amend­ment to the LIX-Switzer­land-Liecht­en­stein list¹⁸ is pro­vi­sion­ally be­ing ap­plied.

¹ In or­der to achieve the ob­ject­ives of the ag­ri­cul­tur­al le­gis­la­tion, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may fix the rates of duty for ag­ri­cul­tur­al products with­in the frame­work of the Gen­er­al Tar­iff; in do­ing so, it shall take ac­count of oth­er eco­nom­ic sec­tors.

² The im­ple­ment­a­tion au­thor­it­ies shall at the ne­ces­sary in­ter­vals com­pile the data on im­port volumes and prices of ag­ri­cul­tur­al products that is re­quired as the basis for de­term­in­ing the rates of duty.

³ If the mar­ket con­di­tions res­ult in a need for reg­u­lar modi­fic­a­tions, then the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may del­eg­ate the powers un­der para­graph 1 to the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs, Edu­ca­tion and Re­search (EAER) or the Fed­er­al Of­fice for Ag­ri­cul­ture. It may only del­eg­ate the power to the Fed­er­al Of­fice for Ag­ri­cul­ture if it grants that of­fice only lim­ited dis­cre­tion in fix­ing the rates of duty.²⁰

⁴ Sub­ject the terms of Art­icle 13 para­graph 1 let­ters c and d of this Act, the fol­low­ing prin­ciples and re­spons­ib­il­it­ies are reg­u­lated in Art­icles 20–22 of the Ag­ri­cul­ture Act of 29 April 1998²¹:

a.

the fix­ing of threshold prices;

b.

the fix­ing, modi­fic­a­tion and dis­tri­bu­tion of the tar­iff quotas lis­ted in An­nex 2;

c.

the fix­ing, modi­fic­a­tion, and dis­tri­bu­tion of tar­iff quotas for ag­ri­cul­tur­al products in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 4 para­graph 3 let­ter c.²²

¹ In ac­cord­ance with the safe­guard clauses in the in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments in the field of ag­ri­cul­ture, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may tem­por­ar­ily in­crease the rates of the Gen­er­al Tar­iff for ag­ri­cul­tur­al products.

² In cases of ur­gency, the EAER²³ de­cides on such in­creases.

³ The EAER may set up an ad­vis­ory com­mit­tee on the ap­plic­a­tion of price-re­lated and volume-re­lated safe­guard clauses.

¹ If the Fed­er­al Coun­cil in­creases the in­di­vidu­al rates of the Gen­er­al Tar­iff in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3, it shall at the same time ap­ply for a cor­res­pond­ing amend­ment to be made to the Act.

² The cor­res­pond­ing or­din­ances shall ap­ply at the latest un­til the com­mence­ment of the amend­ment to the Act that re­places them or un­til the day on which the bill there­on is re­jec­ted by the Fed­er­al As­sembly or by the People.

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall sub­mit a re­port to the Fed­er­al As­sembly each year if:²⁷

a.

it ap­plies an in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment for a tem­por­ary peri­od (Art. 4 para. 1);

b.²⁸

meas­ures in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 4–7 and 9a or Sec­tion 6 are taken;

c.

re­vised threshold prices are fixed;

d.

re­vised volumes for tar­iff quotas or their dis­tri­bu­tion in time are fixed.

² The Fed­er­al As­sembly shall ap­prove the in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment and de­cide wheth­er the meas­ures, if still in force, should re­main in force, or be ex­ten­ded or mod­i­fied.

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall ap­point an Eco­nom­ic Policy Com­mis­sion as an ad­vis­ory body.

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil is re­spons­ible for im­ple­ment­a­tion. It shall en­act the re­quired trans­ition­al pro­vi­sions.

² The Fed­er­al Of­fice for Cus­toms and Bor­der Se­cur­ity shall pub­lish the Work­ing Tar­iff.³¹

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall re­vise the pro­vi­sions of fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion that con­tain tar­iff head­ings in ac­cord­ance with the Gen­er­al Tar­iff in this Act and shall bring the re­vised pro­vi­sions in­to force at the same time as this Act.

² The Cus­toms Tar­iff Act of 19 June 1959³² is re­pealed.

¹ This Act is sub­ject to an op­tion­al ref­er­en­dum.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the date on which this Act comes in­to force.

Com­mence­ment Date: 1 Janu­ary 1988³³