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Switzerland introduces a new system for freight transport

“Passar 1.0” is the new Swiss system of the Federal Office of Customs and Border Security (BAZG) for freight transport. It will be used for digital handling of customs procedures.

“Passar” will be launched in several stages starting from June 1, 2023 and will gradually replace the existing NCTS (short for New Computerized Transit System) and e-dec cargo (for customs declarations) applications By the end of 2026, all processes related to transit, export, import, special customs clearance and the collection of other taxes will be simplified, harmonized and fully digitized in Switzerland.

What will change and what will not?

The most important change concerns the transport process. Declarations of transit and export goods are linked in Passar with a transport declaration containing information about the means of transport intended to cross the border, explains the Federal Office of Customs and Border Security. This link is a prerequisite for the automatic activation of goods declarations at the border. For automatic activation in road freight transport, you need the Activ app.

The transport declaration is still optional in Passar 1.0, but it is recommended to speed up formalities at the Swiss border.

At the same time, Passar 1.0 introduces the principle of self-service. Customers register and manage their data on their own. This requires a one-time registration in the federal e-portal (replaces the previous registration in the customs administration of the ZKV customer). Digital keys (tokens) are used to exchange data via the B2B technical interface (API), replacing existing certificates

In addition, the accompanying documents – required for transit and export declarations – will be able to be sent directly in Passar. Assessment decisions from Passar are made available only in electronic form and can be downloaded from Chartera Output (automatically via the B2B interface or via the ePortal).

Other processes will remain unchanged for now.