Your household goods to Italy: no customs, but the Swiss border

Yes, your household goods go to Italy without a single form: within the EU there are no import duties, no VAT on a move and no declaration. What it costs is the drive — eleven hundred to seventeen hundred kilometres — and the trap lies exactly halfway. Whoever picks the shortest route through Switzerland leaves the EU customs union: removal goods have to be declared there for transit, and above a value of CHF 5,000 Swiss customs asks for a deposit. Via Austria and the Brenner you drive from EU to EU and none of that applies.

Why is there no customs, and what is limited then?

The Netherlands and Italy are in the same customs and VAT area. Your furniture, bikes, books and tools have already been taxed in the EU, and nobody asks about them at the border. What is limited are excise goods: alcohol and tobacco may only come along for personal use, and every EU country may apply guide levels that are not lower than the European ones.

Product	EU guide level for personal use
Cigarettes	800
Spirits	10 litres
Fortified wine (port, sherry)	20 litres
Wine	90 litres, of which at most 60 litres sparkling
Beer	110 litres
Fuel in a jerrycan	at most 10 litres

A wine cellar of five hundred bottles is thus no longer removal goods but a request for an explanation. Bring the receipts if you get anywhere near the quantities.

What happens if I drive through Switzerland?

This is the find that movers often only discover at the border. Swiss customs writes it plainly: whoever moves from one foreign country to another and takes the removal goods through Switzerland must declare them for transit. The import charges are then temporarily secured, with a cash deposit or a guarantee, and you get them back once everything has been re-exported within the set time.

Situation at the Swiss border	What customs does
Private goods up to CHF 5,000 total value	usually cleared without a deposit
Private goods above CHF 5,000	transit document and a flat-rate deposit of about 10% of the value
Alcohol, tobacco and food above the allowances	always a deposit, whatever the value
Removal van over 3.5 tonnes	no vignette but the Swiss heavy-vehicle charge

The deposit can be paid in cash (in francs, euros, dollars or pounds; refund always in francs) or by credit card, to which the amount is credited back on exit. If customs suspects that goods will stay in Switzerland, it may ask for a deposit even below CHF 5,000. And because a transit takes you out of the EU and back in, Swiss customs advises contacting all the customs administrations involved beforehand. A removal company that drives the Gotthard route does this under the common transit procedure; whoever hires a van themselves has to arrange it themselves or take the Brenner.

Don't calculate the route in kilometres alone. The Gotthard is shorter to Milan, but with a full removal van you pay a deposit of about ten percent of the value of your household goods at the Swiss border — money you only see again on exit — or you drive round via the Brenner and keep EU customs on your side.

What does the road itself cost?

For a car or van up to 3.5 tonnes the Swiss vignette is compulsory on the motorway: 40 francs, one-off, and the 2026 vignette is valid from 1 December 2025 to 31 January 2027. Driving without one costs a 200-franc fine plus the vignette anyway. A removal van over 3.5 tonnes does not fall under the vignette but under the separate heavy-vehicle charge. For the Austrian route the Austrian vignette and the Brenner toll come on top; their rates are on ASFINAG's site and in the cost indication at /italie/kosten.

What do I take separately: medicines and papers

Medicines for personal use simply come along. For medicines that fall under the Dutch Opium Act — strong painkillers, sleeping pills, much ADHD medication — you arrange the Schengen medicine declaration in advance: fill it in, have it approved and upload it via the CAK. The CAK has a separate route if you leave within a few days. Arrange the Italian continuation afterwards with your medico di base, see healthcare in Italy.

Keep the moving documents you will need later out of the container: your passport, the multilingual extracts from the Netherlands, the registration certificate if the car comes along, and the European pet passport of dog or cat. The first weeks in Italy revolve around the counter, and the counter asks for originals.

Move or sell?

Without customs the sum is simple: what the drive costs against what your things are worth in Italy. Whoever moves into a furnished rental often takes only boxes and leaves the furniture in the Netherlands; whoever buys a house in the South, where space is cheap, drives the whole household over the Brenner. That choice belongs in phase 3 of the journey; the order and the deadlines are at /italie.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 3 of 5 of the journey, step 3.1: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Italy or go straight to step 3.1 in the open plan.