Toll Roads in Switzerland: The CHF 40 Vignette Explained (2026)

Switzerland runs on a single toll rule: one annual vignette, one flat price, no pay-as-you-go option. There’s no per-kilometre toll booth to budget for like in France or Italy — but skip the CHF 40 sticker (or its newer digital twin) and you’re driving illegally the moment your tyres touch a motorway. Here’s what’s actually changed for 2026, and the one thing most guides still get wrong: whether your rental car already has one.

The vignette in 2026: price and validity

The Swiss motorway vignette (Autobahnvignette / vignette autoroute / contrassegno autostradale) costs CHF 40 — roughly €43 at current rates — for any vehicle up to 3.5 tonnes. There’s no daily, weekly or monthly version. Two hours crossing the Gotthard on the way to Italy costs the same CHF 40 as three weeks touring the whole country.

It runs a genuinely useful 14 months rather than a calendar year: it’s valid from 1 December of the previous year to 31 January of the year after next, so a 2026 vignette covers 1 December 2025 to 31 January 2027. Buy one in November for a trip starting in December and you’ve already covered most of the following year too.

Sticker or e-vignette — it’s not just a sticker anymore

For years this was Switzerland’s odd one out: unlike Austria, there was no digital option, only a physical sticker on the windscreen. That changed in August 2023. Since 2024, alongside the classic sticker, you can also buy an e-vignette linked electronically to your number plate via the official channel (bazg.admin.ch) or a licensed reseller.

The e-vignette:

• Is valid the moment you buy it — no waiting for the post, nothing to print.
• Doesn’t need to be peeled onto anything, so there’s nothing to misalign or lose if you switch cars mid-trip.
• Costs the same CHF 40 as the sticker.
• Gets checked by cameras and patrols reading your plate, rather than a visual sticker inspection.

The physical sticker still exists and is still sold at borders and petrol stations for anyone who prefers it. But the “Switzerland has no digital vignette” line you’ll still see in older guides is out of date — it’s an either/or choice now, not sticker-only.

Does your rental car already have one? This is where people get caught out

Most guides skip this entirely, but it’s the single biggest point of confusion for anyone renting rather than driving their own car in — and the honest answer is: it depends on where you pick the car up, and rental companies rarely spell it out on the booking page.

• Pick up in Zurich, Bern, Basel, or the Swiss side of Geneva: the car is Swiss-registered, so the company already needs a vignette to use it locally — CHF 40 a year is nothing next to the daily rental rate, so most Swiss-based fleets simply build it in. Travellers renting from Sixt and Avis in Switzerland regularly report the vignette was already there.
• Pick up on the French side of Geneva Airport, or at Basel–Mulhouse (EuroAirport): the car may well be French-registered, in which case it’s never needed a Swiss vignette for French roads and very likely doesn’t have one. Forum estimates put the share of French-plated rentals that happen to already carry one at roughly one in four.
• Some companies list it as a separate optional extra at checkout instead of folding it into the rate, which produces its own wave of “wait, I thought this was included” complaints.

None of this is standardised — it changes by branch, not just by brand. The one reliable move: ask at the rental desk directly, “does this car have a Swiss vignette?”, before you leave the lot, and get the answer confirmed on the rental agreement if you can. If it’s a no, buy one at the airport, the nearest petrol station, or online against the plate before you touch a motorway.

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What happens if you drive without one

Cantonal police and border staff run spot checks — camera-based for e-vignettes, visual for stickers — and the fine for getting caught without either is CHF 200, issued on the spot. That’s on top of still having to buy the CHF 40 vignette itself; there’s no “the fine covers it” shortcut. Foreign-registered cars are checked exactly the same as Swiss ones.

Extra tolls the vignette doesn’t cover

The vignette handles the motorway network. A handful of alpine crossings charge separately, on top of it:

The Great St. Bernard is the one tourists actually hit most, since it’s the winter route between the Swiss Valais and Aosta in Italy — the mountain pass road above it closes roughly from November to June. If you’re coming back the same way within 30 days, buy the return ticket; it’s cheaper than two separate one-ways.

The Gotthard road tunnel itself is free beyond the vignette, but it’s the main Zurich–Basel–Ticino–Italy artery and summer queues regularly run past two hours. When the queue backs up, the usual detour is the A13 via San Bernardino — about 60km longer and toll-free under the same vignette, and it tends to keep moving even on the days the Gotthard grinds to a halt.

Crossing in from France, Germany or Austria

Switzerland sits outside the EU’s toll interoperability arrangements, so nothing carries over automatically. French Liber-t badges don’t work here, and — this catches people out specifically — neither does an Austrian e-vignette, even though both countries now use plate-linked digital systems. They’re two separate schemes that don’t talk to each other. If you’ve just driven Austria’s toll roads and assume whatever you bought there carries over the border, it doesn’t; you need a Swiss vignette specifically, bought fresh.

Wherever you’re entering from — Basel or Geneva from France, Schaffhausen or Konstanz from Germany, Bregenz or St. Margrethen from Austria — buy the vignette (sticker or e-vignette on your phone) before you join the first motorway past the crossing. Border petrol stations sell it, and sorting it out before you’re on the Autobahn beats gambling on the CHF 200 fine.

In short

Switzerland charges one flat CHF 40 vignette a year, now available as a physical sticker or a plate-linked e-vignette you can buy online in minutes. It isn’t automatically included in every rental — Swiss-based fleets often build it in, French-plated cars picked up on the Geneva or Basel-Mulhouse French side often don’t — so ask before you drive off. Add CHF 32–51 if the Great St. Bernard is on your route, budget CHF 200 if you skip the vignette and get checked, and remember San Bernardino is the toll-free detour if the Gotthard queue looks ugly on a summer weekend.