Switzerland on a Japanese Licence — IDP, the Side Switch & a CHF 40 Vignette

Switzerland is a rewarding drive for Japanese visitors, but it stacks three adjustments on the first day: a permit, the side of the road, and a sticker. Handle them before you turn a wheel and the rest is calm Alpine motoring.

The permit comes first because you arrange it at home. Carry a Geneva-Convention International Driving Permit alongside your Japanese licence and passport — sort it in Japan before departure, since you cannot obtain one in Switzerland. Rental desks and roadside police expect the full set together.

The side of the road is the safety point. Japan drives on the left; Switzerland drives on the right. Your first hour is when reflexes betray you — pulling out of the rental lot, joining a roundabout that now flows the opposite way, a glance to the wrong side at a junction. Take that opening stretch on quiet roads rather than into central Zürich, and stay deliberate at every turn until right-hand driving feels natural. The mirror-image lane discipline you know from home is exactly what you have to invert.

Third, the motorway vignette. Switzerland charges one annual vignette of CHF 40 to use its motorways — there are no toll gates, so the vignette is the toll. Buy it at the border, a post office, or online as an e-vignette tied to your numberplate before joining the first motorway. Without one the fine is about CHF 200 plus the vignette. Our Switzerland vignette guide explains where and how.

On the road, the limits are looser than Japan’s but enforcement is just as exacting: towns 50 km/h, open roads 80, motorways 120, blanketed by fixed and mobile cameras with active pass patrols. A 10 km/h overshoot is about CHF 120, climbing steeply above — see the speeding fine calculator. The drink-drive limit is 0.05, looser than Japan’s near-zero stance, so don’t relax into it; one drink is the ceiling.

On the high passes, engine-brake the descents and confirm winter tyres for cold-season trips. Petrol runs about $1.92/litre and 112 covers emergencies. Full rules are on our Switzerland driving guide.