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The furthest corner of the country from the western frontier. Plan the window, not the day.
St Gallen sits in the far north east, higher than most Swiss cities and a long way from the crossings that serve Geneva and Basel. The move itself is straightforward. What catches people out is assuming Switzerland is small enough that the inland leg does not matter.
Look at a map and Switzerland seems compact enough that once a lorry is across the border the job is nearly done. For Basel and Geneva that is broadly true. For St Gallen it is not. The city sits in the far north east, and a vehicle entering at Basel still has most of the country to cross.
Which is why the transit should always be given to you as a window rather than a day, and why a mover who commits to a precise date on a shared load is guessing. Eastern Switzerland is often reached from the German or Austrian side instead, and which crossing suits depends on where the vehicle started.
None of this makes the delivery harder. It makes the planning different, and it means a quote that looks identical to one for Basel is not actually the same job.
St Gallen also appears as Sankt Gallen, Saint-Gall and San Gallo. Whichever version you searched for, this is the same city and the same page. Give the mover the address exactly as it appears on your Swiss lease.
St Gallen sits noticeably higher than Zurich or Basel, which shows up in two ways. It is colder for longer, and it sits under low cloud for stretches of the autumn and winter when the lowlands are clear.
For a move that is a scheduling point rather than a safety one. The motorway network is dependable in winter and the city is not an alpine village. But a January delivery here has more chance of being slowed by conditions than the same delivery into Basel, so build slack into the far end.
Packing matters slightly more too. Goods that have sat in an unheated lorry across a cold crossing want a chance to settle before anything is unwrapped.
These three are the ones that actually get asked about on a St Gallen move.
Sharing a lorry, the usual answer for a smaller move.
Including the student exception.
Why the inland leg changes the number.
The historic core is built around the abbey precinct and its library, and it is compact, protected and largely closed to through traffic. Deliveries into those streets are worked out address by address rather than by rule, and a reserved bay is arranged with the commune in advance.
Move a few streets out and it becomes ordinary city delivery. The housing is a mix of nineteenth century blocks with generous stairwells and later buildings with compact lifts, so the constraint flips depending on the age of the building rather than the width of the street.
Because the ground is uneven, a good number of addresses sit above or below street level in ways that a postcode does not reveal. Mention steps up to the entrance, because that is where the time goes.
The university brings a steady international intake, which produces a particular kind of move: smaller, often a single room, often on a fixed academic timetable, and usually price sensitive. Sharing lorry space is almost always the right answer for those.
The other stream comes through the textile and manufacturing heritage that still anchors the wider region, and through the proximity of the Austrian and German borders, which makes cross border working ordinary here in a way it is not further west.
Students should know there is a genuine customs distinction in their favour, which is set out on our Switzerland customs page.
Somewhere else in the region? Each of these has its own detail.
Chur · Zurich · Frauenfeld · Winterthur · Zug · Lucerne · all Swiss towns
Because it is a great deal further in. Switzerland looks compact on a map, but a vehicle entering at the Basel frontier still has most of the country to cross to reach the north east. The driving is straightforward. It is simply longer, and the quote should reflect that honestly.
It depends where the vehicle started. Eastern Switzerland is often reached from the German or Austrian side rather than driven across from the west, so the crossing that suits a St Gallen delivery may not be the one that suits a Geneva one. Ask which frontier your goods will clear at.
Yes. Sankt Gallen is the full German form, St Gallen is the everyday one, Saint-Gall is French and San Gallo is Italian. One city, one canton of the same name, one page. Use whichever appears on your Swiss lease when you give the mover the address.
Not for the motorway, which is dependable. It does mean colder weather for longer and stretches of low cloud in autumn and winter, so a January delivery here is more likely to be slowed than the same delivery into the lowlands. Build slack into the far end rather than booking a tight chain of dates.
The abbey quarter is compact, protected and largely closed to through traffic, so those deliveries are worked out address by address with a reserved bay arranged in advance. A few streets out it is ordinary city delivery, where the age of the building matters more than the width of the street.
At customs, yes. The Federal Office for Customs and Border Security allows household goods, personal effects and students educational materials to be imported duty free even where domicile is not transferred to Switzerland, which is an exception to the rule everything else depends on.
If you are moving a room rather than a house and your dates have some give in them, sharing is almost always the better answer, and it is what most university arrivals here choose. A fixed start date and a full household push the other way.
Collection address, the St Gallen delivery address, a room by room list and the window you can work with. One vetted moving company from our network checks the route and the access, then comes back to you.
Send your move detailsOperated by DATACONTEXT (UK) LTD, company number 07425576, ICO registration ZB022743, registered at Norman House, Saint Saviours Estate, Abbey Street, London SE1 3DH. Running since 2010. We work with vetted moving companies in the AGM Group network.
Written by Darren Benjamin, founder of International Removals Companies, who has run the business since 2010. Last checked 5 August 2026.