ATA Carnet for Robotics

What is an ATA Carnet?

An ATA Carnet (from French/English Admission Temporaire / Temporary Admission) is an international customs document that lets you take goods into around 80 countries temporarily, for up to one year, without paying import duties or VAT, and without depositing money at each border. People often call it a "passport for goods", and honestly that's the right way to think about it: one document, recognised in many countries, stamped on the way in and out.

Without a carnet, bringing a CHF 150,000 robot into a foreign country, even just for a three-day trade fair, means one of two things. Either you pay import duties and VAT (often 20–40% of the value, partly refundable at best), or you arrange that country's national temporary-import procedure with a cash deposit or bond, in the local language, at the border. A carnet replaces all of that with a stamp.

Who runs the system

The carnet system is based on two international treaties, the ATA Convention (1961) and the Istanbul Convention (1990), and is administered by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) World Chambers Federation. In each member country there's a national guaranteeing association, usually the chambers of commerce. It issues carnets and, crucially, guarantees to its national customs that duties will be paid if a foreign carnet holder breaks the rules.

That guarantee chain is the whole trick. When you show up at a foreign border with a carnet, customs doesn't need your money as security. It already has a standing guarantee from its own national chamber association, which in turn can recover from the chamber that issued your carnet, which in turn recovers from you. That's why your chamber takes a security deposit or insurance premium when issuing. The associations' liability is capped at the duties plus 10%.

What a carnet covers (and what it never covers)

Carnets are accepted for three broad categories of goods:

The golden rule behind all three: everything must come back, unchanged, within the deadline. That rules out:

What the document looks like

A classic paper carnet is a colour-coded booklet:

Each sheet comes as a pair: a voucher (Trennabschnitt) that the customs officer detaches and keeps, and a counterfoil (Stammabschnitt) that gets stamped and stays in your booklet permanently. The stamped counterfoils are your proof that everything was done right. Never remove them.

The digital carnet (eATA), live since 1 June 2026

On 1 June 2026 the digital ATA Carnet went live in 30 countries: Switzerland, all 27 EU member states, Norway and the United Kingdom. Swiss customs states that carnets issued from that date must generally be presented digitally: instead of a paper booklet, you load your carnet into the free ICC ATA Carnet App using a Carnet ID and PIN from your chamber, prepare the declaration in the app, and show a QR code at the border, which customs scans.

Validity: exactly one year, no extensions

A carnet is valid for exactly 12 months from the day it's issued, and it can never be extended. Within that year you can make unlimited trips with any subset of the listed goods. Two important wrinkles:

What it costs (Switzerland)

Two components, both paid to the issuing chamber of commerce:

For a CHF 150,000 robot that's roughly CHF 245 in fees plus either a locked-up deposit or an insurance premium on the order of a few hundred francs. Compare that with a potential 20–40% duty-and-VAT exposure at every border without a carnet.

Which countries accept carnets

About 80 countries and customs territories, including all of Switzerland's neighbours, the whole EU, the UK, the USA, Canada, China, Japan, Australia and many more. The authoritative, current list is the ICC country directory. Three things worth knowing:

The lifecycle at a glance

  1. Apply at your chamber of commerce with a complete goods list (in Switzerland: online via ataswiss.ch).
  2. Activate the carnet at a customs office before first use.
  3. Export stamp when leaving your home country.
  4. Import stamp on arrival in the destination country.
  5. Re-export stamp when leaving the destination, before the deadline.
  6. Re-import stamp when coming home.
  7. Return the carnet to the chamber; it checks the stamps, discharges the carnet and releases your security.

Every step is explained in detail, with Swiss specifics, in Using your carnet at the border.

Alternatives: when a carnet isn't the right tool

Next: what all of this means specifically for robotics companies →

Sources

Every factual claim on this page comes from the sources below, checked on the "last reviewed" date in the footer. Official resources are linked in whatever language they are published in.