try just doing down to the Service des Automobiles in Carouge and telling them you want to trade it in for a Suisse one. Make sure your license that you have shows you have had it for a few years (at least from before you got here) if it doesnt say what year it was issued bring some kind of proof that you have had it for years. They dont seem to really care about the 1 year limit as long as they can tell you have decent driving experience in some normal country; I was way over by more than 2 years also. They were fine with it, gave me a new license in 20 minutes. Print out the form here http://www.geneve.ch/san/doc/0015.pdf and get the eye test before hand. You need two pics as well.



At the worst they will say non, in which case you can try again another day with some other employee there, or I guess then do the test. They won't take your license away or anything. So the most you would loose is your time going there; you would need the eye test anyway. I doubt you will have a problem though, I know a few others who have gone past the limit (one by 5 years, he told them his company kept him traveling the whole time so he was never really here to need one) and they didnt have a problem either.

floydmarks, Jul 21, 2008 @ 20:44