Form S is the preferential origin certificate under the China–Switzerland Free Trade Agreement, carried as code S on the export declaration. China Customs issues it at the port of export, or CCPIT and its local branches issue it, and your Swiss broker presents it when the entry claims the agreement rate. This guide covers what the certificate does and does not buy since Switzerland zeroed industrial tariffs in 2024, who is allowed to file, where, the issue window, the twelve-month validity, the fee, the fifteen boxes, and the errors that turn a routine entry into an origin verification.
Form S — printed on the form as Certificate of Origin Form S for China–Switzerland FTA — is the preferential certificate of origin for this agreement. Its job is narrow: certify that the goods meet the China–Switzerland origin rule, so the importer can declare the agreement rate instead of the MFN rate on the lines that still carry duty. China Customs and CCPIT both issue it, and the certificate has the same legal effect in Switzerland whichever of the two signs it.
Be clear about what it is worth. Since January 1, 2024 Switzerland charges no customs duty on industrial goods (HS 25–97) whatever their origin, so on those lines the certificate does not lower the duty by a cent — it documents origin for the file. Where it still moves money is agricultural and food lines (HS 1–24, plus a handful of products in chapters 35 and 38), where duty remains and the agreement rate is the saving, and on entries, credits and origin checks that name the document.
Who files: the exporter or the manufacturer, or an agent holding a signed power of attorney. When: before or at the time of shipment, valid twelve months from issue; a late filing is possible within one year of the shipment date, marked as issued retroactively. Cost: the issuing office charges nothing; you pay the agent's service fee. The certificate stays in the exporter's or manufacturer's name — never the forwarder's.
The agreement has been in force since July 1, 2014, and the certificate has not changed shape since. What did change, on January 1, 2024, was the Swiss tariff — and that is the fact most pages about Form S still get wrong.
China and Switzerland signed their free trade agreement in 2013 and applied it from July 1, 2014. Form S is the origin document the agreement created: fifteen boxes, printed in English, one original and two copies, up to fifty items per certificate, tariff codes at six digits. Box 12 is the issuing authority's endorsement, box 13 is the exporter's declaration, and boxes 14 and 15 stay empty — they belong to the importing customs authority when it asks China to verify a certificate.
The rules sit in two layers. The Measures on the Administration of Origin for Import and Export Goods under the China–Switzerland FTA (GACC Order No. 223, effective July 1, 2014) set the origin tests and the certificate requirements. The Measures on the Administration of Certificate of Origin Visas for Export Goods (GACC Order No. 270, in force September 1, 2024) govern how applications are accepted, reviewed, issued late and amended. The certificate format itself is an annex to the agreement, reproduced in the customs service guide.
On a Chinese import entry for Swiss goods the certificate is entered as document code Y, with <17>C and the certificate number in the number field — 17 is the agreement's code in the Chinese system. That is a Chinese-side convention. On a Swiss entry the broker simply attaches the original Form S to the declaration; nothing about the number needs to be typed into your entry as a code.
Self-printing has been allowed for this certificate since 2019, and a self-printed certificate carries the same electronic seal and signature as one collected at the counter.
Your Swiss broker asks two questions at entry: which tariff line the goods fall under, and whether they are Chinese origin. The tariff line decides the rate. Origin decides whether you may use the agreement rate instead of MFN. Form S is the document that answers the second question.
With a valid Form S the entry goes in at the agreement rate on lines where that rate is better than MFN. Without it, the same line is assessed at MFN, and the difference is billed to the importer — which is you, not the shipper.
Chapters 1–24 and a few products in chapters 35 and 38 still carry Swiss duty. On those lines the certificate is not paperwork; it is the difference between the agreement rate and the MFN rate, calculated on the customs value.
Swiss and European banks write “Certificate of Origin Form S, one original” into the credit. A different shipper name, an issue date after the on-board date, or a value that does not match the invoice is a documentary discrepancy, and payment waits until it is waived.
Preferential entries are checked after release as well as at the border. When a verification request lands, the certificate, the origin criterion in box 9 and the working papers behind it are the file the importer has to produce.
If the goods may be re-exported, processed, or counted toward a later origin claim, an origin document issued at import is the starting evidence. Reconstructing it two years later is not possible.
Industrial goods enter Switzerland duty-free whatever their origin. If your contract, the credit and the broker's entry do not ask for the certificate, it changes nothing in your landed cost, and we will tell you that instead of selling you the document.
Two dates decide this page. The agreement has applied since July 1, 2014. On January 1, 2024 Switzerland abolished customs duty on industrial imports, without asking where they were made. Put those together and the honest answer is: the certificate still matters, but less often than the sales copy suggests.
| What you import | Swiss import duty | What Form S does | How to read it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Industrial goods, HS 25–97 | Zero since January 1, 2024, regardless of origin | Documents Chinese origin; changes no duty | Keep it only if a credit, contract or entry file calls for it |
| Agricultural and food products, HS 1–24, plus a few lines in 35 and 38 | Duty still applies, at MFN or at the agreement rate | Unlocks the agreement rate line by line | The gap between the two rates is your saving; on some lines it is zero |
| Swiss goods entering China | Chinese duty, phased by line since 2014 | Nothing — that direction needs a Swiss certificate | A different document from a different authority; do not mix the two |
| The 2026 upgrade protocol | Further cuts, once it enters into force | Applies only after both sides finish their domestic procedures | Signed October 30, 2026; until then the 2014 agreement governs |
Filling the form is the shipper's job and the issuing office's job. Checking it is yours, because the boxes that decide whether your entry is accepted are the ones that quote your own details. Below is the whole layout, with the boxes to look at marked in the right-hand column.
| Box | Field | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Exporter — name, address, country | Matches the business licence and the invoice. It is the shipper or the manufacturer, not the forwarder. |
| 2 | Consignee — name, address, country | Yours. Same name and address as on your entry and on the bill of lading; for Liechtenstein, declare through the Swiss customs territory. |
| 3 | Transport details — departure date, vessel or flight, port of loading and discharge | Reconciles with the bill of lading. If the goods load in Ningbo but the shipper sits in Shenzhen, the certificate still has to show Ningbo. |
| 4 | Remarks | Where third-party invoicing, retroactive issuance or a replacement is noted by the issuing office. |
| 5 | Item number | Sequential, no gaps, maximum fifty items. |
| 6 | Marks and numbers | Shipping marks as they appear on the packages; N/M where there are none. |
| 7 | Number and kind of packages; description of goods | Yours. Follows your invoice line by line: specification, model, quantity. “Machinery” or “textiles” alone is not a description. |
| 8 | HS code | Yours. Six digits, and the first six have to agree with the invoice, the packing list and the entry. Disagree here and the origin rule for the heading is the wrong one. |
| 9 | Origin criterion | Yours to sanity-check. WO, WP or PSR — one value, and it has to match how the goods actually qualify. |
| 10 | Gross weight or other quantity | Kilograms or the unit the goods are measured in; consistent with the packing list and the bill of lading. |
| 11 | Invoice number and date | Yours. Exactly the invoice you present at entry. No restated number, no restated date. |
| 12 | Declaration by the issuing authority | Check the seal and signature. Customs or CCPIT, and the signature has to be the issuing officer's, not the applicant's. |
| 13 | Declaration by the exporter | States the goods were produced in China, meet the origin rule, and are exported to Switzerland. Signed and stamped by the exporter. |
| 14 | Request for verification | Left empty. The importing authority fills it when it asks China to verify. |
| 15 | Result of verification | Left empty. The issuing authority replies here, and the importing authority decides on that answer. |
Box 9 has exactly three possible values, and the wrong one is not a formatting problem — it is a false declaration that can be undone years later by a verification request. Choosing the value belongs to the shipper, because the evidence lives in their plant and their books.
Grown, raised, mined, caught or produced entirely in China, with no imported material in the product. This is the natural fit for agricultural cargo, minerals and a few primary products. It is rarely the right value for manufactured goods.
Every input is itself Chinese or Swiss originating under the agreement. The shipper has to be able to show that for each component, which means supplier declarations, not just a purchase order.
The goods do not qualify under WO or WP, so they have to pass the rule for their heading — a tariff shift, a value test or a stated process. The evidence is a bill of materials and a cost build-up.
Origin evidence is not generated at the forwarder's desk. It comes from the factory that makes the goods: the bill of materials, the suppliers of each component, the cost build-up behind a value test, the process description behind a tariff shift. When we file, we ask the shipper for that file — and we do not ask you for it, because you do not have it and should not be asked to invent it.
The applicant is the exporter or the manufacturer. A forwarder can file on their behalf, but the certificate does not become the forwarder's document.
Three parties can appear on the application: the exporter named on the Chinese export declaration, the manufacturer of the goods, or an agent holding a signed power of attorney from one of them. When we file, we file as the agent, and box 1 stays in your supplier's name.
The company has to exist in the filing system before the first application: business licence, unified social credit code, Chinese and English name and address, contact details. A company already registered with customs as an importer or exporter can reuse that record. Self-printing adds one more step — the company seal and the declarant's signature have to be uploaded.
What we will not do: issue a certificate in our own name, lend another company's name to a shipment that is not theirs, or adjust a value so that a credit will take the document. Those are forged origin certificates, and the exposure lands on the shipper first and on the importer at verification.
A consignee is not an applicant. Nothing on the form needs your signature — but boxes 2, 7, 8 and 11 quote you, so a mistake there lands on your entry.
China Customs and CCPIT both issue Form S. Whichever signs it, Swiss customs accepts it on the same basis, so the choice is commercial — who your supplier already deals with, and which office matches the port the goods actually leave from.
China Customs at the port of export issues the certificate through the single window, and the review is completed within two business days of acceptance. CCPIT and its local branches issue the same certificate through their own system, usually with the same turnaround.
Since 2019 the certificate has been on the self-printing list, so a company with a colour laser printer can print it on A4 once the review clears. A self-printed certificate carries the electronic seal and the electronic signature and has the same effect as one printed and stamped at the counter — the paper is not the security feature, the electronic record is.
Where the goods ship from decides which office can issue. Cargo out of Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Nansha, Huangpu, Ningbo, Shanghai, Qingdao, Tianjin or Xiamen is filed with the office that matches the port of export, so that box 3 and the actual routing agree. Residency is not a restriction; the port is.
Box 3 needs the departure date, the vessel and the ports, and those are only firm once the booking is confirmed. The workable sequence is: booking confirmed, documents reconciled, certificate filed and issued, cargo loaded.
Departure date, vessel or flight, port of loading and port of discharge are fixed. This is the earliest point at which box 3 can be written correctly.
Origin criterion settled with the shipper's bill of materials, six-digit HS codes matched to the invoice, invoice and packing list reconciled.
Application filed and reviewed — two business days at the issuing office — and the certificate issued before or on the shipment date.
PDF to your broker the moment it clears so the entry can pre-file; the original follows with the documents or by courier.
A late certificate is possible, on the agreement's terms. Within one year of the shipment date the issuing office can issue it retroactively and mark it as issued retrospectively. Expect the date to be questioned: a certificate dated after the on-board date is exactly what a bank reads against the credit, and some credits refuse a retroactive certificate outright.
Two numbers, paid to two different parties: what the issuing office charges, and what the desk that prepares and files the certificate charges.
China Customs publishes no charge for origin certificate issuance, and the CCPIT system publishes the same. Certificate stock, review and the electronic seal are not billed to the applicant.
What we charge buys labour: the origin check against the bill of materials, assembling the file, reconciling invoice, packing list and transport details, filing, chasing the review, printing and delivery, and reworking anything that comes back.
Checking the PDF before the original is couriered costs nothing. Finding the mismatch after the entry is filed costs the amendment, the call to your supplier and the days the container sits.
The question at verification is not whether a certificate exists. It is whether the certificate can be defended. Refusal is rare; the expensive part is what happens to the cargo and the duty while it is being defended.
WO declared for goods assembled from imported parts, PSR claimed without a cost build-up, a tariff shift ticked that never happened. The issuing office can ask for the bill of materials and the material invoices; the importing authority can ask China to verify.
Six digits on the certificate, a different six digits on the entry, or a different code again on the invoice. The origin rule is line-specific, so a code that moved can move the rule with it.
“Machinery”, “textiles”, “spare parts”. A description that does not identify the product cannot be matched to an entry, and the certificate loses its use even though it is technically valid.
A Hong Kong or intermediary invoice with no remark in box 4 leaves the consignee and the invoice issuer unreconciled. The importer notices first, usually at the counter.
Cargo routed through a hub has to stay under customs control, stay out of processing beyond the permitted operations, and stay within the direct-consignment rule. The itinerary, decided at booking, decides this — not the paperwork afterwards.
Erasure, overprinting, a blank space inside the item block, more than fifty items, a description that runs past its box. Any of these is enough to send the document back, regardless of whether the content is true.
The importing authority can ask China to confirm both the certificate and the origin of the goods. While that runs, release may be held, a security deposit required, or duty assessed at the MFN rate up front. If the answer does not satisfy the authority, the difference is collected and the importer's record gets worse — preferential claims on later shipments get looked at more closely.
For the shipper there is one effective defence: settle the origin criterion, then align the invoice, packing list and transport details, before anything is filed. That is why our routine starts with the bill of materials and ends with a cross-read of the three document sets, not with the filing screen.
The twelve questions that come up most often from Swiss buyers and their brokers, answered with the rule rather than the sales pitch.
The form is printed Certificate of Origin Form S for China–Switzerland FTA, and S is the certificate type code in the Chinese system. Shippers also call it the Swiss certificate. The agreement's own code is 17, which appears as <17>C in front of the certificate number on a Chinese import entry — a different field from the type code, and the two are never interchangeable.
The exporter or the manufacturer applies, or an agent holding a signed power of attorney. As consignee you send nothing to the issuing office — no origin evidence, no cost data. What you do is check boxes 2, 7, 8 and 11 against your own entry, and tell your supplier which Swiss tariff code you will declare, so the certificate and the entry agree.
Yes, within one year of the shipment date, and the certificate is marked as issued retrospectively. What changes is how it is read: a certificate dated after the on-board date is exactly the discrepancy a bank looks for, and some credits refuse retroactive certificates outright. If it can be filed before loading, file before loading.
Twelve months from the date of issue. The validity is not extended. If the certificate expires before your entry is filed, the practical route is a fresh certificate — a replacement, or a retroactive issue inside the one-year window — and it has to be raised before the entry goes in, not after. A stale certificate presented at the counter is a claim that cannot be supported.
The issuing office charges no visa fee, and both China Customs and CCPIT publish a zero charge. What is paid is the agent's service fee, plus courier if the original travels by express. In most contracts the shipper carries it inside the FOB or CFR price; where the documents are yours to arrange, we quote you per certificate, itemized.
Only if something else asks for it. Since January 1, 2024 Switzerland levies no customs duty on industrial goods (HS 25–97) whatever their origin, so the certificate cannot lower that duty line. It still matters when the letter of credit lists it, when the buyer's compliance file requires an origin document, when the goods may be re-exported or processed under a preference claim, or when the product sits in chapters 1–24 or the few dutiable lines in 35 and 38. If none of that applies, skip it and keep the fee.
Yes. Switzerland and Liechtenstein share a customs union, and the agreement applies to the Swiss customs territory, Liechtenstein included. Declare the consignee exactly as it appears on the entry and let your broker file through the Swiss system; there is no separate Liechtenstein document.
Your broker can pre-file from the PDF, and in practice many entries are prepared from the electronic copy. The original still has to be produced when customs calls for it, so a scan is a convenience, not a substitute. We send the PDF the moment it clears and the original with the shipping documents or by courier.
The shipper decides, because the evidence — bill of materials, supplier declarations, cost build-up, process description — sits in their plant and their books. You send nothing. If your supplier asks you to pick the criterion, send it back: an origin criterion chosen by the buyer is a declaration nobody can defend at verification.
It depends on the rate, not the value. For industrial goods the certificate saves no duty, so the only test is whether the file needs it. For food and agricultural lines, run the two rates against the customs value: on a small consignment the duty gap can be smaller than the fee. On the Chinese import side there is a de minimis at USD 600 of dutiable value, but that is the Chinese rule for Swiss goods coming in; the Swiss side has its own relief rules and your broker should confirm which one applies.
The current agreement, in force since July 1, 2014. The protocol signed on October 30, 2026 takes effect only after both sides complete their domestic legal procedures. Until then no new rate and no new origin rule applies, and any quote built on post-protocol rates is quoting something that is not in force yet.
It stays good if the goods remained under customs control, did no more than unload, reload, repack, relabel, split the consignment or stay in condition, and the direct-consignment rule was met. Keep the transshipment evidence: your broker can be asked for it at verification. Decide the routing when you book — after the certificate is issued is too late to change it.
We are a freight forwarder and documentation desk in Shenzhen, working out of Futian. Export declaration, origin certificate, fumigation, commodity inspection and legalization for one order are delivered through one window wherever the rules allow it.
We read the Swiss tariff line with you first. On industrial goods the answer is often that the certificate saves no duty, and we say so before anyone pays a fee.
The product-specific rule is checked, or the value calculation built, before the filing screen opens. A wrong criterion is an amendment at best and a verification at worst.
Our filing slot sits after the booking is confirmed and before the vessel loads, so the certificate is issued on time rather than retroactively.
The PDF goes out the moment it clears so your broker can pre-file. The original travels with the documents or by courier, and the file is kept for the retention period.
Tell us what the goods are and when the vessel loads. You get the origin assessment, the duty comparison for your line, the document checklist, and an itemized quote for the filing — from Shenzhen, for cargo out of any China port.
