Customs ????

Hi guys......hoping for some help here. This will be our first time to go out of the country and I'm so confused about the flights and when you do customs and "clear immigration", etc.

My plan is to fly Swiss International from Boston, layover Zurich and on to Rome. The layover in Zurich is 1 1/2 hours. Is there any problem with that? On the return.....same cities.......only an hour and 5 min layover in Zurich.

Where would I be clearing customs? At the layover point or at final destination?

Thanks.

Quick answer working from first principles: You should clear both immigration and customs at your final destination in both directions. Switzerland is not yet part of the Schengen common immigration area and not (yet) in the EU. So you enter both the Schengen immigration area and the EU customs area when you fly from Zurich to Rome; thus you need to clear both inbound immigration and customs in Rome.

On the way back, you leave the Schengen immigration area when you fly from Rome to Zurich, so you clear outbound immigration in Rome. Then you clear both inbound US immigration and US customs in Boston.

If there are any wrinkles that I'm not aware of, I'm sure that someone who knows better will post.

In general you clear customs & immigration (2 distinct check-points) typically at your destination airport. I've never flown through Switzerland so I can't answer this question specifically. Customs is for your physical belonggings (i.e "are you bringing in any exotic plantlife, more than XXXX in cash, etc.) and immigration is about you (stamping your passport/visa). Typically you do immigration first and then customs.

There are exceptions to this at times such as at large airports like Heathrow where you must change terminals and there are no air-side/post-security ways of doing so.

When we flew Swiss air (Amsterdam to Zurich to Bucharest), we did not have to go thru customs or immigration in Zurich.

Zurich Kloten is not a big airport (for us in Switz it is the largest but definately small compared to US airports) You have plently of time to make a connection.

You do not have to go through customs if you are in Zurich only to connect. You just need to go through a security checkpoint again.

Also when you land in Zurich there are signs that will direct you to where you will have to go. If you are flying with Swiss before you land the airline attendants will inform you of which gate to go to and it will also be shown on the inflight tvs.

here is some info on the airport: http://www.zurich-airport.com/dokumente/ZRH_wegweiser_en.pdf