Driving to Livigno through Switzerland: the Munt la Schera tunnel

The tunnel is 3,385 metres long and is privately owned and operated by Engadiner Kraftwerke. Traffic runs single-lane, alternating under traffic lights, which is why the queue at a portal can be longer than the drive through.

It is open around the clock and closes only twice a year for maintenance, overnight from about eight in the evening to six in the morning, for roughly two weeks each time.

Passage is tolled. You can pay in cash, by debit or credit card, or with an EKW value card, and a few contractually agreed passages go through without charge.

The north portal is on the Swiss side at the La Drossa customs point near Zernez; the south portal stands by the Punt dal Gall dam at the border crossing into the enclave.

Check the maintenance dates before you plan a late arrival.

The approach leaves Zernez along the Ofenpass road, main road 28, and branches off at Punt la Drossa. The touring club lists the Ofenpass among the passes with no formal winter closure, and an encyclopaedia entry says the same about the branch; no cantonal or federal page we could open confirms either, so check the road report for the morning you travel.

Neither that road nor the private tunnel is a green-signed Autobahn or Autostrasse, and the Swiss charge attaches to those alone. Our reading is that nothing between Zernez and Livigno is vignette road, and BAZG's map of charged roads is where to settle it.

So buy nothing for this stretch. If the wider route does put you on a Swiss motorway, the Swiss vignette options page has the one product that covers it: an annual, because Switzerland issues no other length, at the official amount plus the service fee we itemise before you pay.

On the Italian side the SS301 del Foscagno is the only road that reaches Livigno. It leaves the SS38 dello Stelvio at Bormio and climbs through Valdidentro over the Passo di Foscagno and the Passo d'Eira.

ANAS manages it and shuts stretches of it at short notice in storms: it has closed the section between Arnoga and Trepalle for avalanche risk and reopened it once conditions allowed. Those are temporary closures, distinct from the fixed seasonal shutdown that takes an alpine pass out of use for months.

Treat the SS301 as open but interruptible, and keep the tunnel route in mind as the way out if it shuts behind you.

Livigno sits outside the Italian customs territory. It is exempt from Italian VAT and from excise duty on manufactured goods, and residents and businesses hold a formal exemption certificate from the Comune to benefit from that status.

The status comes with controls on the way out. A regional information site puts the main Italian-side post at the Foscagno pass and the main Swiss-side crossing at Punt dal Gall by the tunnel; we found no customs authority publishing either location, but anything above the tax-free allowance has to be declared as you leave.

Keep the receipts for anything substantial you buy in the village, and expect to stop on the way home.