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I'll be travelling to Europe on a Schenegen visa for around 8 days. The entry point would be France (Paris) This would be my first international visit. What are the general customs / immigration formalities that I'll need to do while travelling from India to France and on the return leg (Switzerland to India) ?

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The only formality you should pay attention to is making certain you get a Schengen exit stamp when leaving Switzerland. (You will get an entry stamp in France).

For the rest the formalities are pretty straightforward. When travelling to or from Switzerland you technically still have to pass customs (but not immigration) but in practice that border is as transparent as the other intra Schengen borders…

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  • Travelling from France to Paris?!?
    – Dirty-flow
    Commented Jan 22, 2014 at 11:45
  • (+1) I took the liberty of editing your answer as I assume you meant traveling from Paris to Switzerland (I think the OP has a more complex trip in mind but your remark still applies).
    – Relaxed
    Commented Jan 22, 2014 at 11:57
  • Note that I have been asked about the goods I am carrying with me and even had a customs officer inspect a receipt from a French supermarket (she specifically asked if I had been shopping) when crossing the France/Switzerland border. Interestingly, the receipt was helpfully organized by category (and not by the order the items were scanned at the checkout as in just about any other supermarket in France) so it seems control do happen sufficiently frequently to motivate the local shops to make it easy to check the quantity of meat, dairy and alcohol…
    – Relaxed
    Commented Jan 22, 2014 at 12:05
  • You can indeed be asked about food. Especially when entering with a car with local license plates. My experience with crossing the Swiss border is mostly on trains, and there I have never been asked about goods, or even had to show my ID. And that even before Switzerland joined Schengen...
    – Krist van Besien
    Commented Jan 22, 2014 at 12:11
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    @Tor-EinarJarnbjo Here is an example of how it looked like: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/… (photo is from 2012 but I remember something similar around 2004-2005 at this particular place). I think there is/was an office on the German side but you had to go there yourself if you needed a stamp, the bridge itself was simply open.
    – Relaxed
    Commented Jan 22, 2014 at 17:03

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