In order to promote the exchange of cultural property between museums, the Cultural Property Transfer Act introduced the possibility of return guarantees for cultural property lent by a foreign institution for exhibition purposes in Switzerland. The borrowing institution may ask the Specialized Body to issue an appropriate return guarantee respecting the exhibition period as stated in the loan agreement. Similar to state immunity, such a guarantee intends to protect the loaned items from third-party legal claims and corresponding legal proceedings in Switzerland.
Important note
The application for a return guarantee must be submitted no later than three months prior to the import of the objects (Art. 7 CPTA).
Forms
The application form and the corresponding object list are Word forms. We recommend that you save the documents locally (right mouse button: "Save as"). The fields to be filled in are marked. You can navigate between the input fields using the tab key.
Legal holidays
Statutory or official periods that are stipulated in days do not run:
From the seventh day before Easter up to and including the seventh day after Easter; From 15 July up to and including 15 August; From 18 December up to and including 2 January (Art. 22a Administrative Procedure Act, SR 172.021).
