In Switzerland the driver card must be downloaded every week and the tachograph memory at least every three months. The data must be kept for three years. These are not the European deadlines: they are stricter.
| What | How often | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Driver card | Every week at the latest every 21 days if the driver is away for a long period; in weeks without driving there is nothing to download |
Art. 16a let. b ARV 1 |
| Tachograph memory | At least every three months from the first day of recording |
Art. 16a let. a ARV 1 |
| Backup copy | Immediately, on a separate storage medium | Art. 16a let. e ARV 1 |
| Retention | Three years, sorted by driver the period runs from the day of the download |
Art. 18 para. 3 ARV 1 |
Source: Drivers' Ordinance (ARV 1), SR 822.221 — text consulted on 28 September 2026.
The ordinance applies to drivers of motor vehicles and vehicle combinations (Art. 3) that are used:
There are further exceptions (Art. 4): among others, vehicles whose maximum speed does not exceed 40 km/h, army, police, fire service and civil protection vehicles, regular passenger services on routes of up to 50 km, vehicles equipped for medical purposes, driving lessons and workshop test drives (the tachograph is set to "OUT"). In case of doubt, the enforcement authority of the canton where the company is based decides: the list is on arvag.ch.
The obligation to download and keep the data lies with the employer and with self-employed drivers, not with employed drivers: it is the employer who must keep the data on working, driving and rest times, and who therefore has to make sure it actually has them.
The regular deadlines are not the only times the law requires a download. These are the cases that are most often overlooked, and they are also the ones in which data is genuinely lost.
One clarification that saves a lot of discussion: tachograph data cannot be transferred to the driver card. They are two separate downloads, with two separate files, and both must be kept.
Almost all the material you find online quotes the European deadlines: 28 days for the driver card and 90 days for the vehicle unit. They are correct for operators subject to the EU regulation, but a Swiss company that applies those periods to the driver card is not compliant: here the interval is weekly.
It is the most common misunderstanding, and even people in the trade fall for it. What the driver must be able to show at a roadside check is set out in Article 14c ARV 1, and it depends on the device:
In every case this is about what is carried on board, not about how often the data is downloaded at the company: that remains weekly for the driver card and quarterly for the tachograph memory and the company card. Anyone who confuses the two obligations downloads once a month and believes they are compliant.
The confusion is understandable, because on everything else — recorded data, tachograph cards, type-approved devices — the two systems are very similar. The difference lies in how often the card is downloaded, and that is the first thing an inspection checks.
In international transport, the conventions ratified by Switzerland also apply where they lay down stricter rules (Art. 3 para. 2).
The device that retrieves the data from the tachograph memory directly from the unit, even when the vehicle has only one driver.
To download the driver card from the computer, every week, without depending on the vehicle.
Because the files must be kept for three years, sorted by driver, with a backup copy on a separate medium: folders on the desktop are not enough.
TachoGest is the software we develop for this, for Windows 10 and 11: it reads the driver card, imports the files from the download key, archives the originals unchanged, makes the backup copy itself and checks driving and rest times. Free 30-day trial.
The obligation lies with the employer and with self-employed drivers. It is the employer who must keep the data on working, driving and rest times (Art. 18 ARV 1), so the employer has to organize things to obtain it: provide the reader, collect the card, archive the files. An employed driver may carry out the download, but the responsibility is not theirs.
Yes. The obligation depends on the vehicle, not on how many you have: carriage of goods above 3.5 t total weight (from 1 July 2026 also above 2.5 t in cross-border transport, unless the exemption in Art. 4 para. 1 let. j applies), or carriage of passengers with more than eight seats in addition to the driver (Art. 3 ARV 1). Even with a single vehicle and a single driver, the card must be downloaded every week and the tachograph memory every three months.
No, and it is not a formality: they are two different records. The card holds the activities of that driver; the memory of the device holds the activities of all the drivers who have used that vehicle, plus the vehicle data (speed, events, faults, interventions). Two separate downloads are needed, and both must be kept.
Three years, sorted by driver; the period runs from the day on which the data package is downloaded (Art. 18 para. 3 ARV 1). The ordinance also requires a backup copy of all the data to be made immediately on a separate medium (Art. 16a let. e). In practice: an archive with the files by driver and by vehicle, plus a copy somewhere else.
In an inspection, the company must be able to produce the records for the previous three years at any time. If they are missing, it is impossible to prove that driving and rest times were respected, and that is the first thing an inspection checks: the driver card records 56 days of activity (28 on cards of the previous version) and then overwrites itself, so whatever was not downloaded in time can no longer be recovered.
Those are the European Union deadlines. In Switzerland the Drivers' Ordinance (ARV 1) applies: driver card every week (at the latest every 21 days in the case of a prolonged absence) and tachograph memory at least every three months. Applying the 28 days to the card in Switzerland means not being compliant.
No. FEDRO, the Swiss Federal Roads Office, makes clear that the download obligation starts with the first record and does not apply to interruptions of at least a week: if the driver has not driven a vehicle with a digital tachograph in that week, there is no new data and nothing to download. As soon as they drive again, the weekly interval starts over.
Loss and malfunction are reported to FEDRO, theft also to the police of the country where it happened, and the replacement must be applied for within seven calendar days. In the meantime the driver may drive without a card for at most 15 days: at the start and end of work they print the vehicle data and complete the printout with surname, first name, licence number, date and signature (Art. 14b para. 5 ARV 1). Those printouts are kept with the other data: in TachoGest the days of driving without a card appear among the findings, so they are not forgotten.
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