Posted by: @helenburgess

Hey Guys! 

Hoping this forum could help. Every year I ski in Morzine and get a port du soil pass. But this year with France being closed to brits.
I was wondering if you could help me with this question. can I book to ski in Switzerland but keep my port de soil pass and just cross over as I’m British. Or is this a no go? 

Hi Helen,

Welcome to the Forum, you raise an interesting question to which I'm not sure if there is a clear cut answer. It seems UK Residents can't travel to France for holidays at the moment, but if you travel to Switzerland then it's the Swiss entry requirements which are to be followed. Since Switzerland is in Schengen theoretically you are then entitled to visit other Schengen countries, but do need to satisfy their Covid entry requirements.

In your case to have any chance for it to work you would need to stay in Switzerland and then just probably ski to the French sides and return again at the end of the day. If you fly to Switzerland and then go directly to France your trip to Switzerland is just transit and you could be refused entry at the border. I don't see how this can be policed if just skiing across the border when based in Switzerland. It seems that French authorities are pretty strict on this rule as one English family discovered when traveling to Tahiti. 

I also understand that a full PdS pass is valid for the whole area so I don't see that being a problem. I'm not aware of a rule where if your pass originated on the French side that you can't start skiing from a resort on the Swiss side. You just want to make sure it's not just a local area pass.

I would say the easiest way to be sure is to contact the tourist office in the Swiss Resort where you would stay and they should be able to give you the most up-to-date answer.

Hope this helps at least a little.

Regards,

Dave.