Freeports for Art Storage is Growing

Geneva Freeport Facility

The NY Times has a good article on the growing use of freeports for the storage of art. The article focuses mainly on the Freeport storage facility in Geneva.  The Genevea Freeport facility currently has 435,000 square feet of storage space and is now in the process of expanding its art storage facilites by 130,000 square feet.


The article also notes the Freeport storage concept is growing with new facilities in Luxembourg (building a 215,000-square-foot freeport) in March construction began on the Beijing Free Port of Culture at Beijing Capital International Airport, and the freeport in Singapore is doubling its size.


The NY Times reports 

They come for the security and stay for the tax treatment. For as long as goods are stored here, owners pay no import taxes or duties, in the range of 5 to 15 percent in many countries. If the work is sold at the Freeport, the owner pays no transaction tax, either.

Once it exits the premises — either because it’s been sold or because the original owner has moved it — taxes are owed in the country where it winds up. But for as long as a work is in the Freeport, it’s as if it resides in a no-man’s land where there is no Caesar to render unto.

Only a few years ago, in fact, the Freeport was officially not part of Switzerland. The buildings have since been patriated, but they and a handful of lesser-known freeports in different parts of Switzerland remain the closest thing to the Cayman Islands that the art world has to offer. It’s a haven where the climate — financial and otherwise — is ideal for high-net-worth individuals and their assets.

How much art is stockpiled in the 435,000 square feet of the Geneva Freeport? That’s a tough one. The canton of Geneva, which owns an 86 percent share of the Freeport, does not know, nor does Geneva Free Ports and Warehouses, the company that pays the canton for the right to serve as the Freeport’s landlord. Swiss customs officials presumably know, but they aren’t talking. Suffice it to say, there is wide belief among art dealers, advisers and insurers that there is enough art tucked away here to create one of the world’s great museums.

“I doubt you’ve got a piece of paper wide enough to write down all the zeros,” says Nicholas Brett, underwriting director of AXA Art Insurance in London, when asked to guess at the total value of Freeport art. “It’s a huge but unknown number.”

Source: The New York Times