Coop opening hours on Swiss public holidays: what applies in your canton

A Coop supermarket stays closed on a public holiday as soon as that day is treated as equivalent to a Sunday in the canton concerned. Only the Coop formats that Swiss labour law expressly exempts remain open: Coop Pronto at petrol stations, and Coop branches inside railway stations and airports. SECO puts it plainly: «Der 1. August (Bundesfeiertag) ist der einzige eidgenössische Feiertag» — 1 August is the only federal public holiday. Every other holiday is set by the canton, which is why the same calendar date can be a closed day on one side of a cantonal border and an ordinary trading day on the other.

Last reviewed: August 2026.

Sources checked regularly. SECO (admin.ch), FAQ «Freizeit und Feiertage» and FAQ «Ladenöffnung am Sonntag» (Art. 20a of the Labour Act; Art. 25, 26, 26a, 27 and 29 of Ordinance 2 to the Labour Act). Office of Economy and Labour of the Canton of Thurgau, shop opening hours act. Coop annual report on report.coop.ch. kleinreport.ch of 15 October 2024 on the Coop Mineraloel AG buyout. Swiss Franchise Association, Coop Pronto company profile. SBB (sbb.ch), station shop pages for Chur and Schaffhausen (retrieved 3 August 2026; no branch times). watson.ch of 30 July 2026. K-Tipp of June 2020 on prices in convenience formats. 2026 holiday weekdays cross-checked between ch-feiertage.ch and ferienwiki.ch. All sources retrieved in August 2026.

Rappn is the only neutral grocery price comparison app in Switzerland, with no commercial agreements with any retailer.

Is Coop open on public holidays in Switzerland?

As a rule, no — and the reason sits in federal law rather than in Coop's own policy. The Labour Act prohibits employing staff on Sundays, and its Art. 20a puts the national holiday on the same footing as a Sunday. SECO adds: «Nach Art. 20a des Arbeitsgesetzes dürfen die Kantone höchstens acht weitere Feiertage den Sonntagen gleichstellen» — cantons may treat a maximum of eight further holidays as Sundays. A retail shop without an exemption therefore may not open at all on such a day. That applies to Coop exactly as it applies to every other chain.

What this looks like in cantonal law is easiest to read in Thurgau. The canton's Office of Economy and Labour lists as compulsory closing days «Karfreitag, Ostersonntag, Pfingstsonntag, Eidg. Dank-, Buss- und Bettag, Weihnachtstag (25. Dezember)» — Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Whit Sunday, the Federal Day of Thanksgiving and Christmas Day — and sets the ordinary regime as «Sämtliche Verkaufsgeschäfte dürfen von Montag bis Samstag von 6 bis 22 Uhr geöffnet sein», Monday to Saturday from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday trading days there are capped at four a year, decided by the municipality. Other cantons keep different lists — which is precisely the difficulty.

Coop is unusually exposed to this mechanism. According to the annual report on report.coop.ch, «Coop verfügt mit 982 Verkaufsstellen über das dichteste Verkaufsstellennetz in der Schweiz»: 982 outlets, the densest sales network in Switzerland. Many households have several Coop stores within reach — but on a cantonal holiday all of them are shut.

Which Coop branches stay open on a public holiday?

The exemptions are in Ordinance 2 to the Labour Act, and SECO summarises them in its FAQ on Sunday opening. Businesses that may employ staff without a permit for customer service include «Betriebe in Bahnhöfen … und Flughäfen», businesses in railway stations and airports (Art. 26a); «Tankstellenshops auf Autobahnraststätten und an Hauptverkehrswegen», petrol-station shops at motorway service areas and on main traffic routes (Art. 26); businesses for travellers with a restricted range of goods (Art. 26); and businesses in tourist regions during the season (Art. 25). Bakeries and confectioneries selling mainly their own production (Art. 27) and florists (Art. 29) round out the list.

Because a public holiday is legally handled like a Sunday, those same exemptions carry over to holidays. In practice: the Coop Pronto at the petrol station and the Coop inside a major railway station stay open, while the neighbourhood supermarket does not. On 30 July 2026, watson.ch wrote about 1 August that «An grossen Bahnhöfen und Flughäfen haben zahlreiche Läden auch an Feiertagen geöffnet» — at large stations and airports, numerous shops open on holidays too — naming open Coop Pronto branches as examples, while noting that its own list made no claim to completeness.

That right-hand column is why a public holiday costs more than one lost shopping day: if it falls on a Thursday or Friday you miss the start of the new weekly promotions at Migros, Coop and Denner. At Aldi Suisse and Lidl Schweiz there are two entry points a week, Monday and Thursday.

Which public holidays are still coming in 2026?

These are the dates that still matter for the rest of the year. The weekdays are cross-checked between ch-feiertage.ch and ferienwiki.ch; whether the day counts as a Sunday-equivalent where you live is a question for your cantonal holiday list.

Two of these are awkward for shopping. 8 December is a Tuesday: in cantons that observe the Immaculate Conception, the holiday lands in the middle of the promotion week. And Christmas Day 2026 falls on a Friday with St Stephen's Day on the Saturday — in cantons observing both, that is two closed days immediately before a Sunday. As for 1 August: in 2026 it fell on a Saturday, and in 2027 it falls on a Sunday.

Coop Pronto on public holidays: what to actually expect

Coop Pronto is the format that fills the holiday gap. The Swiss Franchise Association describes it in its company profile: Coop Pronto AG grants its franchise partners «das persönliche und nicht übertragbare Recht, im eigenen Namen einen Coop Pronto Shop mit oder ohne Tankstelle zu betreiben» — the personal, non-transferable right to run a Coop Pronto shop with or without a petrol station in their own name — founded in 1972, franchisor since 1995, with opening hours «von früh bis spät», early to late. kleinreport.ch reported on 15 October 2024 that there were 324 Coop Pronto sites and that Coop was acquiring the remaining 49 % of Coop Mineraloel AG from Phillips 66, with the sites continuing to be run under the existing franchise system.

How long a given shop stays open is decided by the site, not the brand — which is why we publish no branch times here. SBB does list a Coop Pronto among the station shops for Chur and for Schaffhausen (checked 3 August 2026), but the hours belong to each individual site and change, so before a holiday trip only Coop's own store finder or the SBB station page is authoritative. A Pronto attached to a petrol station in a residential area can be regulated differently from one on a main traffic route, because Art. 26 ArGV 2 refers specifically to motorway service areas and main traffic routes.

Is Coop Pronto more expensive than Coop?

Honest answer: for part of the range yes, and we do not publish a percentage we cannot document. In June 2020, K-Tipp compared 25 everyday items across the convenience formats Coop Pronto, Migrolino, Denner Express and Spar Express in its investigation «Kleinläden der Grossverteiler: Riesige Preisunterschiede» and concluded that customers pay noticeably more there; across all compared items Migrolino sat 5 percent above Coop Pronto. Per the same survey, both operators justified the higher prices with longer opening hours, higher rents and more complex logistics. Those figures are from 2020 — a reference point, not a current price.

Structurally the explanation holds up: a franchised shop trading on Sundays and holidays carries different costs from a supermarket that stays shut on Sundays and public holidays. The useful comparison is therefore not Pronto against Pronto, but your planned weekly supermarket shop against the unplanned holiday top-up in a convenience format. Our guide to Migrolino vs Coop Pronto goes deeper on that trade-off.

Which brings us to the uncomfortable part: it depends. Whether the trip to the open station Coop is worth it, or whether you are better off shopping the day before, depends on what is actually on promotion that week — and that changes every week. Rappn shows you the live running promotions of seven chains (Migros, Coop, Aldi Suisse, Lidl, Denner, Aligro, Otto's) instead of leaving you with a rule of thumb.

How should you plan shopping around a public holiday?

Three steps are enough. First, check whether the day is treated as a Sunday in your canton — everything else follows from that. Second, look at which weekday it lands on. Since 5 February 2026, Migros, Coop and Denner start their weekly promotions on Thursday, while Aldi Suisse and Lidl Schweiz drop offers on Monday and Thursday. A holiday on Thursday or Friday therefore costs you not just a shopping day but the two best days of a fresh promotion week. Third, buy the storable items before, not after.

That is exactly what the app is built for. Rappn carries over 10,000 live offers from seven chains in four languages, with price-drop alerts, shared shopping lists, a loyalty-card wallet, receipt scanning and unit-price comparison. Rappn is free and is not paid by any chain. What else stays open around holidays is covered in public holiday grocery shopping in Switzerland, and the Sunday rules in Sunday grocery shopping.

So what does this mean for you?

It depends on your canton and on the weekday. In a canton with many religious holidays you lose more shopping days in autumn and December — and on exactly those days you have the strongest incentive to buy ahead.

Next step: note the two or three holidays still ahead in your canton and set price alerts in Rappn on the things you will definitely need — coffee, butter, detergent, drinks. Then you buy them in the promotion week before, rather than on the holiday itself at a petrol-station shop. An overview of every chain's ordinary hours is in Swiss supermarket opening hours.