Period Products in Switzerland: What One Piece Really Costs

For period products the price per piece is the only number that means anything, and it is written nowhere. The last Swiss survey to publish it, the price check by the magazine Beobachter on 31 January 2024, found the cheapest tampons at Aldi Suisse at 3 centimes each, at Lidl Schweiz at 4 centimes, at Migros at 5 centimes and at Coop at 10 centimes, there with the o.b. brand. Since 1 January 2025, menstrual hygiene products also fall under the reduced VAT rate of 2.6 percent instead of 8.1 percent. This guide explains what that actually changes on the shelf, and how to do the sum yourself in ten seconds.

Last updated: September 2026. Sources: Federal Tax Administration, "Swiss VAT rates" (estv.admin.ch), whose reduced-rate list of 2.6 percent carries the entry "Produkte für die Monatshygiene (ab 01.01.2025)" against a normal rate of 8.1 percent; the Swiss Price Indication Ordinance (PBV, SR 942.211, fedlex.admin.ch), for the unit price, the sold-by-the-piece exemption and the comparison price; Beobachter, "Hier sind Tampons, Binden und Co. am günstigsten", 31 January 2024, for every per-piece figure; 20 Minuten, 16 July 2024, for the Coop price cut; RTS, picked up by swissinfo.ch on 9 May 2026, for the 2026 supply gaps; foodaktuell.ch, aldi-suisse.ch and lidl.ch for the promotion days. This guide deliberately quotes no current shelf price: migros.ch and coop.ch answer automated requests with HTTP 403, and any figure would be out of date by the following Thursday.

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

Why the price per tampon is on no shelf label

This is not an oversight by the chains, it is the law. For measurable goods the Price Indication Ordinance requires the unit price to be shown alongside the pack price whenever such goods are put on sale to consumers (Art. 5 PBV, SR 942.211, fedlex.admin.ch). Immediately after it come the exemptions, and one of them governs this aisle: Art. 5 para. 3 PBV exempts sale by the piece or by piece count, and prepacked goods whose retail price is no more than CHF 2.

Tampons, pads and panty liners are sold by piece count, not by weight. The obligation therefore falls away and the label shows only the pack price. For milk or laundry detergent the state does the arithmetic for you; here it does not. The sum is trivial all the same: pack price divided by the number of pieces printed on the box. Our guide to the unit price on Swiss price tags turns it into a habit.

What does one tampon cost in Switzerland?

The last Swiss survey to publish per-piece prices is the Beobachter comparison of 31 January 2024. Today it is a baseline, not a current price, and what it mainly shows is the spread: between the cheapest tampon at a discounter and the cheapest at a full-range chain there were 3 centimes against 10, more than triple.

Per-piece prices per Beobachter, 31 January 2024; promotion days per foodaktuell.ch, aldi-suisse.ch and lidl.ch. Two caveats belong with it: Denner was not covered by that survey, and the Beobachter published no separate per-piece figure for pads, only for tampons and panty liners. For pads there is a named reference instead: the 26-piece pack of normal Always ultra cost CHF 5.20 at the time, which is 20.0 centimes per pad.

VAT on tampons: 2.6 instead of 8.1 percent since 1 January 2025

The Federal Tax Administration's reduced-rate list carries the entry "Produkte für die Monatshygiene (ab 01.01.2025)" (estv.admin.ch). The bracket matters: the reduced rate of 2.6 percent itself has applied since 1 January 2024, but period products only moved into it a year later, on 1 January 2025. Before that the category sat at the normal rate of 8.1 percent.

The price on the shelf is the price you actually pay: public levies passed on, such as VAT, have to be included in the retail price (Art. 4 para. 1 PBV). That is precisely why a change of rate can reach the label at all, provided the chain passes it on.

How much is the lower rate worth per pack?

Less than the gap between the two rates suggests. That gap is 5.5 percentage points, but the tax sits inside the price, not on top of it: a price that contained 8.1 percent and now contains 2.6 percent falls, if the cut is passed on in full, by 1 minus 1.026 divided by 1.081, so by about 5.1 percent. Applied to the two packs the Beobachter used as references in January 2024, it looks like this.

January 2024 pack prices per Beobachter, rates per estv.admin.ch, the conversion is ours. Roughly 25 centimes a pack is real money, but it is small against the 7 centimes per tampon that the same survey measured between the cheapest and the dearest of the four chains. The tax rate is politics; the choice of pack is your household budget.

Did the chains pass the cut on?

Two of them moved before the deadline, and it is documented. Aldi Suisse cut the prices of its own label Satessa back in January 2024, tampons from CHF 2.99 to CHF 2.79 and panty liners from CHF 1.19 to CHF 1.09; across the chain's whole tampons and pads range, prices fell by 6.9 percent according to the same survey (Beobachter, 31 January 2024). Coop followed on 16 July 2024: pads, tampons, panty liners as well as menstrual cups and period underwear have cost at least 8.1 percent less since then, across own labels and branded products alike (20 Minuten, 16 July 2024).

For Migros, Lidl Schweiz and Denner we found no public statement on whether and when the reduction reached the shelf in full. That is not an accusation, it is a gap in the sources, and it is why the question can only be settled product by product: take the pack, divide the price by the piece count, compare with the chain next door.

Own label or brand: where the real gap sits

In that same survey the cheapest option at Coop was a branded product, o.b. at 10 centimes a tampon, while the discounters came in at 3 and 4 centimes with their own labels. Migros sells tampons, pads and panty liners under its own label Molfina (migros.ch), Aldi Suisse under Satessa. In this category the step from brand to own label is the single biggest lever, larger than any weekly promotion and several times larger than the VAT cut.

The comparison only holds if you compare like with like: same absorbency, same piece count, with or without applicator. To compare across chains, the cleanest route is to take one branded product that several chains stock and reduce it to a price per piece. Where own labels hold up is covered in our guide to the best private labels in Switzerland.

Why Tampax and Always went missing in 2026

If you found a gap on the shelf in spring 2026, it was not chance. According to RTS, picked up by swissinfo.ch on 9 May 2026, Tampax products were temporarily withdrawn from the Migros range because of price negotiations with Procter & Gamble; at Denner some Always products saw occasional stock shortages, and Coop reported being affected for certain o.b. and Carefree items. Aldi Suisse and Lidl Schweiz said they had noticed no particular shortages. Migros pointed out that own-brand products account for around 80 percent of its range in this sector.

In practice: brand availability is not guaranteed in this category, and anyone fixed on one specific product does worse than someone who compares prices per piece and knows the equivalent next to it.

Where are period products on offer right now? It depends

It depends on the week, the chain and your canton. Migros, Coop and Denner start their weekly promotions on Thursday, Coop since the week of 21 January 2025, Migros and Denner since 5 February 2026 (foodaktuell.ch). Aldi Suisse and Lidl Schweiz run two rounds a week, Monday and Thursday (aldi-suisse.ch, lidl.ch). Prices therefore change every Thursday, and Rappn shows you the ones that apply right now.

A second reflex applies to crossed-out prices: since 1 January 2025, a comparison price may be shown next to the price actually payable only if the retailer really charged that price, either right up to the announcement or for at least 30 consecutive days (Art. 16 para. 1 let. a PBV, in the version of 30 October 2024). A "was" price is therefore real, but it says nothing about what the same piece count costs this week at another chain. For the whole aisle, see our guide to the cheapest toiletries in Switzerland.

Next step: open the current offers from the seven chains, filter to your canton and search for "tampons" or "pads". Then take the pack you buy anyway, divide its price by the piece count and remember that one number: from then on you can tell in two seconds whether a promotion really is one. Rappn is free, needs no account and is paid by no retailer.