Swiss Supermarket Opening Hours: Full Guide (2026)

Supermarkets also follow cantonal rules, and those vary noticeably across the country. Hours can differ even between branches of the same chain. The exceptions matter as much as the rule: many petrol-station shops, and the train stations on a federal list, airports and motorway service areas, are open 7 days a week, often late into the evening.

Sources checked regularly. Federal rules from the Labour Act (ArG) and ArGV 2. Cantonal rules from the official cantonal Ladenöffnungsgesetze. Train-station list from the WBF Verordnung. Store hours read in the store finders of Migros, Aldi, Lidl, Denner, Aligro and Otto's in October 2026.

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The federal rule: closed on Sundays, with exceptions

No single national law sets Swiss shop opening hours. Two layers do:

1. The federal Labour Act (ArG), which protects employees and bans Sunday work between Saturday 23:00 and Sunday 23:00 (Art. 18). Exceptions are listed in ArGV 2, Art. 25 onwards.
2. Cantonal Ladenöffnungsgesetze (LöG) or Ruhetagsgesetze, which set retail hours within the federal frame. Some cantons (Aargau, Basel-Landschaft, Glarus, Schwyz, Nidwalden, Obwalden and Appenzell Innerrhoden) have no law on shop hours for working days; Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Graubünden and Vaud leave these hours to the communes.

The result: most supermarkets are closed on Sundays nationwide. The trade union Unia opposes more Sunday sales: after the Council of States vote of 9 June 2026 it called the decision a signal against further attempts at liberalisation.

Typical opening hours by retailer

Read in the store finders on 27 October 2026: all 14 Aligro markets, all 141 Otto's stores that list hours, one Denner store in nine (97 stores) and Migros examples. Aldi (242 stores) and Lidl (198 stores): October 2026. Coop shows the hours of each store on coop.ch.

How late city centre stores may stay open is set by the canton or the commune. From Monday to Friday the limit is 20:00 in Basel-Stadt and Bern (Bern allows one evening a week until 22:00) and 19:00 in Geneva and Lausanne (Geneva: 19:30 on Fridays, one evening a week until 21:00); on Saturdays it is 18:00, in Bern 17:00. The canton of Zurich sets no closing time from Monday to Saturday. Check the specific store before you go: hours differ between branches, even within the same chain and the same canton.

The train-station and airport exception

Most Swiss Sunday shopping happens here. Under ArGV 2 Art. 26a, the federal Department of Economic Affairs (WBF) maintains a list of designated stations: public-transport hubs where shops may open Sundays and late evenings to serve travellers. The list includes Aarau, Baden, Basel SBB, Basel Badischer Bahnhof, Bellinzona, Bern, Biel/Bienne, Brig, Bülach, Bulle, Burgdorf, Chur, Dietikon, Frauenfeld, Fribourg, Geneva Cornavin, Geneva Airport, Lausanne, Lenzburg, Lugano, Luzern, Morges, Neuchâtel, plus Zurich HB and Winterthur, among others.

What you'll find:

• Migros at major stations: 6:00 to 22:30 at Zurich HB (weekends from 7:00), 6:00 to 22:00 at Basel SBB (Sundays from 7:30) and 8:00 to 21:00 at Bern station, 7 days a week (Migros store finder, 27 October 2026)
• Coop at major stations: at Zurich HB, for example, 6:00 to 22:30 from Monday to Saturday and 8:00 to 22:30 on Sundays (SBB, 27 October 2026)
• Convenience chains: Migrolino (Migros), Coop Pronto (Coop), avec and k kiosk (both Valora) have long hours and many shops open on Sundays too, but closing times vary: in Ticino, all 45 Migrolino shops listed hours for all seven days on 27 October 2026, with Sunday closing times between 18:30 and 23:00. The old Aperto banner is gone: those shops became avec back in 2022, so there is no point looking for one
• Petrol stations: shops at motorway service areas and on main roads with heavy travel traffic, whose range mainly serves travellers, may employ staff all night and all Sunday under federal law (ArGV 2, Art. 26 para 2bis)

These stores carry a narrower range than a supermarket. They suit a top-up shop, not the weekly run.

Sunday sales: 2 to 4 days a year

On top of these standing exceptions, most cantons authorise 2 to 4 Sonntagsverkauf days per year, usually in Advent and around Christmas: for example up to four in Zurich, St. Gallen, Thurgau and Glarus, up to three in Aargau and two in Bern, Basel-Stadt, Lucerne and Geneva. Federal law caps the Sundays on which shops may employ staff without a permit at four a year (Labour Act, art. 19 para 6). Hours on those days differ too: 10:00 to 18:00 in Bern, 13:00 to 18:00 in Basel-Stadt. The canton or the commune publishes the dates, which change yearly.

Ticino went its own way. In a popular vote on 18 June 2023 (56.8% yes) it raised the limit for Sunday opening in its tourist places from 200 to 400 m²: shops under 400 m² there may open on Sundays during the tourist season (1 March to 31 October in summer, 1 December to the end of February in winter). The same reform raised the canton's general Sunday openings from three to four a year: in 2026 they are 29 November and 13, 20 and 27 December, from 10:00 to 18:00. Migros tested Sunday opening in Melano and Maggia for five weeks in summer 2023, from 23 July to 20 August (RSI, 18 August 2023).

A Standesinitiative from canton Zurich, dating from 2023, proposed raising the federal cap to 12 Sunday sales per year. On 9 June 2026 the Council of States decided by 22 votes to 21, with 1 abstention, not to enter into deliberation. On 2 October 2026 the National Council, by 97 votes to 95 with 4 abstentions, kept the proposal alive, so the item returns to the Council of States. Until parliament decides, the cap stays at four permit-free Sunday sales per canton per year. The trade union Unia opposed the move.

This week's Aktionen at all 7 retailers, in one tap.
Rappn shows you what's on offer at each of the 7 Swiss retailers this week, and a price alert tells you when the products you buy go on Aktion.

Holidays: supermarkets close, stations mostly stay open

On holidays that a canton equates with a Sunday, the Sunday rules apply even on a weekday, and ordinary supermarkets close. Shops in the stations and airports covered by ArGV 2 Art. 26a may open: SBB's 2026 holiday table for the ShopVille at Zurich HB gives minimum hours of 09:00 to 18:00 on Christmas Day and 10:00 to 20:00 on New Year's Day, shorter hours rather than a closure. Only 1 August is a federal holiday, so the core dates below apply in different numbers of cantons (SECO list, December 2024):

• 1 January (New Year): all 26 cantons
• Good Friday: 24 cantons, not Ticino or Valais
• Easter Monday: 17 cantons
• 1 August (Swiss National Day): federal, all 26 cantons
• Christmas Day (25 December): all 26 cantons
• St. Stephen's Day (26 December): 16 cantons

Ascension applies in all 26 cantons as well. Other holidays vary by canton: Whit Monday (15 cantons), the Monday after the Federal Day of Thanksgiving (Bettag, Vaud only), 2 January, 1 May, plus Catholic-tradition days like Assumption (15 August), All Saints (1 November) and Immaculate Conception (8 December) in Catholic cantons. Catholic and Protestant cantons treat these differently, and a canton can add rest days or let shops open on some holidays (Lucerne, for example, lets shops open from 8:00 to 18:30 on 8 December, under § 5 of its rest-day law, SRL 855). Near a public holiday, check the specific store the day before.

Is there a 24 hour supermarket in Switzerland?

Almost never. Regular Migros, Coop, Aldi, Lidl, Denner, Aligro and Otto's branches close in the evening and stay shut on Sundays: the federal Labour Act (ArG, Art. 18) bans Sunday work, and the cantonal Ladenöffnungsgesetze set the weekday cut-off. The one genuine exception is the Migros branch that opened in Herisau (Appenzell Ausserrhoden) on 3 July 2026, staffed during the day and open by smartphone around the clock. Everywhere else, the closest thing is a station or petrol-station shop with long hours.

24/7 and autonomous shops: the slow shift

The picture is changing slowly. On 3 July 2026 Migros opened its first supermarket with round-the-clock hours in Herisau (Appenzell Ausserrhoden): 7,000 items on just under 300 m², staffed during the day and open by smartphone from 19:00 to 7:00 (SRF, 3 July 2026; blue News, 4 June 2026). Migros has run much smaller unstaffed Teo shops since 2022.

Other operators have pulled back. According to SRF (3 July 2026), damage and theft forced Valora to stop its unstaffed Avec boxes, and Spar put staff back into its test shop on Zurich's Sihlquai, cut its hours and closed two automated shops in Surava and Rueras (Graubünden); Coop says 24-hour shops are not on its agenda. On 27 March 2025 the Zurich Administrative Court ruled, on appeal by Unia, that Migros Daily on Zollstrasse in Zurich and Gooods on Bahnhofplatz in Winterthur do not qualify as businesses for travellers under Art. 26 ArGV 2, so Sunday work there needs a permit. On 16 April 2026 the Federal Supreme Court confirmed this for the Zollstrasse shop and sent the Gooods case back to the Zurich court.

The legal question is still open. Two things to watch: the second decision of the Council of States on the Zurich Standesinitiative on Sunday sales, which the National Council kept alive on 2 October 2026, and any new Migros / Coop applications for unattended-store licences.

Cantonal differences worth knowing

In practice, the cantonal differences matter most for late-evening and Saturday hours. The federal Labour Act applies on Sundays everywhere, but tourist places have cantonal rules: besides the cases in the table, the canton of Bern lets shops in 40 tourist towns, Interlaken among them, open daily from 6:00 to 22:30.

How to find what's open near you right now

Three reliable ways:

1. Retailer store locator: migros.ch/standorte, coop.ch/storefinder, aldi-suisse.ch, lidl.ch each show live opening times for every branch.
2. Sonntagsverkaeufe.ch: a Swiss platform that lists Sunday sales, shops open all year round and station and airport shops with extended hours.
3. Rappn: once you know which store you're heading to, it shows this week's Aktionen at all 7 retailers and keeps your shopping list ready, so a short opening window doesn't turn into full-price panic buying.