Swiss Supermarket Opening Hours: Full Guide (2026)

Most Swiss supermarkets open Monday to Saturday between 8:00 and 19:00, close on Sundays, and follow cantonal rules that vary noticeably across the country. The exceptions matter as much as the rule: train stations on a federal list, airports, motorway service areas, and many petrol-station shops are open 7 days a week, often late into the evening. This guide explains the federal framework, the cantonal differences worth knowing, and how to find what's open near you right now.

Sources checked: May 2026. Federal rules from the Labour Act (ArG) and ArGV 2. Cantonal rules from the official cantonal Ladenöffnungsgesetze. Train-station list from the WBF Verordnung. Live retailer hours verified at migros.ch, coop.ch and store-locator pages.

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The federal rule: closed on Sundays, with exceptions

Swiss shop opening hours are not regulated by a single national law. Two layers govern them:

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 (Basel-Landschaft, Aargau, both Appenzell, Glarus, Nidwalden, Obwalden, Schwyz) have no shop-closing law at all and rely only on rest-day rules.

The combined effect: most supermarkets are closed on Sundays nationwide. The retail trade lobby (IG Detailhandel Schweiz) has pushed for harmonisation and longer hours for years, but in roughly 90% of cantonal votes the public has rejected deregulation. Trade union Unia is the main organised opposition.

Typical opening hours by retailer

These are typical Swiss city / suburban hours. Smaller stores in rural areas often close earlier, and lunchtime closures (12:00 to 14:00) still happen in some Volg, Spar and Denner village stores. Larger city centre stores run later.

City centre stores in Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Bern and Lausanne often extend weekday hours to 20:00 or 21:00, and run Saturday until 18:00 or 19:00. Always check the specific store: even within the same chain, the same canton, hours differ between branches.

The train-station and airport exception

This is where most Swiss Sunday shopping happens. The federal Department of Economic Affairs (WBF) maintains a list of designated stations under ArGV 2 Art. 26a — 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 (Zurich HB, Geneva Cornavin, Bern, Basel SBB): typically 6:30 to 22:00, 7 days a week
• Coop at major stations: similar hours, typically 6:00 or 7:00 to 22:00, 7 days a week
• Convenience chains: Migrolino (Migros), Avec (Valora) and Aperto are open 7 days a week, often 6:00 to 23:00
• Petrol stations: Migrolino at Shell stations and similar are usually open until 22:00 or 23:00, including Sundays

These stores are smaller (typically under 400 m²), carry a limited range, and price points are often higher than equivalent items in regular stores. Use them for top-up shopping, not the weekly run.

Sunday sales: 2 to 4 days a year

Beyond the structural exceptions, most cantons authorise 2 to 4 Sonntagsverkauf days per year, usually in Advent and around Christmas. Aargau, Thurgau and Glarus go up to 3 or 4 such Sundays. Hours on those days are typically 10:00 to 18:00. Specific dates change yearly and are published by each canton.

Ticino took a different route. After a popular vote in June 2023, shops under 400 m² in tourist areas of Ticino can open Sundays. Migros opened the first stores under this rule in Melano and Maggia, with Coop signalling it would assess similar moves.

A pending Standesinitiative from canton Zurich proposes raising the federal cap to 12 Sunday sales per year, with the parliamentary process ongoing as of early 2026. The trade union Unia opposes the move; outcome is uncertain.

Open right now near you, with Aktion prices, in one tap.
Rappn shows you which of the 7 Swiss retailers is open at this moment in your canton, and what's on Aktion in each.

Holidays: when even the stations close

National holidays trigger Sunday rules even on weekdays. The core dates when virtually all retail closes (including most station shops, with very limited take-away exceptions):

• 1 January (New Year)
• Good Friday
• Easter Monday
• 1 August (Swiss National Day)
• Christmas Day (25 December)
• St. Stephen's Day (26 December)

Other holidays vary by canton: Ascension, Whit Monday, Federal Day of Thanksgiving (Bettag), 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. If you're shopping near a public holiday, check the specific store the day before.

Petrol-station shops with take-away licensing can sell ready-to-eat items (sandwiches, packaged salads, pastries, drinks) on Sundays and major holidays until 23:00, but cannot sell raw groceries.

24/7 and autonomous shops: the slow shift

The picture is changing slowly. In 2025, Migros opened Switzerland's first 24/7 supermarket in Herisau (Appenzell Ausserrhoden), using its Teo unattended-store format — roughly 7,000 items on 295 m², staffed during regular hours and accessible via app outside them. Migros operates a handful of similar Teo locations.

Other operators have tried mixed models. Valora runs Avec unattended shops at motorway service stations. Spar and Migros have run autonomous-access shops in Zurich and Graubünden, some of which were closed at night after security incidents. The Zurich Administrative Court ruled in 2024 that Sunday operation of Migros Daily on Zollstrasse and Gooods on Bahnhofplatz Winterthur was illegal under cantonal rules; the cases were brought by Unia.

The legal frontier remains active. Watch the canton Zurich Standesinitiative for Sunday-sale expansion, plus any new Migros / Coop applications for unattended-store licences.

Cantonal differences worth knowing

For practical shopping, the cantonal differences matter most for late-evening and Saturday hours. Sundays follow the same federal logic everywhere except the Ticino tourist-area exception.

How to find what's open near you right now

Three reliable approaches:

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 dedicated Swiss aggregator listing every authorised Sunday sale plus station and airport shops with extended hours.
3. Rappn: shows which of the 7 Swiss retailers near you is currently open, filters offers to those stores, and lets you build a shopping list around what's actually accessible right now.