SIX Swiss Holidays 2026 and 2027: Full Trading Calendar

The SIX Swiss Exchange is Switzerland’s main stock market, home to Nestlé, Novartis, Roche, UBS and the rest of the Swiss Market Index (SMI). Regular trading runs from 9:00 am to 5:30 pm CET/CEST (Zurich time), which is 3:00 am to 11:30 am Eastern Time and 8:00 am to 4:30 pm in London. The next full closure is Thursday, December 24, 2026 for Christmas Eve, followed by Christmas Day on Friday, December 25, 2026. Trading hours and the annual holiday list are set by SIX Swiss Exchange AG in Zurich and published on its official trading hours and calendar page. Full schedule and background: SIX Swiss Exchange holiday dates.

On a Swiss market holiday there is no order matching, no closing auction and no official closing price. Orders left in the book do not execute, and Swiss francs, Swiss government bonds and Swiss-listed exchange traded funds all lose their domestic reference price for the day. Cross-listed shares can still trade elsewhere, but liquidity in Swiss names is thin when Zurich is shut.

SIX Swiss Exchange holidays 2026

These are the remaining SIX Swiss Exchange closures in 2026. The exchange is closed all day on each date, with no early or partial session.

The Christmas closure creates an unusually short week in Zurich. With December 24 and December 25 both shut, the only Swiss sessions in that week fall on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, then Monday, December 28 through Wednesday, December 30 before New Year’s Eve. Volumes in Swiss blue chips are typically at their thinnest of the year across those days, which can exaggerate price moves in mid and small caps.

SIX Swiss Exchange holidays 2027

The 2027 calendar begins with a Friday closure on New Year’s Day and includes the two shared European Easter holidays, plus the Swiss religious holidays of Ascension Day and Whit Monday, which are not observed in London or New York. Always check the SIX calendar for the complete published year before planning a trade or a transfer.

Two dates deserve attention from anyone trading Europe as a bloc. Good Friday on March 26, 2027 and Easter Monday on March 29, 2027 close Zurich at the same time as London, Frankfurt, Paris, Milan and Amsterdam, so European equity trading effectively stops for four days. Ascension Day on May 6, 2027 and Whit Monday on May 17, 2027 close Switzerland and Germany while London and New York stay open, which is when cross-border liquidity gaps appear.

Early closes and half days

SIX Swiss Exchange takes a different approach from the New York Stock Exchange. Rather than running shortened half-day sessions around Christmas and New Year, it closes for the whole day. Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, which are early-close days on many US and Asian exchanges, are full closures in Zurich: December 24 and December 31, 2026 and again December 24 and December 31, 2027.

That means there are no scheduled early closes in the dates listed above. Every entry in both tables is a full-day closure with no trading, no auctions and no official closing price. The practical consequence is that Swiss investors who want to trade on Christmas Eve must use a venue in another country, and index providers that need a Swiss closing price for those days carry forward the previous session’s close.

Two operational points still apply on the trading days either side of a holiday. First, order books are purged at the end of the business day for certain order types, so resting orders may need to be re-entered. Second, the exchange can extend or curtail continuous trading for individual securities, whole segments or the entire market in exceptional circumstances, so a scheduled session is not an absolute guarantee.

Trading hours on SIX Swiss Exchange

The Swiss trading day for shares is built around a long continuous session bracketed by auctions. An auction is a period in which orders accumulate and are then matched at a single price, rather than trading one against another in real time.

Regular hours for the equity market are quoted by SIX as 9:00 am to 5:30 pm CET/CEST, which includes the closing auction. The closing auction has a randomised end within a short window, a design feature that stops traders timing the final second of the day. After the close, a Trading-at-Last window lets participants execute at the official closing price. Swiss franc bonds start later, at 9:30 am, and end earlier, reflecting the historical structure of that segment.

Time zone conversions hold for most of the year because Switzerland, the UK and the US all shift their clocks, but they do not all shift on the same weekend. For roughly two weeks in late March and one week in late October or early November, the gap between Zurich and New York moves by an hour. If you are trading Swiss shares from the Americas or Asia, check the local time of the close in those transition weeks rather than assuming 3:00 am to 11:30 am ET.

There is no retail pre-market or after-hours session on SIX in the American sense. The 6:00 am to 9:00 am window is for member firms to enter and manage orders ahead of the opening auction, not a separate trading session. Swiss shares with a secondary listing or a depositary receipt in the US can still trade during American hours, and off-exchange or systematic internaliser trading in Swiss names continues in other jurisdictions when Zurich is closed.

How holidays affect settlement, dividends and options

Settlement is the process of exchanging cash for shares after a trade. Swiss equities currently settle on a T+2 basis, meaning two business days after the trade date, and business days exclude SIX holidays. Buy a Swiss share on Wednesday, December 23, 2026 and settlement does not land until after the Christmas closures. Switzerland, together with the European Union and the United Kingdom, is scheduled to move to a T+1 cycle on October 11, 2027, according to SIX Group and the Swiss Securities Post-Trade Council. From that date, one settlement day means one fewer buffer day, so holidays matter more, not less, for anyone who needs cash or stock to arrive by a specific date.

Dividends and corporate actions follow the same calendar. The ex-dividend date, the first day on which a buyer is not entitled to the declared dividend, must be an exchange trading day. When a holiday falls next to an ex-date, the record and payment dates shift accordingly, so a Swiss dividend expected in the last week of December can land in January. Cash from a sale can be held up in the same way: transfers depend on Swiss bank and TARGET payment calendars as well as the exchange calendar, and those are not always identical.

Derivatives add a second layer. Options and futures on Swiss shares and the SMI trade on Eurex, and expiry dates are set to fall on trading days. When an expiry would collide with a holiday, it moves to the previous business day. That matters most around Good Friday and Easter Monday, and in the quarterly expiry cycle in March, June, September and December. If you hold options through a holiday stretch, note that time decay continues over closed days while you cannot adjust or hedge the position on the Swiss market.

Stop orders are the classic accident. A stop that would have been triggered by news released while Zurich is shut can execute at a materially different price at the next opening auction, because the auction absorbs several days of news at once. Traders who dislike gap risk often reduce position size or widen stops ahead of long closures rather than leaving orders untouched.

Other markets

Swiss francs and Swiss government bonds do not all stop together. Swiss franc bonds listed on SIX follow the exchange calendar and are shut on the dates above, but the over-the-counter market in Swiss government debt and the interest rate swap market depend on bank holidays in Zurich and on international payment systems, so pricing can still be indicated by dealers even when the exchange is closed. The Swiss franc itself trades continuously in the global foreign exchange market from Sunday evening to Friday evening, so USD/CHF and EUR/CHF keep moving on Swiss holidays, just with thinner volumes.

Eurex, the derivatives exchange that lists SMI futures and options, publishes its own holiday calendar and is generally closed on the same major dates as the German and Swiss cash markets. CME and ICE futures on US indices, oil and gold are unaffected by Swiss holidays and trade almost around the clock. Cryptocurrency markets never close, which is why bitcoin sometimes leads the price action over a long European holiday weekend and equities catch up at the next open.

On the shared holidays the world’s main exchanges line up closely. Christmas Day and New Year’s Day close SIX, the London Stock Exchange, Euronext, Deutsche Börse, the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, the Tokyo Stock Exchange and Hong Kong Exchanges. Good Friday closes Europe, the US, the UK, Hong Kong and Australia, though Japan stays open. Easter Monday closes Europe, the UK, Hong Kong and Australia while the US and Japan trade. Ascension Day and Whit Monday are Swiss and German dates only, and Swiss National Day on August 1 is unique to Switzerland. Investors who track a global index should expect stale prices for Swiss components on those days.

What It Means for Your Money

If you hold a pension, an index fund or an ETF that tracks Europe or the world, part of it is almost certainly invested in Swiss shares. On a SIX holiday those holdings are valued at their previous closing price, so the daily price of your fund can look calm while other markets move. The value catches up at the next Swiss open, which occasionally produces a jump in a fund’s price that has nothing to do with anything happening that morning.

For anyone buying or selling around a closure, three practical points matter. First, a trade instruction placed on a Swiss holiday does not execute; most platforms queue it for the next session and fill it at whatever price the opening auction produces. Second, if you need money out of an investment account by a specific date, count only business days, and remember that December 24, December 25 and December 31, 2026 do not count. Third, currency conversion charges tend to be applied at a rate taken during market hours, so converting Swiss francs on a holiday can mean a wider spread.

Holidays themselves do not change mortgage rates, savings rates or prices in the shops. They change timing. Payments to and from Swiss counterparties, dividend receipts, and the settlement of share sales can all be pushed later, which matters if you are funding a house purchase, a tax bill or a transfer between providers. UK and euro-area investors should also watch how Swiss dates interact with their own: a UK bank holiday landing next to a Swiss one can add several days to a cross-border transfer.

Longer term, the shift to T+1 settlement on October 11, 2027 should mean cash from a Swiss share sale reaches you a day sooner, and less capital is tied up waiting. The trade-off is a tighter margin for error, so instructions sent late in the day before a holiday leave no slack.

Related economic events that move Swiss and European markets: US CPI report, US jobs report and US GDP report. Swiss shares are highly international, so US inflation and labour market data often drive the SMI more than domestic news does.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the SIX Swiss Exchange open today?

SIX trades Monday to Friday from 9:00 am to 5:30 pm CET/CEST, and is closed at weekends and on the holidays listed above. The next scheduled closure is Thursday, December 24, 2026 for Christmas Eve.

What time does SIX close on Christmas Eve?

It does not open at all. Unlike the New York Stock Exchange, SIX treats Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve as full closures rather than half days, so December 24 and December 31, 2026 have no trading and no official closing price.

Is the Swiss bond market open on exchange holidays?

Swiss franc bonds listed on SIX follow the exchange calendar and are closed on those dates. The over-the-counter market and the foreign exchange market for the Swiss franc depend on bank and payment system calendars, so franc pricing can continue globally even when Zurich is shut.

How many holidays does SIX Swiss Exchange observe each year?

SIX typically closes for around a dozen days a year, more than the New York Stock Exchange, because Switzerland observes several religious holidays such as Good Friday, Easter Monday, Ascension Day and Whit Monday, plus Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve as full closures.

Where is the official SIX holiday calendar published?

SIX Swiss Exchange AG publishes the authoritative list on its trading hours and calendar page, which is the source to check for any late changes or additions.