13 Weeks of School Holidays, 5 Weeks of Vacation

The gap, canton by canton

How many weeks school is closed is decided by the canton, and the range spans three and a half weeks. Only the lower bound of instruction is legally anchored: the school concordat of 1970 requires at least 38 school weeks per year. Appenzell Innerrhoden teaches 40 weeks and gives its children 12 weeks off. Ticino, the only canton that never joined the concordat, teaches 36.5 weeks: 15.5 weeks off school.

#	Canton		weeks
1	Ticino36.5 school weeks, the only canton outside the 38-week concordat		15.5
2	Valais		15
3	Basel-Landschaft		14
4	Basel-Stadtofficial statement: “14 weeks of school holidays per year”		14
5	Fribourg		14
6	Lucerne		14
7	Obwalden		14
8	Solothurn		14
9	Uri		14
10	Vaud		14
11	Zug		14
12	Bern38–39 school weeks, midpoint		13.5
13	Genevaat least 38.5 school weeks, upper bound		13.5
14	Nidwalden38–39 school weeks, midpoint		13.5
15	Aargaumunicipalities set 4 of the 7 free weeks themselves		13
16	Appenzell Ausserrhoden		13
17	Glarus		13
18	Graubünden		13
19	Jura		13
20	Neuchâtel		13
21	St. Gallen		13
22	Schaffhausen		13
23	Schwyz		13
24	Thurgau		13
25	Zurich13 weeks official; most dates set by municipalities		13
26	Appenzell Innerrhoden40 school weeks, the most in Switzerland		12

Total school-holiday weeks per school year. ZH, TG and BS: official statement; all other cantons: 52 minus school weeks per the EDK cantonal survey (2024/25). BE, NW (“38 or 39 school weeks”): midpoint 13.5. GE (“at least 38.5”): upper bound. Source: EDK/IDES; own calculation.

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Measured against the parents' legal vacation minimum of 4 weeks, the gap runs to double-digit working days everywhere: from 40 days in Appenzell Innerrhoden through 45 in Zurich and 50 in Basel-Stadt to 57 days in Ticino.

The people who must fill the gap have the least vacation

The Swiss Code of Obligations guarantees 4 weeks of vacation per year (Art. 329a OR), and 5 weeks only up to the age of 20. In reality, Swiss employees average 5.2 weeks. Broken down by age, however, the federal labour force survey shows a remarkable pattern: full-time employees between 20 and 49, the age group of practically all parents of schoolchildren, have just 5.0 weeks of vacation, the least of any age group: less than 15- to 19-year-olds (5.45) and clearly less than 50- to 64-year-olds (5.53).

There is no statutory compensation. SECO states in its employment-law FAQ: “The employer is responsible for setting the timing of vacation. […] For employees with school-age children, the school holidays must be taken into consideration.” Consideration in the choice of dates, no additional days. The paid care leave of Art. 329h OR applies only to caring for family members with health impairments, at most three days per event. For healthy children during 13 weeks of school holidays, Swiss employment law provides: nothing.

The summer, in numbers: from 3 weeks fixed by the canton to 10.5

The summer of 2026 shows the cantonal range most clearly. Ticino's schoolchildren were off from 18 June to 30 August 2026, 10.5 weeks, more than twice as long as the 5 weeks in Zurich, Bern or St. Gallen. At cantonal level, Aargau even fixes only 3 summer weeks; each municipality sets four further holiday weeks itself, so the holiday schedules of neighbouring villages can differ.

#	Canton		weeks
1	Ticino18 June to 30 August 2026		10.5
2	ValaisFrench-speaking Valais; Upper Valais: 6.5 weeks		7.5
3	Geneva		7
4	Vaud		7
5	Fribourgreference: city of Fribourg		6.5
6	Appenzell Innerrhoden		6
7	Basel-Landschaft		6
8	Basel-Stadt		6
9	Glarus		6
10	Graubünden		6
11	Jura		6
12	Lucerne		6
13	Neuchâtel		6
14	Nidwalden		6
15	Obwalden		6
16	Uri		6
17	Zug		6
18	Appenzell Ausserrhoden		5
19	BernGerman-speaking part; Bernese Jura: 6 weeks		5
20	St. Gallen		5
21	Schaffhausen		5
22	Solothurncantonal schools; compulsory school set per municipality		5
23	Schwyz		5
24	Thurgau		5
25	Zurich		5
26	Aargaucantonally fixed; 4 further holiday weeks set per municipality		3

Official dates from the IDES holiday list “Schulferien 2026” (as of 8 July 2025). Bilingual cantons: value of the larger language region. AG: only the cantonally fixed weeks — municipalities set further holiday weeks individually. Source: EDK/IDES.

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For parents, the summer alone means: even someone who puts all 5 average vacation weeks into the summer holidays does not cover even this one holiday period in most cantons, and the autumn, winter, sports and spring holidays are then still entirely open. In Ticino, the summer alone leaves a gap of 5.5 weeks.

Four family scenarios, one calculation

How large the gap actually is depends on the family constellation. The model calculation for a typical canton with 13 weeks of school holidays:

The staggering scenario is Switzerland's quiet normal, and it has a price that appears in no statistic: the family is never on vacation together. Whoever wants three shared weeks opens the gap back up to 6 weeks. And single parents, 66,634 households with a youngest child between 4 and 12, have no second vacation reserve at all: for them, the gap stays at 8 to 9 weeks per year.

The times when one parent simply covered the holidays are statistically over: only 10.8% of couples with a youngest child between 4 and 12 live the model “father full-time, mother not employed”. In 14.7% both work full-time, and in a good half the father works full-time and the mother part-time. The fathers' employment rate stands at 96.4%.

Who fills the gap: the patchwork

Public holiday care exists, but it is the exception, not the system. A legal entitlement exists in exactly three cities: Zurich, Winterthur and Bern. The canton of Zurich, the only one that measures provision systematically, reports for the leading canton of Switzerland: 22% of municipalities without any holiday programme, and only 8% with care during the entire school holidays.

Even where programmes exist, they rarely cover everything: the city of Bern guarantees a place to every child registered on time, but runs its holiday care in 11 of the 13 holiday weeks and skips calendar week 30 in the middle of the summer holidays. Basel-Stadt caps its Tagesferien in summer at a maximum of 4 bookable weeks per child, against 6 weeks of summer holidays. In Lausanne, lunch is not included, and the places in the centres aérés are gone within minutes once registration opens “à midi pile”, at noon sharp. The rest is absorbed by the private network, above all the grandparents: 32% of children under 13 are cared for by them at least once a week, in rural municipalities almost half.

What the gap costs

For families without grandparents within reach, the gap becomes a bill. The range per bridged week and child runs from CHF 200 (Basel's Tagesferien, full price) through CHF 230 to 700 for private day camps up to around CHF 1,169 for a legally employed nanny at 40 hours per week, all social contributions included, calculated with the Clino payroll calculation.

Over the full year: the 6-week gap of a two-parent family costs between CHF 1,200 (Basel, full price) and around CHF 7,000 (nanny). For single parents with a 9-week gap, the range extends to CHF 10,500 per child and year. For comparison: the subsidized entry tariffs lie far below that, at CHF 10 per day in Zurich and CHF 1 per care hour in Bern, but they presuppose that one's own municipality runs a programme at all and that the week is not fully booked.

And public holidays? More days off for everyone, no help with the gap

Public holidays, incidentally, do not shift the picture, because on those days school and parents are off at the same time. But they show the same cantonal divide: Ticino leads here too with 15 public holidays, while Appenzell Ausserrhoden and Graubünden make do with 8. Ticino's children thus have the most school holidays, the longest summer holidays and the most public holidays in Switzerland.

#	Canton		days
1	Ticinomost public holidays and most school holidays		15
2	Aargau		14
3	Nidwalden		14
4	Obwalden		14
5	Schwyz		14
6	Uri		14
7	Appenzell Innerrhoden		13
8	Fribourg		13
9	Jura		13
10	Lucerne		13
11	Valais		13
12	Zug		13
13	Glarus		11
14	St. Gallen		10
15	Schaffhausen		10
16	Solothurnplus a half day on 1 May; district-level exceptions		10
17	Thurgau		10
18	Zurich		10
19	Bern		9
20	Basel-Landschaft		9
21	Basel-Stadt		9
22	Geneva		9
23	Vaud		9
24	Appenzell Ausserrhoden		8
25	Graubünden		8
26	Neuchâtelplus 2 conditional days (2 Jan / 26 Dec only after Sundays)		7

Statutory and equivalent public holidays per the Federal Office of Justice list (as of 2011, the most recent published version). On public holidays school and parents are off simultaneously — they do not change the care gap. Source: Federal Office of Justice.

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Figures to quote

What families can actually do

School is closed for up to 57 working days longer than the parents' vacation lasts. Every family organizes this gap anew every year, privately, unpaid, and not even counted by the federal government.

Surprising findings