29 percent fewer people leave Zurich on 30 September than ten years ago
In the city of Zurich, 30 September is the official moving date, known locally as the Zügeltermin: the customary date on which tenancies end. Clino analysed the city's daily data for 2015 to 2025: in 2015, 2,087 people moved out of the city on that day; in 2025, 1,483 did. Over the whole year, almost as many people moved away as in 2015. The moving date is losing weight, and moves are spreading across all month ends.
Summary
In the city of Zurich, 31 March and 30 September are the customary termination dates for tenancies. They only apply, however, if the tenancy agreement does not specify otherwise. The city publishes, for every day, how many people move out and move in. Clino analysed these data for 2015 to 2025.
On 30 September 2025, 1,483 people moved out of the city of Zurich, 29 percent fewer than in 2015 (2,087). Over the whole year the number stayed almost the same: 37,795 departures compared with 38,806. The moving date's share of all departures in the year fell from 5.4 to 3.9 percent. For 31 March the decline is even larger, down 33 percent.
The data count people, not households, and they only cover departures from the city. Moves within the city, around 45,000 people a year, are published by the city only as an annual total. For 2025, some entries are still marked as provisional, on 30 September 171 of the 1,483. But in 2023 (1,475) and 2024 (1,592), too, the figure was clearly below 2015.
Ten years: the moving date shrinks, the year does not
The chart sets 2015 at 100. Departures over the whole year barely move; in 2025 they stand at 97. Departures on 30 September fall to 71, those on 31 March to 67. So it is not that fewer people are moving away; they are moving away on other days. The data do not show why. Possible reasons are tenancy agreements with their own dates or flats that become free outside the official dates; we have not tested this.
People moving out of the city of Zurich, by the date the move takes effect. 30 September: 2,087 (2015) and 1,483 (2025). 31 March: 2,009 and 1,336. Whole year: 38,806 and 37,795. Moves within the city exist only as a yearly total and are not included. Data as of July 2026, 2025 partly provisional.
Every month end is a small moving date
In 2025, 30 September was still the day with the most departures, 14 times as many as on an average day. But 30 June (1,396) and 31 August (1,395) are close behind. Compared with the average of the other eleven month ends, 30 September is now only 1.3 times as big. In 2025, 36 percent of all departures fell on some month end; in 2015 it was 45 percent.
Persons. All ten days are month-ends. 30 September leads, but only just ahead of 30 June and 31 August. An average day in 2025: 104 people leaving.
For arrivals, 1 September wins
People moving to Zurich now tend to arrive on 1 September rather than 1 October. In 2025, 1,770 people arrived on that day and 1,234 on 1 October. In 2015 the two days were still almost level (1,650 and 1,599). Job starts and the start of the university semester in September are an obvious explanation; that is an assumption, the data give no reason.
What move-out cleaning costs
Anyone moving out has to hand the flat back clean. Many hire a company with a handover guarantee for this. On 23 September 2026, Clino collected prices from 14 providers and quote portals. The median for a 2.5-room flat is CHF 640, for 3.5 rooms CHF 794, for 4.5 rooms CHF 960. These are advertised guide and starting prices, not paid invoices. Companies with fixed price lists charge somewhat more, a median of CHF 819 for 3.5 rooms.
| Flat | Median | Lowest price | Highest price | Number of sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.5 rooms | CHF 517 | CHF 350 | CHF 655 | 10 |
| 2.5 rooms | CHF 640 | CHF 475 | CHF 750 | 12 |
| 3.5 rooms | CHF 794 | CHF 600 | CHF 950 | 14 |
| 4.5 rooms | CHF 960 | CHF 775 | CHF 1,200 | 14 |
| 5.5 rooms | CHF 1,144 | CHF 890 | CHF 1,450 | 12 |
14 price lists and price overviews from cleaning firms and quote portals in Zurich, Winterthur, Basel, Bern and Switzerland as a whole, fetched on 23 September 2026. For price ranges the midpoint counts. These are advertised guide and starting prices, not invoices. Median: half of the sources are below, half above. Swiss flats count the living room as a room, so 3.5 rooms is a two-bedroom flat.
Estimate, not a measurement
Around 30 September 2025, between 1,600 and 3,000 households in the city of Zurich are likely to have handed back a flat. If all of them hired a cleaning company, the total would come to CHF 1.1 to 2.4 million, CHF 1.9 million in the middle case. This is an upper limit: how many clean the flat themselves is not recorded anywhere. The estimate assumes that moves within the city are spread across the days in the same way as departures, and uses 2.01 people per household and the size of Zurich flats.
Quellen
- City of Zurich, open data: departures by day (od3541) (2015–2025)
- City of Zurich, open data: arrivals by day (od3531) (2015–2025)
- City of Zurich, open data: moves (od3557), households (od3806), flats (od5062) (2025)
- Canton of Basel-Stadt, data.bs.ch: migration (100138) (2025)
- homegate.ch, customary termination dates (secondary source) (2026)
- 14 price lists for move-out cleaning, Clino survey (2026)
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About Clino
Clino is a Swiss SaaS platform enabling households to legally employ domestic workers: payroll, contract and AHV registration; Clino guides the household, insurance stays with the household. CHF 19.90/month. All 26 cantons. Founded 2026 in Zurich. clino.ch
