Doing laundry on Sunday in Switzerland: what your canton actually bans

🧺 Laundry on Sunday? No law mentions the washing machine

0 of 26. That is how many cantonal laws on Sunday rest mention laundry, washing or washing machines. We searched every one of them in German, French and Italian. Federal law is silent too: the Labour Act governs when employees may work on Sundays, not what you do at home. All 26 wordings, compiled by ConvivaPlus, are further down in the Sunday Rest Compass.

What the cantons ban is noise or disturbance of public rest. A machine in your bathroom or a trip to the shared laundry room only falls under that if it actually disturbs, and each canton sets the bar with its own word.

The ban many people know is somewhere else: in the house rules and the laundry room rules. What is valid there and what is not is explained in our laundry room rules template.

⚖️ Sunday rest by canton: from "noise" in Jura to the municipality in Vaud

The shortest wording is in Jura, where any occupation "qui cause du bruit", one that makes noise, is banned on public holidays. In Zug, any activity that disturbs the rest is banned; Zurich requires the disturbance to be serious, Basel-Stadt excessive. 9 cantons need no qualifier, 10 use one.

At the other end, 4 cantons where we found no cantonal Sunday rule: Vaud gives "repos publics" to the municipal police, Ticino refers to local quiet rules, and in Aargau the Sunday act of 1861 applied until 31 August 2012.

The ConvivaPlus Sunday Rest Compass orders all 26 cantons by the word written in the law: noise as such, plain disturbance, a qualifier such as «ernstlich», professional activity only, a list of appliances, or no cantonal rule at all. How the compass works: each level rests on a quoted sentence with its reference, not on our impression. It does not tell you where you may wash on Sunday, but how high the canton sets the bar before your municipality and landlord have their say.

🏡 Housework allowed: two cantons write it into law

Basel-Landschaft bans what disturbs public rest on Sundays and, in the same section, expressly allows daily work in house and yard, provided needless disturbance is avoided. Glarus exempts daily work in house, yard and garden as long as it causes no excessive noise. That is 2 of 26 cantons naming housework.

Fribourg bans only professional activities that disturb public peace on Sundays, so private laundry is not covered. Geneva uses a list instead: drills, mowers, leaf blowers and even dropping glass at recycling points are banned on Sundays. The washing machine is not on it.

🏠 House rules on Sunday: quiet all day, separate hours for the machine

Quiet all day on Sunday, yet for the washing machine only 10 pm to 7 am: that is what the canton of Basel-Stadt writes as a landlord. Immobilien Basel-Stadt states in its house rules that quiet applies all day on Sundays and public holidays. For vacuum cleaners, dishwashers and washing machines inside the flat, the same passage expressly names the quiet hours from 10 pm to 7 am.

The integration portal of the canton of St. Gallen explains Swiss house rules to newcomers the same way: Sundays and holidays are quiet all day, the washing machine may not be used from 10 pm to 6 am.

Other house rules close the shared laundry room on Sundays, which is allowed if there is an objective reason such as a shared rota. Our laundry rota generator already includes your canton's public holidays.

📜 Are house rules binding? Only if you got them with the lease

If the house rules only hang in the stairwell, they do not bind you, even if the Sunday laundry ban is printed in bold. One moment decides: the day you signed your lease. Even the canton as a landlord puts it in the first sentence: Immobilien Basel-Stadt calls its house rules an integral part of the lease. That is exactly the condition. House rules are not a law; according to the Swiss tenants' association, they only become part of your lease if you received them when it was signed, otherwise they are not binding.

Even then there are limits: a rule without an objective reason or out of proportion does not apply. A Sunday ban in a shared laundry room has a reason; banning your own machine at 3 pm on a Sunday still needs one.

What else a landlord may decide in the laundry room, with the articles of the Code of Obligations: laundry room rules.

🔇 Washing machine quiet hours: in Basel the law says 11 pm

In Basel the law is an hour more generous than the canton as a landlord: night quiet starts at 11 pm under the law on minor offences, but at 10 pm in the house rules for canton-owned flats. A fine for noise on a rest day in Basel also requires a prior official warning. Zurich moves night quiet to 11 pm on summer Fridays and Saturdays.

Bern removed residential noise from its city regulations because federal and cantonal law already cover it. Geneva bans anything disturbing the night's peace from 9 pm to 7 am; Lausanne asks people to avoid noisy work indoors and outdoors on rest days.

None of the five cities mentions the washing machine; Lausanne's «travaux intérieurs bruyants» means noisy work in general, not laundry. The hour that matters is the start of night quiet, between 9 and 11 pm depending on where you live.

🗓️ Laundry on public holidays: in Vaud 26 December is a working day

Each canton decides which days count as public holidays. St Stephen's Day is treated like a Sunday in 15 cantons, but not in Vaud, which instead is the only canton (1 of 26) to keep the Monday after the Federal Day of Prayer.

The table counts Sundays and holidays treated like Sundays per canton for next year. Our laundry rota already fills them in for your canton.

👕 Hanging laundry on Sunday: a ban called inadmissible

Some house rules still forbid hanging laundry on the balcony on Sundays. The SRF consumer programme Kassensturz listed such a ban among inadmissible rules on 16 September 2025, next to bans on visitors or cat nets.

That is the programme's view, not a court ruling. But it matches the cantonal laws: hanging laundry makes no noise, and no cantonal law mentions it.

🚨 Neighbour complains: the route goes through the landlord

Before a landlord can end your lease over a noisy Sunday, there must be at least a written warning and 30 days' notice to the end of a month. On a Sunday the police are rarely the people to call: in Basel-Stadt a fine for noise on a rest day requires a prior official warning. The real route is tenancy law. The Code of Obligations (Art. 257f para. 2) requires tenants to show consideration for other residents and neighbours. A landlord may only terminate over noise after a written warning and if continuing the lease has become unreasonable, with at least 30 days' notice to the end of a month.

The police usually only get involved if night-time quiet is broken.