Laundry room rules template: what Swiss landlords can ban

📄 Laundry room rules template: Word and PDF

Most templates online write in "Sunday: not allowed" and exclude any liability of the management. The first is in no federal law, the second is risky in a pre-printed text. This template leaves both out: hours and the Sunday rule are fields the building fills in itself.

New is the "Validity" field: you tick whether the rules were handed over when the lease was signed or agreed later by everyone. That is exactly what decides whether they bind you. The file comes in four languages, each on one page.

Building: [street no., postcode town]   Valid from: [date]
Governs shared use of the laundry and drying room, in line with the duty of consideration in Art. 257f para. 2 CO.
1. Washing hours
Day · Hours · Note
Monday – Friday · ____ to ____ · 
Saturday · ____ to ____ · 
Sundays and public holidays · ☐ allowed ____ to ____   ☐ not allowed · Observe cantonal and municipal rest rules
2. Rota and booking
Washing follows the rota on the wall. If you don't need your slot, cross it out; swaps are noted on the rota. An unused slot becomes free after ____ minutes.
3. After washing and drying
☐ Wipe the drum and detergent drawer, leave the door open
☐ Empty the dryer's lint filter; rinse the sink, mop the floor dry
☐ Collect your laundry on time
☐ Take dry laundry down within ____ hours, then air the room
4. Consideration and damage
Take other people's laundry out of the machine only by agreement. The laundry room is not a storeroom.
Regularly washing for others for payment is not allowed.
Report faults to the management at once: ______________________
Anyone who culpably damages the appliances is liable under the statutory rules.
5. Breaches
Repeated breaches lead to a written warning from the management. Termination is only possible after a written warning and only if continuing the tenancy can no longer reasonably be expected (Art. 257f para. 3 Swiss Code of Obligations).
6. Validity
☐ These rules were handed over when the lease was signed and form part of it.   ☐ These rules are agreed later (signed by all tenants).
Place, date: ______________________ · Tenant's signature: ______________________
Name: ______________________ · Flat no.: ______________________

🚫 What landlords can ban, and what they can't

A cap of three washes a day sounds reasonable. The Swiss tenants' association considers exactly this rule probably too restrictive and therefore not allowed. In principle you can run as many loads as you need on your laundry day. The only thing ruled out is regularly turning the laundry room into a laundry service for others.

The yardstick is in the Code of Obligations: tenants must show consideration for other residents and neighbours. A rule that serves this (quiet hours, turns, cleanliness) has an objective reason. According to the tenants' association, a rule without one is never binding, not even as part of the lease.

📜 When house rules apply

Cutting one of your two washing days is, as a rule, treated by the law like a rent increase: it needs the same official form, or the change is void. Taking away something you had changes the contract one-sidedly.

A new note on the laundry room door is not yet a contract. According to the tenants' association, house rules only bind you if you received them when you signed the lease. If they come later, in case of doubt everyone has to agree. Whatever already follows from the duty of consideration applies anyway.

💰 Cost per wash: what the electricity costs

The same 60-degree wash costs 36.6 rappen in electricity in Basel-Stadt and 24.1 in Zug. The difference is not the machine but the power price: 33.3 against 21.9 rappen per kilowatt hour, 52 per cent more.

In 2027, according to ElCom, electricity gets cheaper in 22 of 26 cantons. In Basel-Stadt, the most expensive canton, it rises again. Washing three times a week at 60 degrees at Zurich prices costs about 42 francs of electricity a year; at 40 degrees (0.6 instead of 1.1 kilowatt hours) a little over half.

According to the ConvivaPlus Laundry Cost Ranking, the middle canton pays 30.8 rappen per 60-degree wash. Moving from Zug to Basel-Stadt at three washes a week costs about 20 francs more electricity a year.

The ConvivaPlus Laundry Cost Ranking below sorts all 26 cantons by this price, from cheapest to most expensive. The calculator uses your canton's official median. Without your own value it assumes an older machine at full load, as found in many shared laundry rooms. A new machine uses less: enter the value from its energy label.

🗓️ Washing on Sunday: who decides

A fixed Sunday ban takes away 52 washing days in 2026, one day in seven. No federal law requires it. If there is a ban, it is in the house rules. On top of that come cantonal and municipal rest rules that limit noise on Sundays and public holidays.

In the template, Sunday is therefore a field: allowed with hours, or not allowed. If your house rules say nothing, general consideration applies, and night-time quiet usually from 10 pm.

What all 26 cantons say about Sundays, in their own wording, with the Sunday Rest Compass: Laundry on Sunday in Switzerland.

⚠️ Eviction over the laundry room?

The law expressly names consideration for other residents as a ground for notice: anyone who keeps blocking or dirtying the laundry room can lose their flat. But not after the first row: the law first requires a written warning, and continuing the tenancy must have become unreasonable for the landlord or the other residents. When a notice is void for other reasons: The landlord gives notice.

Even then, notice on a flat must respect a period: at least 30 days to the end of a month. In a laundry room dispute, immediate termination is only possible if someone deliberately causes serious damage to the property (para. 4).

🧾 Laundry room and service charges: when you pay

You may already have paid for your wash's electricity: if the lease says nothing specific, the laundry room is covered by the rent, even though a 60-degree wash costs 36.6 rappen of electricity in Basel-Stadt. The landlord may only bill electricity and water as service charges if that is specifically agreed.

Often it works differently: coin machine or card. Then the price per wash is the bill. The calculator above shows whether it is fair: electricity is only part of it, with water, the machine and upkeep on top. What else may go on the service charge statement is explained there. If the machine is broken for weeks, see rent reduction for defects.

🧹 Cleaning the laundry room: the list for the door

The most expensive mistake in the laundry room isn't a full lint filter, it's the wrong programme: 90 degrees use 4.5 times as much electricity as 30 degrees, in Basel-Stadt 59.9 instead of 13.3 rappen per wash. The most common dispute is still the lint filter. This list is also in the template and fits on a note next to the machine.

🗓️ Laundry rota: who washes when

Washing on Good Friday? In the rota it depends on the canton: in 2 cantons (Ticino, Valais) it is not a public holiday, everywhere else it is. Only 4 public holidays apply everywhere. The rules say how to wash; the rota says whose turn it is. The ready-made rota with your canton's public holidays and a fair order is the laundry rota template, for a week, a month or a flatshare.

If the building has general house rules, the laundry room rules belong in them as a chapter of their own, so that both are handed over when the lease is signed.