Sunday shopping in St. Gallen: the city centre has a Sunday rule almost nobody knows
✓ Checked at the source · as of 28 October 2026
Search for Sunday shopping in St. Gallen and you find Advent dates, or nothing at all. Yet since 1 June 2020, shops in the city centre may open on every Sunday and public holiday from 10:00 to 17:00, provided they comply with the Labour Act. That is two hours more than cantonal law gives a Sunday opening in Advent.
Every Sunday 10:00 to 17:00, provided the Labour Act is met. So why isn't every shop open? 📅 Dates 2026 — when and where
Sonntagsverkauf St. Gallen
dates per shopno date for all shops — Art. 12(1)(b) RLG SG (official text in German only; paraphrased): at most four Sunday openings per shop per year, approved by the municipality. Para. 3: in Advent from 12:00 to 17:00.
- Shopping Arena: 29 Nov, 13 Dec and 20 Dec · 12:00–17:00 shopping-arena.ch · checked on 26 October 2026
- Organiser
- Stadt St. Gallen
Source: stadt.sg.ch · checked on 28 October 2026
🏙️ City centre every Sunday: what is allowed
Within the city-centre perimeter, shops may open on every public day of rest from 10:00 to 17:00, provided the requirements of the Labour Act are met (Art. 3(b) SRS 621.11).
What makes it possible is a status you would rather expect of a ski resort: the city of St. Gallen is one of the canton's 15 tourist municipalities, alongside Wildhaus, Amden and Bad Ragaz (Art. 7 of the ordinance on the day of rest). Tourist municipalities may grant longer hours to shops that meet a tourist need (Art. 11 RLG). The city council set this on 26 May 2020 for the whole city centre, in force since 1 June 2020.
The boundary follows house numbers, not districts: from Rosenbergstrasse via Unterer Graben and Moosbruggstrasse to St.-Leonhard-Strasse. That way, shops on a boundary street may open equally long on both sides of the street.
The proviso is in the regulation itself: for staff, the federal Labour Act applies (Art. 2 SRS 621.11). Anyone employing staff on a Sunday in principle needs a permit (Art. 19 ArG), except on the at most four Sunday openings under Art. 12 RLG. For those, the canton has not required one since 2018, provided the municipality designates or approves the Sundays (Art. 4a of the implementing ordinance on labour). Allowed therefore does not mean open: whether a shop opens on a Sunday is on its own website.
🛒 Open today: small shops 7:00 to 21:00
In St. Gallen, food shops up to 120 m², kiosks and florists may trade on all Sundays and public holidays from 7:00 to 21:00 (Art. 9 and 10 RLG).
They need neither a Sunday opening nor the city centre. The law counts among them shops selling mainly food on 120 m² at most, kiosks, florists and outlets at motorway service areas. Petrol stations selling fuel and car accessories are not covered by the opening-hours rules at all (Art. 7(3) RLG).
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Calculated from the ConvivaPlus dataset — every date with its own source above.
🕐 Open on Sunday? — the radar
The same radar as on the Swiss overview, set here to this canton: date in, verdict with hours and statutory rule out.
Sunday Radar by ConvivaPlus
Pick a canton and a date — and see what actually applies that day.
The rule in 12 cantons — read at the legal source
⚖️ Cantonal rule verbatim
Who designates, how many Sundays are permitted and what hours the act sets — that is the canton's business, not the city's. Hence it sits here rather than beside a single date.
- Counted per
- shop
- At most
- 4
- Authorised by
- municipality
- Hours in the law
- 12:00–17:00
Counting is per shop, not per town — a date for all shops exists only where the authority approves a general opening.
Art. 12 Abs. 1 Bst. b und Abs. 3 RLG: «Die politische Gemeinde kann durch Reglement oder Bewilligung Ausnahmen von den gesetzlichen Ladenöffnungszeiten zulassen: … b) für allgemeine oder individuelle Sonntagsverkäufe, höchstens für vier je Laden und Jahr; … Für allgemeine oder individuelle Sonntagsverkäufe in der Adventszeit kann die Ladenöffnung von 12.00 Uhr bis 17.00 Uhr zugelassen werden.» (Original German wording — cantonal law is not translated here)
St. Gallen · Art. 12 Abs. 1 lit. b und Abs. 3 RLG SG (sGS 552.1) · Source
🚫 Never: five high holidays
On the five high holidays, the law allows no Sunday opening (Art. 12(2) with Art. 3 RLG). Three of them always fall on a Sunday.
| High holiday | 2026 |
|---|---|
| Good Friday | 3 April |
| Easter Sunday | 5 April |
| Whit Sunday | 24 May |
| Federal Day of Thanksgiving | 20 September |
| Christmas Day | 25 December |
On top of that come days of rest on which staff may not work without a Labour Act permit, even during an approved sale: New Year's Day, 1 August and All Saints' Day together with the adjacent Sunday, Easter Monday, Ascension Day, Whit Monday, 24 December, and 26 December with the Sunday directly after it (Art. 4a(3) of the implementing ordinance on labour).
In 2026 that hits 27 December. In 10 municipalities in the canton of Zurich the same Sunday is a shopping day; in St. Gallen the relief for staff does not apply that day.
🛍️ Shopping on Sunday — what differs here
The city has voted on this Sunday rule. The popular initiative «Kein Sonntagsverkauf in der Stadt St.Gallen» (no Sunday shopping in the city of St. Gallen) was rejected on 15 May 2022 by 10,447 votes to 7,549, and the city parliament's counter-proposal failed too, by 10,243 no to 6,896 yes. The 2020 rule stayed.
Shopping Arena sits in Winkeln on the western edge of the city, outside the city-centre perimeter: each of its Sunday openings needs approval. It uses 3 of the 4 the law allows it, and 6 December is not among them.
City-centre shops trading on any Sunday they like: what do you think?
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🎯 Practical tips for this trading Sunday
What else counts in St. Gallen around Sunday, for shoppers and for shops.
- 1Saturday until 20:00 in the city centreWithin the perimeter, shops stay open until 20:00 on all working days, Saturday included (same city regulation, Art. 3(a)). Outside it, Saturday closes three hours earlier (Art. 8 RLG).
- 2Your own Sunday opening: city policeA shop applies for its Sundays to the St. Gallen city police, using the form for an exceptional permit (Gesuch um Ausnahmebewilligung) on stadt.sg.ch.
Sunday trading nearby
❓ Frequent questions — answered
Answers taken from the statutory text and the official publication – no date is carried over from last year.
People also ask
Related questions from our magazine
The «city of stars» with the market on Gallusplatz has its own page, with dates and opening hours.
The ConvivaPlus verdict
St. Gallen is more open on Sundays than its reputation suggests. The city centre may open every Sunday if the Labour Act is met, small food shops anyway, and cantonal law leaves every shop 4 Sunday openings.
What is missing is a date shared by all shops.
When we last checked: Read on 28 October 2026: the act on the day of rest and shop opening (sGS 552.1), its ordinance (sGS 552.11), the implementing ordinance on labour (sGS 511.11), the city's regulations (SRS 621.1 and 621.11), stadt.sg.ch, the Shopping Arena opening hours. Official texts in German only. Vote result: St. Galler Tagblatt, 15 May 2022.
Check the latest: ConvivaPlus Sunday trading dataset 2026 – St. Gallen →
- ◆8 exceptions with no closing time. For that many kinds of outlet the opening-hours rules do not apply at all (Art. 7(3) RLG), from markets and petrol stations to galleries and bookshops during a reading.
How we check
According to the ConvivaPlus calendar, there is no Sunday here for all shops, but 3 documented Sundays of individual shops (Shopping Arena), each checked at the shop's own source.
Every date comes from the organiser's, the municipality's or the canton's own site — never from an aggregator, never copied over from last year. Next to each source is the date we last read it.
Anything not yet published stays open — we don't guess.
Something missing or changed? A note below is enough; we check it at the source.
ConvivaPlus Editor · Law & Housing
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100 house numbers, 22 streets. That is how exactly the Sunday line is drawn.
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🛍️ Sunday shopping · 26 October 2026