16 July 2025

Night and Sunday work – law and practice

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  • Legal
  • Employment / Immigration

Night and Sunday work are subject to specific regulations and procedures designed to balance operational requirements with the protection of employees. Especially in the context of increasingly flexible working time models, it is essential for employers to be thoroughly familiar with the requirements and carefully implement them. Only in this way can legal risks be minimized while safeguarding the health and well-being of employees.

  • Martina Aepli

    Legal Partner

  • Manuela Fuchs

    Senior Legal Associate

The regulation of working and resting times is an important aspect of Swiss labor law. The statutory provisions are intended to protect the health of employees. This applies in particular to night and Sunday work, which, due to its potentially negative effects on physical and mental health, is subject to strict legal restrictions.

The introduction of night and Sunday work can have various reasons. On the one hand, certain businesses rely on an extension of working hours to fulfill their purpose or to operate successfully from an economic perspective (see Example 1). On the other hand, employees’ desire for flexible working hours has steadily increased in recent years. Many employees wish to organize their working hours more freely, if possible, which presents employers with certain questions (see Example 2).

Examples:

  1. Doctors and nurses in a hospital must be available for patients around the clock.
  2. An administrative employee wishes to finish work at 4:00 p.m. instead of 6:00 p.m. (for childcare, hobbies, etc.), but make up the missing two hours in the evening or on the weekend.

The following provides an overview of the legal framework and the approval process. It should be noted that the provisions on night and Sunday work in the Labor Act and its ordinances are sometimes a bit confusing, and there are comprehensive federal guidelines on the subject. It is therefore not possible to cover all aspects in the context of this article. Also, the content of this article cannot be taken as advise for specific situations as it is always necessary to consider all aspects of a situation before providing a reliable assessment.


1. Principle and Exceptions

Night work is defined as the work performed between 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Sunday work refers to work performed from Saturday, 11:00 p.m. to Sunday, 11:00 p.m., as well as on public holidays (i.e. the national holiday on August 1 and up to eight additional public holidays established by the cantons). Work on public holidays is not mentioned separately in this article but is included in the term Sunday work.

Night and Sunday work are generally prohibited in Switzerland. However, as it is often the case, this principle is not absolute. It is possible to assign work to employees at night or on Sundays under certain conditions. The first step is to check whether the type of business is exempt from the approval requirement. If no such exemption applies, an application for approval can be submitted to the authorities (see procedure as per section 2.c below).

Important exceptions exist, for example, in the healthcare sector, hospitality, the tourism sector, or for utility companies. For instance, clinics, nursing homes, home care services, and hospitality businesses, as well as security companies, generally do not require approval to assign work to employees throughout the night and on Sundays. There are also very specific regulations for various business groups. For example, a dairy processing plant may, to prevent spoilage of milk, assign work to employees not for the entire night, but only from 2:00 a.m. onwards and on Sundays. A baker may work without approval on Sundays and on two nights per week throughout the entire night, but otherwise only from 1:00 a.m. onwards.

Examples:

  1. The hospital does not require approval to employ doctors and nursing staff on Sundays or at night.
  2. The administrative employee from Example 2 may work the two hours on Saturday, but not on Sunday. In the evening, he may work, for example, from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.*, but not from 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. *When working in the evening, the statutory rest periods must always be observed (generally 11 consecutive hours, although there are exceptions).


2. Exemption Permit: Requirements and Process

Companies who are not permitted to employ their employees on Sundays and at night without approval can apply for permits from the competent authorities. A distinction is made between temporary night and Sunday work and permanent or regularly recurring night or Sunday work.

a) Temporary Night or Sunday Work

Night or Sunday work is considered temporary if it involves assignments limited to no more than six months. With regard to Sunday work, it is further stipulated that such work may be performed on a maximum of six Sundays per calendar year.

Temporary night or Sunday work is permitted if there is a proven urgent need. An urgent need exists in particular if it is not possible to carry out the work during the day or evening on working days by means of planning or organizational measures, in the case of additional and time-critical work (i.e., in the presence of exceptional circumstances), or if work must be carried out at night or on Sundays for reasons of health or safety of the employees.

There is no urgent need, for example, in the case of new buildings, new roads, or routine maintenance work, as these activities can be planned. An urgent need would be affirmed, for example, if a company has to fulfill an additional large order for a customer with a short delivery deadline, which cannot be accomplished with normal production and existing resources, and where refusal would risk losing the (major) customer. Furthermore, an urgent need generally exists, for example, if work on construction sites must be carried out on heavily trafficked main roads.

b) Permanent or Regularly Recurring Night or Sunday Work

Night or Sunday work is considered permanent or regularly recurring if it lasts longer than six months or involves regular assignments that recur for the same reason over several calendar years. Regarding night work, it is also considered permanent and regularly recurring if it is performed on at least 25 nights per year.

Permanent or regularly recurring night or Sunday work is approved if it is indispensable for technical or economic reasons. The threshold for approval is higher for such work than for temporary work based on urgent need (see above, section 2.a).

Technical indispensability exists if a work or production process cannot be interrupted, postponed, or organized differently without endangering the production facilities, the result of the work, safety, the health or life of the employees, or the integrity of the working environment.

Economic indispensability exists in particular in work processes with unavoidably high investment costs that cannot be amortized without night or Sunday work. Without night or Sunday work, the business would therefore not be competitive.

Special consumer needs are considered equivalent to economic indispensability. This concerns the satisfaction of needs that are in the public interest and cannot be met without night or Sunday work, for example, the distribution of daily or Sunday newspapers.

Example: The employer of the administrative employee will not receive an exceptional permit based on the employee's wish, as the desire for more flexible working hours does not constitute either an urgent need or a technical or economic indispensability. These requirements would therefore have to be justified differently than by the preferences of the employees.

c) Approval Process

Approval for night and Sunday work is granted only under strict conditions to ensure a balance between operational needs and the protection of employees' health.

Approval for urgent temporary needs is granted by the cantonal labor inspectorate. Permanent or regularly recurring night or Sunday work is approved by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). Applications can be submitted via the EasyGov online platform, which digitizes and simplifies the process. The respective application must be submitted within a certain period before the planned start of work.


3. Effects on Working Hours, Wages, etc.

Night and Sunday work mean that additional provisions for the protection of employees must be observed, such as wage and time supplements, compensatory rest days, and, in some cases, medical examinations.

For example, an employee who works temporarily at night is entitled to a wage supplement of 25%. For permanent or regularly recurring night work, the employee is entitled to a time supplement of 10%. These supplements are mandatory and cannot be contractually waived.

For temporary Sunday work, the wage supplement is 50% (also mandatory). Interestingly, for permanent or regularly recurring Sunday work, no supplement is owed, as in these cases the supplement is usually included in a higher base salary. Compensatory rest time must be granted in both cases.


4. Consequences of Violations

Violations of the regulations on night and Sunday work can have various consequences for employers. On the one hand, the competent authorities can impose fines but there is also the risk of civil claims by affected employees, for example, for wage supplements.

Our MME employment law team will be happy to assist you in clarifying approval requirements and applying for permits.

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