The most important price question of the Swiss ski winter is settled long before winter: buy in March and you may pay less than half of what the same season pass costs in November. An overview of the models – and what is still worth doing now, in July.
Magic Pass: the price breaker
The Magic Pass is the most aggressive offer on the market: over 100 resorts (concentrated in western Switzerland and increasingly in the German-speaking part, including Klewenalp, Sörenberg and Melchsee-Frutt), summer lifts included, valid from 1 May 2026 to 30 April 2027.
- Early bird (from 10 March 2026): CHF 419 for adults, CHF 282 for children – the first price stage ran until 7 April.
- After that the price rises in stages. Buy today and you already pay noticeably more, but still clearly less than the peak-season final price.
- The arithmetic is simple: depending on the resort, the pass pays for itself from 5 to 7 ski days.
The other models
The large destinations run their own strategies – with the same pattern of “early equals cheap”:
| Model | Principle | Typical early-bird window |
|---|---|---|
| Magic Pass | One pass, 100+ resorts | March – April |
| Top4 ski pass (Bernese Oberland: Adelboden-Lenk, Gstaad, Jungfrau, Meiringen-Hasliberg) | Four destinations, one pass | spring to autumn, staggered |
| Resort season passes (Zermatt, Laax, Davos and others) | Classic annual or season pass | spring/early summer |
| Dynamic day rates (almost everywhere) | Day tickets get more expensive as demand rises | book several weeks ahead |
We deliberately hold back concrete franc amounts outside the Magic Pass until we have verified them against the resorts’ current price lists – in many places the detailed 2026/27 prices are only published in late summer. This overview will be updated then.
The three rules of buying early
- Buy the pass in the first window or not as an early purchase at all. The staged models are built so that the first phase is the only one with a dramatic discount. Once missed, it is missed – then do the sums soberly in autumn instead.
- Calculate with your real ski days, not your hoped-for ones. The honest number from the last two winters is the best forecast. Below 5 days, the (early-booked) day ticket almost always wins.
- Dynamic day rates reward planning twice over. Buying day tickets online several weeks in advance gets you 20–30 % below the counter price at many resorts – the “early purchase for occasional skiers”.
And right now, in July?
For the Magic Pass: check the current stage and do the maths – with 7 or more planned ski days in the partner resorts it usually still pays off. For the destination season passes, the hot phase starts in late summer: we will compile the 2026/27 prices here as soon as they are published.
Sources: magicpass.ch (prices and validity 2026/27), media reports by watson/InfoMagazin on the sales launch in March 2026, resort websites. All prices without guarantee – the providers’ own information is authoritative.
