Live status, 2026 calendar and Europe/Zurich timezone
The SIX Swiss Exchange opens at 9:00 AM and closes at 5:30 PM CET, with no lunch break. Like Madrid and Frankfurt, the Swiss exchange is on CET/CEST. London is one hour behind.
Its benchmark index is the SMI (Swiss Market Index), which tracks the 20 largest companies listed in Switzerland.
The defining feature of SIX is its structurally defensive profile: Nestlé, Roche and Novartis alone account for around 50% of the SMI, making the index less volatile than the CAC 40 or DAX, but also less responsive to economic cycles.
This page covers everything you need to trade the Swiss market: exact hours, 2026 holidays, the make-up of the SMI, the FINMA regulatory framework and the best liquidity windows.
The SIX Swiss Exchange operates in the Europe/Zurich time zone, identical to Europe/Paris: UTC+1 in winter (CET) and UTC+2 in summer (CEST). Trading is continuous, with no lunch break. London is one hour behind (GMT/BST).
Like the LSE or BME, SIX runs a pre-open phase from 6:00 to 9:00 AM: orders accumulate without executing and a theoretical opening price is published.
The session starts at 9:00 AM with an opening auction, then trading becomes continuous. It ends with a closing auction between 5:20 and 5:30 PM, which sets the official SMI price. For blue chips, a Trading-at-Last phase extends trading at the closing price until 5:40 PM.
The SIX Swiss Exchange is operated by SIX Group, which has also run the Madrid Stock Exchange (BME) since 2020. The MIC code of SIX is XSWX.
SIX follows its own calendar, distinct from the Swiss cantons. In 2026, it is closed on the following days:
| Date | Holiday | Session |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday 1 January 2026 | New Year’s Day | Closed |
| Friday 2 January 2026 | Berchtoldstag | Closed |
| Friday 3 April 2026 | Good Friday | Closed |
| Monday 6 April 2026 | Easter Monday | Closed |
| Friday 1 May 2026 | Labour Day | Closed |
| Thursday 14 May 2026 | Ascension Day | Closed |
| Monday 25 May 2026 | Whit Monday | Closed |
| Thursday 24 December 2026 | Christmas Eve | Closed |
| Friday 25 December 2026 | Christmas Day | Closed |
| Thursday 31 December 2026 | New Year’s Eve | Closed |
The Swiss exchange closes more days than BME or the LSE. Berchtoldstag (2 January) and Christmas Eve (24 December) are SIX-specific closures with no Euronext equivalent. SIX shares the Good Friday and Easter Monday closures with the other continental exchanges.
Note: Swiss National Day (1 August) and St Stephen’s Day (26 December) are also SIX holidays, but both fall on a Saturday in 2026. They therefore have no impact on the trading calendar.
As on the other European venues, SMI volumes concentrate at the open and during the overlap with Wall Street. The index’s defensive profile tends to smooth out the moves, however.
The SMI is the benchmark index of the SIX Swiss Exchange. It tracks the 20 largest and most liquid Swiss stocks listed in Zurich. It is denominated in Swiss francs (CHF). For a euro-based trader, SMI returns therefore carry EUR/CHF exposure.
The sector make-up of the SMI is radically different from the other major European indices.
The defensive trio. Nestlé (food), Roche (pharma) and Novartis (pharma) alone account for around 50% of the SMI. These three are multinationals with globally diversified revenues and little cyclicality. As a result, the SMI is structurally less volatile than the CAC 40, the DAX or the IBEX 35. In a crisis, this defensive make-up can make it a relative safe haven among European indices.
Finance. UBS and Zurich Insurance are the two main financial names. Since UBS acquired Credit Suisse in 2023, UBS alone represents the Swiss banking sector in the index.
Industry and materials. ABB (automation and electrification), Geberit (premium sanitary products) and Sika (construction materials) make up the industrial side of the SMI. These names are closely tied to the global economic cycle.
Luxury and watches. Richemont (Cartier, IWC, Van Cleef) is the SMI’s exposure to Swiss luxury, with a significant correlation to the Chinese market.
Switzerland is not an EU member and SIX is not subject to the MiFID II framework. Swiss financial-market regulation falls under FINMA (the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority).
For a retail trader accessing the Swiss market through a European broker, it is the broker’s regulatory framework (MiFID II) that governs the client relationship. FINMA, for its part, regulates the participants in the Swiss financial markets.
The Swiss franc (CHF) is considered a safe-haven currency. In times of geopolitical tension or market stress, it tends to appreciate. For a euro-based trader, a rising franc mechanically supports SMI performance once converted into euros.
Conversely, an overly strong franc weighs on the index’s large exporters (Nestlé, Roche, Novartis), which can hold it back in franc terms. It is partly to limit these effects that the Swiss National Bank intervenes periodically in the currency market.
Beyond equities, SIX also runs a vast structured-products market (over 60,000 listings) and SIX Digital Exchange (SDX), its tokenised-assets platform. These markets are not directly relevant to retail traders but illustrate the breadth of SIX Group’s activities.
SIX opens at the same time as the other major European exchanges.
| Exchange | Open | Close | Benchmark | Timezone |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇨🇭 SIX (Zurich) | 9:00 AM | 5:30 PM | SMI | CET (UTC+1) |
| 🇫🇷 Euronext Paris | 9:00 AM | 5:30 PM | CAC 40 | CET (UTC+1) |
| 🇩🇪 XETRA (Frankfurt) | 9:00 AM | 5:30 PM | DAX 40 | CET (UTC+1) |
| 🇪🇸 BME (Madrid) | 9:00 AM | 5:30 PM | IBEX 35 | CET (UTC+1) |
| 🇬🇧 LSE (London) | 8:00 AM* | 4:30 PM* | FTSE 100 | GMT (UTC+0) |
At 9:00 AM CET, all of these venues open simultaneously. There is no time difference to manage for a trader following both the CAC 40 and the SMI on the same day.
In the afternoon, from 3:30 PM CET, the open of the NYSE and Nasdaq revives volumes. Nestlé, Roche and Novartis all have a US listing (ADR or secondary listing) that creates arbitrage flows between Zurich and New York in this window.
To access real-time SMI quotes from Europe, ProRealTime provides SIX data with the history needed to backtest Swiss stocks. Try ProRealTime for free.
Monday to Friday, except for the holidays listed above. The widget at the top of this page shows live status.
9:00 AM CET. SIX shares the CET/CEST zone with continental Europe, so there is no conversion to make. London is one hour behind (8:00 AM GMT).
5:30 PM CET. The closing auction, between 5:20 and 5:30 PM, sets the official SMI price.
The Swiss Market Index tracks the 20 largest and most liquid stocks listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange. It is denominated in Swiss francs and is around 50% dominated by three names: Nestlé, Roche and Novartis.
The SMI’s sector make-up is concentrated in pharma and food (Nestlé, Roche, Novartis), two low-cyclicality sectors with globally diversified revenues. That makes the index structurally less volatile than its European peers through the economic cycle.
Yes. The SMI is denominated in CHF. For a euro-based trader, returns on an SMI-linked instrument carry EUR/CHF risk. In times of market stress, the CHF tends to appreciate, which supports gains expressed in euros.
No. Switzerland is not an EU member. SIX is regulated by FINMA (the Swiss regulator), not by MiFID II. For a trader accessing the Swiss market through a European broker, it is the broker’s framework (MiFID II) that governs the commercial relationship.
Berchtoldstag (2 January), Ascension Day, Whit Monday and Swiss National Day (1 August) are days when SIX closes while Euronext Paris trades normally. On top of that, 24 and 31 December are fully closed on SIX, whereas Euronext only runs a half-day session.
Maxime holds two master’s degrees from the SKEMA Business School and FFBC. As founder and editor-in-chief of NewTrading.fr, he writes daily about financial trading.
