Switzerland’s 2025-26 Ski Season Closes as Second-Best Winter for Revenue in Its History

Switzerland’s ski industry has released its final results for the 2025-26 season, and the numbers confirm what the preliminary report suggested back in May: a season that started slow, finished strong, and ultimately landed as one of the best winters Swiss resorts have recorded in a decade — even though it came in second to the record-breaking winter before last year.

Seilbahnen Schweiz, the Swiss cable car industry association, published the finalized data on September 15, 2026. Swiss ski areas recorded 25.7 million skier visits for the season — down 2.3% from the record-setting 2024-25 winter, but 9.7% above the five-year average. Transport revenue reached CHF 895.8 million ($1,081.7 million), the second-highest figure ever recorded in the history of the seasonal figure.

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The season built directly on the momentum of the excellent winter before it. Technical snowmaking, intensive slope grooming, and a run of snowfall late in the season combined to deliver good conditions across much of the country, and several individual ski areas posted record visitor numbers of their own despite the tougher backdrop. Not every resort made it through unscathed, though — 12 ski areas remained closed for the entire season, either due to insufficient snow conditions or underlying economic difficulties.

The final report’s altitude breakdown reveals a more nuanced picture than a simple “higher altitude is better” trend. Resorts below 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) actually posted the strongest relative performance in the entire country, running 37% above their five-year average — likely a reflection of how few of these lower-altitude areas remain in operation at all, with the survivors now specialized enough to draw outsized demand. The real casualty of the season was the narrow band between 1,000 and 1,200 meters (3,280-3,937 feet), which collapsed by 55% compared to its five-year average, by far the worst performance of any altitude category.

Above 1,200 meters (3,937 feet), the picture stabilized and generally trended positive: resorts between 1,200 and 1,400 meters (3,937-4,593 feet) were up 7%, those between 1,400 and 1,600 meters (4,593-5,250 feet) rose 17%, and every band up to 2,600 meters (8,530 feet) posted gains ranging from 6% to 19% against their five-year averages. In short, it wasn’t simply that “high is safe and low is risky” — it was one specific mid-low altitude band that bore the brunt of the season’s challenging conditions.

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Zermatt topped both the visitor and revenue rankings by a wide margin, recording 1.539 million skier visits and CHF 78 million in transport revenue — comfortably ahead of the rest of the field on both measures.

Top 10 Resorts by Skier-Visits (in millions)

Notably, seven Swiss destinations — Zermatt, Arosa Lenzerheide, Davos-Klosters, Verbier, St. Moritz, Jungfrauregion, and Adelboden-Lenk — each surpassed one million skier visits for the season, a distinction Seilbahnen Schweiz refers to as the country’s “ski-resorts” tier.

Top 10 Resorts by Transport Revenue (CHF millions):

Transport revenue fell just 0.7% year-on-year, a considerably smaller decline than the 2.3% drop in overall visits — meaning resorts extracted more value per visitor even in a down year. The average price actually paid per skier visit, accounting for discounts, free tickets, subscriptions, and season packages, rose 1.6% to CHF 37.65 ($45.45) including tax, continuing a steady upward climb from CHF 33.10 ($39.96) back in 2016-17.

The trend identified in the preliminary report continued through to the final numbers: international demand kept rising while Swiss visitation kept falling. Foreign guests generated 9.9 million skier visits, up 2.9% from the previous winter and now sitting at a 10-year high — edging closer to the 10 million mark. Their share of total visits climbed from 36.6% to 38.5%. Swiss skiers, meanwhile, posted 15.8 million skier visits, a decline of 5.3% from the prior season.

Regionally, Valais and the Vaud/Fribourg Alps posted the strongest gains, while the Arc jurassien and Ticino recorded the sharpest declines.

The average Swiss ski season ran 83 days in 2025-26 — one day longer than the previous winter and 2% above the five-year average of 81 days. That consistency came despite the season being, by Seilbahnen Schweiz’s own account, the sixth-warmest winter since records began, with a significant precipitation deficit. Technical snowmaking secured reliable conditions across most ski areas through the leaner stretches, while a run of snowfall late in the winter allowed for a genuine late-season recovery — echoing the same March/April surge that defined the preliminary report back in May.

The Saisonbilanz 2025-26 was authored by Laurent Vanat and published by Seilbahnen Schweiz (SBS), drawing on data from 174 operators across 151 ski areas — together accounting for 98% of all skier-days recorded in Switzerland during the 2025-26 winter, with the remaining 2% estimated based on available information.