What does Interlaken cost?
Switzerland is expensive — there is no talking that away. But it is expensive in a few highly visible places: cableways and eating out. The rest you can control, and far more than it looks from outside. 11 of the 49 destinations in this guide charge no admission, for groceries the decision is which shelf you reach for rather than which shop you enter — and on Sundays more is open here than any general Switzerland guide will tell you.
The yardstick: one pass day
"CHF 34" means nothing when you arrived yesterday. So this guide measures every price against something you can actually buy: one day of the Berner Oberland Pass. It costs CHF 240 for 3 days, so CHF 80 a day — and in the comparison tables, next to every amount, you can see whether a destination uses up a quarter of such a day, half of it, or more than one.
One point that is easy to miss: a mountain trip is not one trip. Where a fare covers the way up only, we add the way back, because nobody stays up there. That is why a one-way cableway fare can sit in the column and a full pass day next to it.
Whether a pass is worth it is the next question
What costs nothing
This is the part almost nobody adds up: 11 of 49 destinations charge no admission — lake shores, villages, gorge paths, the Höhematte in the middle of town. A further 10 are fully covered by the Swiss Travel Pass. A day in this region can cost nothing at all and still be the day you tell people about.
Every destination with price, travel time and how much of a pass day it uses
Buying your own food
Shopping cheaply in Switzerland is less about changing shop than about changing product line. Migros and Coop both run a declared low-price line, and it sits in every branch — including the one you walk past anyway.
Where do you end up shopping here — and what do you give up by making it cheaper?
| Step | What you get for it | What you give up |
|---|---|---|
| Hard discounters | The lowest price level. Aldi sits on Lindenallee in Interlaken, Lidl on Wychelstrasse in Matten — both walkable, but only one of each. | A smaller range, almost no brand-name goods, and one branch each against four Coop and two Migros locally — the detour pays only if you pass them anyway. |
| The low-price line inside the big supermarkets | The step almost nobody takes: Migros has run its low-price line M-Budget since 1996, Coop its low-price line Prix Garantie since 2005. Both sit in the same branch as the standard range, in the same aisle, with no detour. | Little choice per product, no brands, and with fresh goods sometimes the second grade. |
| Discounters stocking brands | Denner is a discounter with around 1,900 items and has two branches locally. Short trip, quick shop. | Around 75 per cent of the range is brand-name goods — and brand-name goods cost nearly the same everywhere. The discounter sign says less about the price than it looks like; Denner has been wholly owned by the Migros group since the end of 2009. |
| The standard range | A full range, fresh counters, brands — and with four Coop and two Migros branches locally, almost always the shortest walk. | The premium over the low-price line on the same shelf is the biggest item you decide inside the shop itself. |
| Station, filling station, evening | The long-hours formats — Coop Pronto, Migrolino, avec. In a tourist town like Interlaken they may stay open until 22:30, and several do. | The dearest level per item, and a small range. You do not necessarily need them for a Sunday — see the Sunday rule below. |
| Bakery, cheese dairy, farm shop | The dearest level per kilo and the only one carrying things you cannot get elsewhere: local Ruchbrot, alpine cheese from the valley, Zopf on a Saturday morning. Several independent bakeries are mapped locally. | Nothing comparable — which is not the point here. Shopping the low-price line during the week is exactly what makes this level affordable. |
Filling up
Anyone arriving from the EU usually expects the reverse: here diesel is the dearer fuel, not the cheaper one.
What does a litre cost — and why is diesel dearer than petrol here?
| Step | Amount | What you get for it | What you give up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unleaded 95 | CHF 1.84 a litre, national average July 2026 | The reference price for most hire cars. | A national average, not a pump: motorway service areas sit above it, and the same brand varies from place to place. |
| Unleaded 98 | CHF 1.94 a litre, national average July 2026 | Ten centimes above unleaded 95. | For an ordinary hire car the higher octane buys nothing. |
| Diesel | CHF 1.98 a litre, national average July 2026 | The dearest of the three — fourteen centimes above unleaded 95. | The reflex «diesel is cheaper» does not hold here. If you can pick the car, compare consumption rather than the per-litre price. |
Electricity and charging an EV
This is the one figure on this page that applies to Interlaken itself rather than to Switzerland — the electricity tariff is set per municipality and published officially.
What does a kilowatt-hour cost in Interlaken — and what does it cost on the road?
| Step | Amount | What you get for it | What you give up |
|---|---|---|---|
| At the socket where you sleep | 29.21 Rp. per kilowatt-hour, tariff year 2026, typical Interlaken household | About five per cent above the Swiss average, and down two years running — a third below 2024. Made up of energy, grid use, levies and fees; the tariff is called «E IBI». | It is the household tariff, not your price: what a holiday flat or hotel charges for a car charge is their decision. The figure says what electricity costs here — not what you will be billed. |
| Fast charging on the road | — | Convenient, available along the main routes, and a matter of minutes rather than hours. | A multiple of the household tariff, and the price depends on the charging network rather than the location: start fees, per-kWh rates and sometimes per-minute rates sit side by side. There is deliberately no figure here — the only openly readable comparison carries no survey date. |
Sundays and public holidays
The line «in Switzerland everything is shut on Sunday» does not hold for Interlaken. Canton Bern lets shops in tourist towns open on every day of the week until 22:30, and several Bödeli supermarkets use that. What does stay shut are the high holidays — and those are the real trap.
Are the shops open on Sunday — and if so, which ones?
| Situation | What applies | What does not apply |
|---|---|---|
| In a tourist town — every day until 22:30 | Canton Bern puts it verbatim: «Die Geschäfte in den Tourismusorten können an allen Tagen bis 22.30 Uhr öffnen» — shops in tourist towns may open on every day of the week until 22:30. That is the exception that sets Interlaken apart from the rest of the country. | «May» is not «does»: which shop actually opens is the shop's decision. Check the hours at the door rather than trusting the rule. |
| Elsewhere only small formats — up to 120 m², 06:00 to 18:00 | Outside the tourist towns, Canton Bern applies a floor-area limit on Sundays: bakeries, confectioners, butchers, dairies, other food shops up to 120 m² of sales area and florists may open from 06:00 to 18:00. | Every other retail shop gets two Sunday openings a year. So driving out of Interlaken into the surrounding countryside means meeting the stricter rule, not the local one. |
| High holidays — closed | The line that really matters: on Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, Whitsun, the Federal Day of Thanksgiving and Christmas, opening is prohibited. Being a tourist town changes nothing here. | Also treated as Sundays: New Year, 2 January, Easter and Whit Monday, 1 August and 26 December — there the Sunday rule applies rather than a ban. |
Parking
The commune manages its parking spaces as a rule from 07:00 to 19:00; the rate depends on whether you are inside the town core or just outside it. And one line of the regulation is worth knowing: paying the machine in euros is required to cost more.
What does an hour cost — and when does it cost nothing?
| Step | Amount | What you get for it | What you give up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outside the managed hours | — | The regulation says the commune's spaces are managed «as a rule all year from 07:00 to 19:00». So arriving in the evening and leaving in the morning costs nothing there. | «As a rule» is a caveat, and two exceptions are named: the Rosenparkplatz and the coach bays are managed round the clock. The sign at the space governs, not this line. |
| Outside the town core | CHF 1.20 an hour | A few minutes' walk costs 40 per cent less than the core rate. | Where the core ends is defined in a plan annexed to the regulation — not signposted on every corner. |
| Inside the town core | CHF 2.00 an hour | Right where you want to be. The Rosenparkplatz charges the same hourly rate, with a reduced one at night capped per night — the regulation names both. | The commune's dearest hourly rate. Topping up is expressly permitted, so there is no need to guess long. |
| General parking card for a day | CHF 10 a day (week 25, month 80, year 800) | Cheaper than the meter from roughly five hours in the core. | And the line no guidebook mentions: paying the machine in euros costs at least five per cent more than in francs, by regulation. That is not an exchange-rate margin, it is prescribed. |
Visitor's tax
The visitor's tax is levied per overnight stay, all year round, graded by type of accommodation and season. It is small, but it multiplies by nights and people — and the cantonal accommodation levy comes on top.
What sits at the bottom of the hotel bill that nobody budgeted for?
| Step | Amount | What you get for it | What you give up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tent, caravan, group accommodation | CHF 1.80 per person per night could go up to CHF 2.80 | The same rate in summer and in winter. | The regulation allows more for this category than the decision in force sets — the ceiling is shown beside it. |
| Hotel or holiday flat, winter | CHF 2.20 per person per night, 1 November to 31 March could go up to CHF 3.50 | The same for every hotel category from one to five stars, and for holiday and private flats. | The rate can rise to the ceiling beside it by a council decision, without the regulation changing. |
| Hotel or holiday flat, summer | CHF 2.50 per person per night, 1 April to 31 October could go up to CHF 3.50 | The main season, and for most guests the rate that appears on the bill. It is collected by the tourism organisation, which also decides how it is used and reports on that publicly once a year. | There is headroom up to the ceiling beside it, and the cantonal accommodation levy is charged on top. The regulation promises no specific benefit in return — it only says who collects and spends the money. |
Insider Tip
The advice that saves the most is unglamorous: change the product line, not the shop. Reaching for Prix Garantie in the Coop on the corner beats walking twenty minutes to a discounter and buying brands there. Brand-name goods cost nearly the same everywhere — the gap sits between the lines, not between the chains. And shopping that way during the week is what makes the bread from the local baker and the alpine cheese from the valley affordable, and those you cannot buy at a discounter at all.
Where these figures come from
Every figure above has a source and a date on which we last looked it up. Not every source is worth the same, so here is which one covers what:
- Fuel from the Federal Statistical Office series "average prices for energy and fuels", monthly values, as of July 2026. A national average, not a pump in Interlaken — motorway service areas sit above it.
- Electricity from the federal ElCom tariff data, queried for the municipality of Interlaken. It is the one figure on this page that is exact for this town rather than for Switzerland.
- Sundays and public holidays from the Canton of Bern's own rules, quoted verbatim. The 22:30 limit is stated there — and it matches the opening hours a station shop in town carries on the map. Two independent sources, the same number.
- Branches and product lines from OpenStreetMap (as of 23 August 2026) and from what the chains say about themselves. That is collected by volunteers, not an official branch list — but anyone can look it up, which the chains' own store finders do not allow.
- Parking and the visitor's tax from the Interlaken municipal regulations, read article by article: the parking regulation, and the visitor's-tax regulation in its 2025 version together with the council decision that sets the rates. Both are PDFs, which we read by hand. A third visitor's-tax file (the 2020 ordinance) is a scan with no text layer — nothing can be quoted from it, so it is not used here.
- What is missing here is missing on purpose: franc amounts for individual grocery items, because Migros, Coop and Aldi do not make their prices openly readable; and a price for fast charging, because the only freely readable comparison does not say when it was surveyed. Better no figure than one you cannot check.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Interlaken expensive?
The cableways are, and so is eating out — neither is worth pretending otherwise. What can be counted: of 49 destinations in this guide, 11 charge no admission at all, and when you buy your own food the shop matters less than the product line inside it. The expensive items here are few and easy to see; the daily running costs are the part you control.
Where do you shop cheapest in Interlaken?
Not where you would guess. There is one Aldi (Lindenallee, Interlaken) and one Lidl (Wychelstrasse, Matten), against four Coop and two Migros branches. So the bigger practical step is the low-price line inside the shop you walk past anyway: M-Budget at Migros, Prix Garantie at Coop. The spread within one shop is wider than the detour to a discounter.
Are shops open on Sundays in Interlaken?
Many are — and that is the exception, not the rule. Canton Bern lets shops in tourist towns open on every day of the week until 22:30; locally, 9 of 18 mapped shops carry Sunday hours, including a Migros, a Denner, two Coop supermarkets and the Lidl in Matten. If you arrived with the line «in Switzerland everything is shut on Sunday», you are underestimating Interlaken. What does stay closed are the high holidays: Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, Whitsun, the Federal Day of Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Why is diesel dearer than petrol in Switzerland?
The gap runs the opposite way from the EU: the national average was CHF 1.84 a litre for unleaded 95 and CHF 1.98 for diesel. If you can pick your hire car, compare consumption rather than the per-litre price — and do not bring the habit from home.
What does electricity cost in Interlaken?
For a typical Interlaken household a kilowatt-hour costs 29.21 Rp. — about five per cent above the Swiss average for the same category, and down two years running; it sits a third below the 2024 tariff. That is the household tariff; what a holiday flat charges you for a car charge is their own decision.
What does parking cost in Interlaken?
Inside the town core CHF 2.00 an hour, outside it CHF 1.20 — a day card is CHF 10. The regulation says spaces are managed as a rule from 07:00 to 19:00, with the Rosenparkplatz and the coach bays round the clock. And one line no guidebook mentions: paying the machine in euros is required to cost at least five per cent more than paying in francs.
How much is the visitor's tax in Interlaken?
Per person per night CHF 2.50 in summer (1 April to 31 October) and CHF 2.20 in winter, the same for every hotel category and for holiday flats; in tents, caravans and group accommodation CHF 1.80. The regulation permits higher rates than the decision in force sets — and the cantonal accommodation levy is charged on top.
How can I tell whether an excursion is expensive?
By something you can actually buy: one day of the Berner Oberland Pass costs CHF 80 (CHF 240 for 3 days). Every comparison table here shows how much of such a day a destination uses up — with one-way fares counted as return trips, because nobody stays up the mountain.