Ski Resort Opening Dates 2026/27

Of the 94 resorts in our list with a published 2026/27 date, Levi and Ruka in Finland open first, on 2 October 2026. Next come Stubaier Gletscher (9 October) and Engelberg (10 October). The earliest openings are glacier resorts and the far north of Scandinavia, where skiing starts on stored snow or at very high altitude.

Most Alpine resorts open between the last weekend of November and the second weekend of December. Of the 81 resorts in Austria, France and Switzerland with a date in our list, 32 plan to be open by 1 December 2026 and 81 by 19 December, the Saturday before Christmas. High resorts such as Les Deux Alpes, Tignes, Val d’Isere, Solden open in November; lower resorts wait until mid December.

No. They are planned dates and depend on snow and temperature. 31 of the 94 dates here come from the resort's own site; the other 63 come from season calendars and can differ from what the resort later announces. After a warm autumn a resort may open a week later or with only a few lifts, and after early snowfall some open a weekend ahead of plan. Check the resort's own site in the days before you travel, and treat any trip before mid December as a snow gamble unless the resort has a glacier or sits above 2,000 m.

Among resorts with both an opening and a closing date in our list, Kaprun in Austria runs the longest, 220 days from 10 October 2026 to 17 May 2027. Glacier resorts such as Hintertux and Zermatt ski almost all year and are not part of this comparison, because they have no single winter opening day.

For skiing before Christmas, pick a resort that opens in November, has most of its terrain above 2,000 m, or has a glacier. Those resorts open on schedule far more often than low ones. Early December is also the cheapest part of the winter for both accommodation and lift passes at many resorts.