Gotthard traffic forecast: live and by date
Jam length
KM · AVG 5 MINJam calendar · southbound
Longest reported delay per day in the selected direction. Tap a day for details.
Queues at the Gotthard are rarely random. Southbound, the tailback forms when holidays or long weekends begin; northbound, when they end. The longest queues are in July and August; Easter, Ascension Day, Whitsun and Corpus Christi also bring heavy traffic. Below you will find the dates up to summer 2027 and the times when it is better to travel.
Jump to: data recorded since July 2026 · congestion calendar to summer 2027
How the Gotthard queue builds up
The Gotthard road tunnel is a single tube with two-way traffic. At most 1,000 passenger car units per hour in each direction may enter. When more vehicles arrive, traffic is metered at the portals and the queue grows back along the motorway: southbound on the approach to Göschenen (north portal), northbound on the approach to Airolo (south portal).
That is why FEDRO calls a half-hour wait “safety time”. It only speaks of a jam caused by traffic overload once you have been queuing for two hours or more. Why traffic is metered is explained on the page about the Gotthard road tunnel.
Which days see queues, and in which direction?
Southbound, queues build up at the start of school and public holidays. According to FEDRO, Easter traffic usually starts as early as the weekend before the holidays; it expects considerable delays from the Wednesday afternoon before Easter, on Maundy Thursday and on Good Friday. Before Ascension Day and Corpus Christi, holiday traffic starts from Wednesday afternoon, before Whitsun from Friday midday.
Northbound, queues build up on the return journey: after Easter from later on Easter Sunday and on Easter Monday, after Ascension Day and Corpus Christi from Sunday midday, at Whitsun on the afternoon of Whit Monday. According to FEDRO, holiday traffic from Germany and Italy may also be heading north on the two weekends after Whitsun.
In summer 2025, FEDRO expected long queues from early July to mid-September, mainly from Friday to Sunday. Southbound, this mainly affected July and August. Northbound, it expected “busy traffic” from mid-July to mid-September. In fine weather, weekend traffic increases further throughout Switzerland.
Quieter times come in autumn, but not queue-free. For October and November 2026, the congestion calendar of the Touring Club Switzerland (TCS) showed at most “busy traffic” in both directions, the second-lowest of four levels. Even so, the FEDRO reports recorded by Stauportal.ch show at least an hour of waiting time in October on 4 days northbound and 2 days southbound, the most on Sunday 25 October 2026, with 10 km in front of Airolo. Before Christmas, southbound traffic picks up again.
What Stauportal.ch has recorded since July 2026
Since 26 July 2026, Stauportal.ch has stored the FEDRO traffic reports every 5 minutes. The table sums up summer and autumn 2026: the longest wait southbound was on Monday 27 July, with a 12 km queue at Göschenen; northbound on Friday 7 August, with 11 km at Airolo. Waiting times of 30 minutes or more almost always occurred between 11:00 and 19:00, and hardly ever before 9:00.
| Summer and autumn 2026 | Southbound (at Göschenen) | Northbound (at Airolo) |
|---|---|---|
| Longest queue | 12 km, about 2 h waiting time, Monday 27 July 2026 | 11 km, about 1 h 50 min waiting time, Friday 7 August 2026 |
| Days with at least 60 min waiting time | 15 of 98 | 25 of 98 |
| of which in August | 6 of 31 | 15 of 31 |
| Longest average waiting time on | Saturday, Monday, Friday | Friday, Sunday, Saturday |
| Share of hours with at least 30 min waiting time between 11:00 and 19:00 | 81% | 84% |
| Share of hours with at least 30 min waiting time before 9:00 | 5% | 2% |
This is one season, not a long-term average: holiday dates, weather and accidents shift the picture from year to year. How the figures are produced is explained under About Stauportal.
What time of day is best to set off?
FEDRO's timings show the pattern: the queue grows with the waves of departures from Wednesday afternoon or Friday midday and, on the return journey, from Sunday midday. If you reach the portal before the wave, you are generally better off than someone who sets off in the middle of it.
In its summer forecast, the TCS advises travelling early in the morning or late in the evening and, where possible, on weekdays. For the return journey, it names Monday to Thursday as the better days throughout August.
The tunnel is not always open at night. FEDRO closes it for maintenance on around 26 nights every year in March/April, June and September/October; according to the TCS, it is also closed on Wednesdays from 11 pm to 1 am for abnormal loads. The nights affected are listed on the page Gotthard closures.
Congestion calendar: winter 2026/27 to summer 2027
The table lists the days on which public holidays, or the start and end of holidays in large regions, coincide. It is based on the official holiday calendars of the city of Zurich, the cantons of Bern (German-speaking part), Basel-Stadt, Basel-Landschaft and Lucerne, the German federal states and the Netherlands. The direction shows on which side the queue usually forms: “South” means a queue on the approach to Göschenen, “North” a queue on the approach to Airolo.
| Date | Occasion | Direction | More |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winter 2026/27 | |||
| 20, 22 and 26 Dec | Christmas holidays, very heavy traffic according to the TCS | South | – |
| 1–3 Jan | Return journey after New Year | North | – |
| February | Ski and carnival holidays, especially at weekends | Both | – |
| Spring 2027 | |||
| 20–21 March | Holidays begin in Basel and Bavaria | South | Easter |
| 24–26 March | Wednesday afternoon to Good Friday | South | Easter |
| 28–29 March | Easter Sunday and Easter Monday | North | Easter |
| 3–4 April | Holidays end in Basel, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg | North | Easter |
| 10–11 April | Holidays begin in Bern and end in Lucerne | Both | Easter |
| 24–25 April | Holidays end in Bern and begin in the city of Zurich and the Netherlands | Both | Easter |
| 5–7 May | Ascension Day and the Friday after | South | Whitsun |
| 8–9 May | End of the Ascension break and of the city of Zurich spring holidays | North | Whitsun |
| 14–15 May | Weekend before Whitsun | South | Whitsun |
| 17 May | Whit Monday | North | Whitsun |
| 26–27 May | Corpus Christi | South | Whitsun |
| 29–30 May | End of the Corpus Christi break and of the Whitsun holidays in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg | North | Whitsun |
| Summer 2027 | |||
| 26–27 June | Holidays begin in Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland | South | Summer |
| 2–4 July | Holidays begin in Bern, Basel and Lucerne | South | Summer |
| 16–18 July | Holidays begin in the city of Zurich and North Rhine-Westphalia | South | Summer |
| 30 July–1 Aug | Holidays begin in Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria | South | Summer |
| 14–15 Aug | Holidays end in Bern, Basel and Lucerne | North | Summer |
| 21–22 Aug | Holidays end in the city of Zurich | North | Summer |
| 11–13 Sept | Holidays end in Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria | North | Summer |
Other cantons and municipalities have their own holiday dates. An overview of all cantons is published by the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK).
How to avoid the Gotthard queues
The most effective step is to change your day of travel. According to the TCS, if you want to avoid waiting, it is best to travel on weekdays or outside peak times. As a rule, travelling even one day before or after the holidays start makes a noticeable difference.
Stay on the motorway when there is a queue. FEDRO explicitly advises against diverting onto cantonal and local roads, as this puts a burden on the villages along the route, and recommends allowing enough time for the journey. In the canton of Uri, motorway slip roads are also closed when there is a queue. How this works is explained on the page Easter traffic.
The San Bernardino route (A13) is the main alternative route, but on peak days there are queues there too. Whether the detour pays off depends on the situation at the moment you decide. You will find the trade-offs on the page Avoiding the Gotthard.
Before you set off: check the live situation
The forecast shows when a queue is likely. How long the queue is right now is shown on the home page with the current traffic situation: queue length and delay per direction, updated every 5 minutes from FEDRO traffic reports. What the portals look like is shown by the Gotthard webcams at Göschenen and Airolo. Accidents and breakdowns cannot be predicted and can cause queues even on quiet days.
Traffic forecast: frequently asked questions
How is the Gotthard traffic forecast produced?
A time-series model (TimesFM by Google) projects forward the queue length reported over the last 42 days, separately for each direction. Every 15 minutes it produces a forecast for the next 6 hours in 15-minute steps, and every hour one for the next 48 hours. In the chart, these are the light, dashed bars to the right of “Now”.
How reliable is the forecast?
Every day the site checks how well earlier forecasts matched what was reported later, compared with two simple assumptions: the situation stays as it is now, or it is the same as at the same time a week earlier. The result is shown below the chart as the average error in kilometres for the selected range, next to the figures for the two assumptions. No model can predict accidents, breakdowns or closures.
What does the jam calendar show?
For each day, the longest reported delay in the selected direction, coloured by level: free-flowing, up to 29 minutes, 30 to 59 minutes and 60 minutes or more. Tomorrow appears as a forecast marked “≈”. Above it you can see which weekday was the quietest over the last 12 weeks.
How is the waiting time worked out from the queue length?
If FEDRO reports a delay, that figure is used. Otherwise the page applies the rule of thumb 1 kilometre of queue ≈ 10 minutes of waiting and marks the value with “≈”.
When is there no queue at the Gotthard?
A queue can never be ruled out completely, but queues are least likely outside the holidays and long weekends. The TCS advises travelling on weekdays and early in the morning or late in the evening, and autumn is generally quieter. The forecast at the top shows whether a queue is expected in the next few hours. For each day, the jam calendar shows the longest reported delay and which weekday was the quietest over the last 12 weeks. Accidents and breakdowns can cause queues even on quiet days.
Information provided without guarantee. Official information from FEDRO and the cantonal police always takes precedence.