Opening hours on New Year's Eve: you need to know
Spending spontaneous shopping on New Year's Eve can be stressful. Especially if you don't know the exact opening times. Before you have to wander through the city on December 31, 2019 to buy a last minute sparkling wine or party hats, you will find an overview of the opening hours here.
These opening times apply on New Year's Eve
In most shops you can go shopping until noon. As New Year's Eve is not a public holiday, shops do not have to remain closed. However, there are certain rules. This is handled differently in the respective federal states.
- Most stores close around 1 or 2 p.m. While supermarkets are often open late, you shouldn't go to the furniture store late in the afternoon or look for noise-canceling headphones at the electronics store.
- In Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Berlin, Brandenburg, North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg, shops can be open around the clock from midnight to midnight.
- Shops in Bremen, Thuringia and Hesse close at 2 p.m.
- In Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony, opening times are from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
- Saarland and Bavaria allow sales from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
- However, each shop owner and operator is free to decide how long they are open. Therefore, pay attention to notices in shop windows, inquire on the Internet or call in advance in the shop to avoid standing in front of closed doors.