Davos and Klosters property guide: prices, rules and who can buy

The average asking price for an apartment across Davos Dorf, Davos Platz, Klosters and Klosters Dorf was €18,039/m² in Q3 2026 according to CASAFARI Area Insights (asking prices from indexed listings, outliers excluded, series in euros), 1.4% higher than a year earlier; houses asked €16,114/m² on very few listings. Because 58.9% of Davos dwellings are second homes, no new holiday homes may be built, and non-resident buyers require a Lex Koller permit. This guide gives buyers and advisers the sourced numbers.

Imagine a Zürich family or a London wealth adviser standing outside an unremarkable 1970s apartment block on the Promenade in Davos Platz. Across the road stands a gleaming new timber-clad development, yet the local agent walks straight past it. Under Swiss federal law, anything built after March 2012 carries a strict primary-residence restriction in the land register. For anyone seeking an alpine holiday home without moving their tax residence to Graubünden, that 1970s block—and the finite pool of pre-2012 properties like it—is the entire market.

Where exactly are Davos and Klosters, and which places does this guide cover?

Davos and Klosters are neighbouring municipalities in Canton Graubünden, linked by the Rhaetian Railway and the shared Parsenn ski domain. Both sit roughly two hours from Zürich by train or car, with the Vereina railway tunnel connecting Klosters directly to the Lower Engadin.

The market figures in this guide come from CASAFARI and cover four specific localities: Davos Dorf, Davos Platz, Klosters and Klosters Dorf. They do not include outlying hamlets and side valleys such as Wolfgang, Glaris, Clavadel, Serneus or Monbiel.

Each locality has a distinct character and buyer base:

• Davos Platz: The urban centre of the Landwasser valley, housing the railway terminus, Spital Davos, the Jakobshorn cable car and the congress centre that hosts the World Economic Forum each January.
• Davos Dorf: The quieter northern entrance to the town, bordering the Davosersee and the base of the Parsenn funicular.
• Klosters (Klosters Platz): A traditional chalet village in the Prättigau valley, centred on the Gotschna cable car and long favoured by an international clientele seeking discretion.
• Klosters Dorf: The sunnier, quieter village section at the foot of the Madrisa family ski area.

According to Davos in figures, the municipality's population and housing inventory page, the municipality of Davos counted 12,771 residents on 31 December 2024, of whom 63.7% were Swiss citizens, inside a wider cantonal population of 207,400 permanent residents at the end of 2025.

What do homes cost in Davos and Klosters?

In Q3 2026, apartments across the four combined localities recorded an average asking price of €18,039/m² according to Area Insights, the source of the quarterly asking-price series. That figure represents a 1.4% increase year on year compared with €17,793/m² in Q3 2025, and a 12.5% rise since Q2 2025 (€16,039/m²), though it sits 10.4% below the Q2 2026 peak of €20,133/m². Houses in the same four localities averaged an asking price of €16,114/m² in Q3 2026, down 8.1% from €17,528/m² a year earlier.

Property Type	Q2 2025 (€/m²)	Q3 2025 (€/m²)	Q2 2026 Peak (€/m²)	Q3 2026 (€/m²)	YoY Change
Apartments	€16,039.2	€17,793.2	€20,133.4	€18,039.2	+1.4%
Houses	€18,582.1	€17,528.4	€19,545.5	€16,114.5	−8.1%

When reading these numbers, three methodological points matter. First, these are asking prices from indexed portal and agency listings with statistical outliers excluded, not land-registry transaction prices. Second, the CASAFARI series is denominated in euros, whereas sellers in Graubünden price their homes in Swiss francs (CHF); any strengthening or weakening of the franc against the euro shifts the euro series even when local CHF asking prices hold steady. Third, the series blends four distinct micro-markets.

In practical terms, a 100 m² resale apartment priced at the Q3 2026 blended average asks roughly €1.8 million before transfer tax and notary fees. In reality, detached chalets in Klosters and lake-side flats in Davos Dorf command a substantial premium over that blended average, which is why advisers run valuations and Comparables for a specific flat or chalet before advising a client on an offer.

Why does the house series jump around so much?

Between Q2 2025 and Q3 2026, the average asking price for houses across Davos and Klosters swung between a low of €15,111/m² (in Q4 2025) and a high of €19,546/m² (in Q2 2026), before settling at €16,114/m² in Q3 2026. The apparent 8.1% year-on-year drop in the house series is not a sudden market correction. Rather, very few standalone chalets or single-family houses come to market in any given quarter. When two newly renovated chalets in Klosters Platz list in the spring, the quarterly average surges; when the following quarter sees only an older farmhouse in Davos Dorf, the average drops.

A second data feature requires candour. From Q1 2023 through Q1 2025, the raw series repeated an unchanged value for nine consecutive quarters (€14,278.7/m² for apartments and €19,018.0/m² for houses). That flat line reflects a period of sparse listing coverage with no new data ingested, not two years of frozen prices. Usable history therefore starts in Q2 2025, and the charts on this page exclude the earlier quarters.

For broader context on how investors use CASAFARI data alongside official benchmarks, the transaction-based Swiss Residential Property Price Index (IMPI) provides a helpful anchor. According to the BFS residential property price index for Q2 2026, published on 30 July 2026, national transaction prices stood at 127.7 points (with Q4 2019 = 100), up 0.7% quarter on quarter and 3.5% year on year, with apartments outperforming single-family houses nationally just as they do in the Graubünden asking-price series.

Can a foreigner buy property in Davos or Klosters?

Whether an international buyer may purchase a home in Davos or Klosters is governed by the federal law on the acquisition of real estate by persons abroad, universally known as Lex Koller (BewG). Under rules summarised on the Federal Office of Justice page on the Lex Koller revision (in German), anyone who does not reside legally in Switzerland—and any non-EU/EFTA national without a Swiss settlement permit (C permit)—counts as a "person abroad" and requires a cantonal permit to acquire residential property.

By contrast, EU and EFTA citizens who have their legal and actual main residence in Switzerland (typically holding a B permit), as well as foreign nationals of any country holding a Swiss C permit, are treated exactly like Swiss citizens. They may buy a main residence or a second home without a Lex Koller permit.

Non-resident foreign buyers—including British and US citizens living outside Switzerland, as well as non-resident Germans, Dutch, Belgians and Italians—face strict limits. They may purchase a holiday home only in a designated tourist commune such as Davos or Klosters, subject to surface-area restrictions and only if they secure an allocation from Canton Graubünden's annual holiday-home quota.

Prospective buyers and their lawyers should also watch the legislative calendar. As announced in the Federal Council's press release of 15 April 2026 (in German), the federal government opened a consultation on tightening Lex Koller that ran from 15 April to 15 July 2026. The proposals include requiring a permit for third-country nationals buying a main residence in Switzerland, placing further restrictions on holiday-home purchases by persons abroad, and counting foreign-to-foreign resales of holiday homes against cantonal quotas again. None of these proposals is yet law, but because neither the notary nor the land registry (Grundbuchamt) will register a transfer without a valid permit, non-resident buyers routinely sign purchase contracts that are explicitly conditional on cantonal approval.

What does the second-home law mean for what is actually for sale?

While Lex Koller regulates who may buy, the Federal Second Homes Act (Zweitwohnungsgesetz, ZWG), in force since 1 January 2016, governs how a building may be used. Under rules tracked on the ARE page on the housing inventory and second-home share, any Swiss municipality where second homes exceed 20% of the total housing stock is barred from authorizing new second homes.

In Davos, 7,592 of the municipality's 12,879 dwellings are classified as second homes—a share of 58.9% in the 2025 municipal housing inventory. Klosters likewise sits well above the 20% statutory ceiling, as shown on the federal map of second-home shares by commune.

For a buyer, the legal consequence is straightforward: every newly built apartment or chalet in Davos and Klosters carries a primary-residence restriction in the land register (Erstwohnungsanteil) or must be operated as tourist accommodation under strict hotel-style letting rules. A buyer seeking a private holiday home must therefore buy an existing dwelling that was already lawfully built or approved before 11 March 2012, known in Swiss property law as an altrechtliche Wohnung.

Because altrechtliche flats may be used either as a first home or as a second home, local owners have steadily sold them to out-of-town holiday buyers. According to the Davos housing strategy of 2023 (PDF, in German), dated 14 August 2023, the second-home share in Davos rose from 56.0% in 2017 to 57.6% in 2022 as roughly 270 pre-2012 primary homes were converted into second homes—about 55 dwellings a year. The municipality is working on measures to slow this loss of local housing. That structural freeze on new supply, set against steady demand from Zürich and abroad, explains why pre-2012 resale apartments hold an average asking price of €18,039/m² and why buyers use Property Sourcing to find resale stock across portals.

What are the buying costs and taxes in Graubünden?

Transaction costs in Canton Graubünden are modest by European standards—a point that stands out when comparing Swiss alpine resorts against CASAFARI's property market trends for other markets. Property transfer tax (Handänderungssteuer) in Graubünden is a communal levy capped by cantonal law at 2%. Under the Davos communal tax law setting the 2% transfer tax (in German), in force since 1 January 2021, the municipality of Davos charges the full 2% of the purchase price, which is normally paid by the buyer.

On top of the transfer tax, buyers and sellers pay notary and land-registry (Grundbuchamt) fees; in Switzerland, the notary acts as a neutral public official for both parties rather than representing one side. When an owner later sells the property, any profit is subject to the cantonal real estate capital gains tax (Grundstückgewinnsteuer), where the tax rate scales down the longer the property has been held; advisers confirm the exact schedule directly with the Graubünden cantonal tax administration.

Swiss mortgage lending is conservative. Domestic banks generally require at least 20% equity for a primary residence and test affordability at a theoretical 5% interest rate; for alpine holiday homes and non-resident borrowers, lenders routinely require a much larger equity share and an existing Swiss private-banking relationship. Once acquired, a second home is subject to annual communal and cantonal wealth tax, income tax on its imputed rental value (Eigenmietwert, a rule currently undergoing federal reform), and local tourism and second-home charges.

How do professionals track this market with CASAFARI?

Because Davos and Klosters form a high-value, low-volume resale market, buying agents, family offices and wealth managers combine three tools: Area Insights for the quarterly asking-price series, Comparables for valuing an individual pre-2012 apartment or chalet, and Property Sourcing to monitor listings across Swiss portals.

Analysts and technical teams who want to replicate the quarterly series behind this guide can query the API directly using the Area Insights developer documentation (using location IDs 3684205, 3684209, 3684219 and 3684220 for the four localities) or pull property-level benchmarks via the Comparables and valuation developer documentation. Teams working inside AI assistants can also use Casafari MCP for asking the same questions from an assistant in natural language, where API and MCP calls are metered in tokens.

Whether you are sense-checking an asking price on the Promenade in Davos Platz or searching for a rare altrechtlich chalet in Klosters, you can explore the full dataset on our Area Insights product page or create an account on the CASAFARI platform to run your own market analysis.