Barcelona's shops and shopping centers will stop opening on Sundays starting September 15.

BarcelonaSunday, September 14th, will be the last Sunday in which Barcelona's shops and shopping centers will be free to open. Starting on the 15th, the city's retailers will have to return to their regular hours and Sunday rest, except for the Maremagnum shopping center, which can open 365 days a year thanks to its location on the Paseo Marítimo.

Since 2022, Barcelona has enjoyed an agreement—reached between the municipal government, retailers, and the unions CCOO and UGT—allowing large stores to open every Sunday and public holiday between May 15th and September 15th in the most touristic areas. It was a measure to help the sector recover after the pandemic and was supposed to last four years, until December 2025, but retailers and unions are already starting to pull strings to try to secure this rule from 2026 onwards. --BK_SLT_LNA~ However, from the 15th onwards you will be able to enjoy Barcelona

The shops that could open on Sundays were those in areas of high tourist influx (ZGAT), an area that was expanded in 2022 with the agreement between the Barcelona Commerce Foundation, Barcelona Abierta, Pimec Comercio, Fomento del Trabajo, the National Association of Large Distribution Companies (ANGED), luz y Barcelona and CCOO of the Generalitat of Catalonia, and which includes areas 1 and 2 of the Special Urban Plan for Tourist Accommodation (PEUAT), as seen in the following map prepared by Barcelona City Council.

Thus, this regulation affected specific neighborhoods such as Gothic Quarter, Barceloneta, Eixample, Sarrià, Sants, and Gràcia, designated as tourist areas. However, it left out some important shopping centers, such as Westfield La Maquinista, the largest in Catalonia, which has continued to close on Sundays because it was not part of the ZGAT (Taxi Zone).

This does not prevent businesses throughout the city from opening on the following Sundays and holidays, in addition to the permit during the summer season: Saturday, November 1 (Tots Sants), Sunday, November 30, December 6, 7, and 8 (Constitution long weekend), and all Sundays in December.

It remains to be seen, then, what will happen for the next summer season. Some retail associations, such as Barcelona Oberta, have already expressed their willingness to extend this opening permit beyond 2025; an agreement that should begin to be discussed once the 2025 season is fully concluded.