Nine resorts, nine ways of saying "kids ski free". We read each operator's own page and quote the rule, because the age on a comparison site is often a year out of date.
"Kids ski free" sounds like one fact. It is not. Across the nine resorts below, the same promise is written nine different ways, and at least four of them are not comparable to each other at all.
One resort says born 2021 or later. Another says under 5. A third says under 10, but only with a guest card and only if a parent is with them. A fourth gives you free passes for children up to 15, but only if you buy three days or more for yourself. A parent trying to work out which trip is cheaper cannot line these up, and no comparison site we could find lines them up either.
So we read the operators' own pages, one at a time, and quoted what each one actually says. Where the page was ambiguous, we left it out and said why.
Austrian, German and Swiss operators mostly price by birth year, not age. A pass says "Jahrgang 2021 und junger", meaning children born in 2021 or after. French and North American resorts mostly price by age on the day: under 5, under 6.
The difference is not cosmetic. A birth-year rule moves by one year every season. A child born in December 2020 is free at a birth-year resort through one winter and paying the next, regardless of how old they are on the day you ski. An age rule does the opposite: it follows the child's birthday, so a February birthday can change what you pay mid-trip.
This is also why an age you read on a third-party site is the least reliable number in family ski planning. It was probably correct once.
| Resort | How the rule is written | The rule | Season on the page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Silvretta Montafon (AT) | Birth year | Born 2021 or later ski free on the Bambini Karte | 2026/27 |
| Kreischberg (AT) | Birth year | Born 2021 or later (to age 6) free on the Mini-Ticket | 2026/27 |
| Saalbach-Hinterglemm (AT) | Birth year | Born 2021 or later free on the miniAlpini Card | Current published |
| SkiWelt Wilder Kaiser (AT) | Birth year, conditional | Born 2011 to 2020 free when a parent buys 3 days or more | As published |
| Ischgl (AT) | Age, conditional | Under 10 free with a parent, VIP tariff only | 2026/27 |
| Zell am See-Kaprun (AT) | Age | Under 6 free | General policy |
| Adelboden-Lenk (CH) | Age, plus weekday | Under 6 always free; Saturdays, 2 children 6 to 15 free per adult | Current published |
| Courchevel (FR) | Age | Under 5 free | 2026-2027 |
| Avoriaz (FR) | Age | Under 5 free | 2025/26 |
While compiling this, the search result for Kreischberg said children born 2020 or later ski free. The operator's own page said 2021. The search index had cached last season's rule.
That is a one-year error on the exact number that decides whether you pay for a lift pass. Before you book, open the resort's own pricing page, not the summary above it.
Nine resorts made this index. Nine more did not, and the reasons are worth reading, because they are the same traps you will hit checking a resort yourself.
Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis states that children up to birth year 2020 travel free. Its pricing page carries both 2025/26 and 2026/27 labels, so we could not tell which season that cohort belongs to. A birth-year rule shifts every season, so a guess here would be a coin flip. Excluded until the operator is unambiguous.
Lech Zurs advertises a free card for children up to 14. Read closely, that is the Lech Card, a guest card, not a lift pass. Reporting it as a free ski pass would be wrong.
Winterberg appeared to offer free skiing for under-11s, but the source was a news site reporting a time-limited end-of-season promotion, not a standing policy.
Chamonix is served by several operators and the figure we found applied to one lift. An area-wide claim built from one lift's fare is the kind of number that sends a family to the wrong ticket window.
Arabba, Engelberg and Zermatt all publish something, but the pages either truncated mid-rule or came from a regional aggregator rather than the operator. Gressoney offers free entry to a snow park, not a lift pass. And a promising match at Feldberg turned out to be a 2020 parking master plan.
The method here is repeatable, and it is faster than reading three comparison sites.
Search in the local language. German pages say Kinder, gratis, kostenlos, Jahrgang. French pages say enfants, gratuit, moins de. The native page is more complete and more current than the English one, every time.
Open the operator's own domain. Not a booking site, not a ski school, not a tourism portal. The lift company sets this price.
Find the season label on the page. If it says 2025/26, you are reading last winter's rule. If it shows two seasons, treat the number as unconfirmed.
Read the condition, not the headline. Free with a parent, free on the day pass only, free on Saturdays, free from three days: the qualifier is where the money is.
Screenshot it. If the ticket window disagrees at the counter, the operator's own page is the thing to hold up.
Each rule was found by searching in the operator's own language, then opening the operator's own page and reading the rule from the live page rather than from a search snippet. Every entry records the exact sentence, the URL it came from, and the season label printed on that page. Entries where the operator was ambiguous, where the source was not the lift operator, or where the free item turned out to be something other than a lift pass were excluded and listed above rather than quietly dropped.
Compiled 7 August 2026. Operators publish 2026/27 pricing through September and October, so several entries here are marked as the current published season and will move. We will re-read every page when the new season posts, and the exclusions are the first ones we will re-check.
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Transparenzhinweis: Dieser Inhalt wurde mit KI-Unterstützung erstellt und von Tom Meredith, unserem Redakteur, überprüft. Preise, Daten und Verfügbarkeiten können sich ändern. Wir empfehlen, Angaben vor der Buchung direkt beim Skigebiet zu bestätigen.