Rolex’s Bulle Facility: The Billion-Franc Expansion Set to Redefine Production

Rolex has four major production sites in Switzerland—Plan-les-Ouates, Chêne-Bourg, and Acacias in Geneva, plus Bienne in the canton of Bern. In a few years, that list will grow. Roughly halfway between Geneva and Bern, a new 100,000-square-meter campus is taking shape in Bulle, in the canton of Fribourg. Rolex calls it a long-term investment in the brand’s future. Industry outlets have described it more directly: a billion-franc bet on production capacity.

A Billion-Franc Build in Fribourg

Image Source: Rolex

Officially announced in 2023, the Bulle project broke ground last year with an estimated CHF 1 billion budget and a 2029 completion target. When finished, it will become Rolex’s fifth Swiss site and likely its most modern—though not technically its largest. (Plan-les-Ouates in Geneva still holds that title by usable area.)

The master plan calls for four production buildings connected by a central structure housing administration, catering, and meeting spaces. Renderings show a campus surrounded by trees and landscaped wetlands, with solar panels, rain-water recovery, and low-carbon LC3 cement as part of its sustainability footprint. In scale and scope, it’s a full manufacturing ecosystem, not an annex.

Why It Matters

Image Source: Time & Tide

Rolex has been running at full capacity for years. According to Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult, the brand produced about 1.24 million pieces in 2023—its highest modern output by far. The Bulle project will reinforce that capacity. It gives Rolex breathing room to keep standards tight, production steady, and the market balanced on its own terms.

Image Source: Hodinkee

Collectors shouldn’t expect the brand’s most sought-after models to suddenly sit unsold in display cases—that’s not how Rolex operates, nor how it stays desirable. But Bulle signals a brand preparing for the long game, expanding carefully to match its reach without compromising what makes its watches feel rare in the first place.

The Bridge to 2029

Between now and then, Rolex has already opened temporary production sites in the Fribourg region—Romont and Villaz-Saint-Pierre—to ease bottlenecks. Reports indicate that about 250–300 employees from these interim facilities will transfer to Bulle once it’s operational. It’s a transitional network, letting Rolex scale up gradually rather than flipping a switch in 2029.

How Rolex Is Building Its Workforce

Image Source: Rolex

A facility of this size requires a deep bench of trained craftspeople, and Rolex has been laying that groundwork for years. In Switzerland, the brand has backed a new apprenticeship program in Fribourg in partnership with Cartier and the local EPAI trade school. Beginning in 2026, it will train watchmaking operators, polishers, finishers, and production mechanics—roles that align directly with what Bulle will need once construction wraps.

Beyond Switzerland, Rolex continues to fund training centers abroad, including the Rolex Watchmaking Training Center in Dallas, opened in 2023, and the long-standing Lititz Watch Technicum in Pennsylvania. Those programs feed Rolex’s service network in North America, not necessarily Swiss production, but together they’re a long-term investment in replenishing skilled watchmakers worldwide.

What We Still Don’t Know

Image Source: Wristcheck

Rolex hasn’t detailed which departments Bulle will house—cases, bracelets, movement work, or final assembly—or what share of total production it will handle. There’s no confirmed hiring number beyond the “around 2,000 jobs” quoted in early reports, and no revised timeline beyond the original 2029 target. For now, the brand’s official line is that production and service activities are already being developed in the Fribourg region, a quiet way of saying the project is underway.

Looking Ahead

Rolex doesn’t expand often, and when it does, it usually keeps those projects quiet. The buildout of Plan-les-Ouates and Chêne-Bourg happened with little fanfare; permits and photos surfaced only after the fact. Bulle is different. It’s public, ambitious, and feels like a clear signal of Rolex’s next chapter.

Collectors will naturally hope that more space eventually means more watches—or at least a steadier flow of them. While that remains to be seen, the intention behind Bulle is clear: Rolex is investing heavily in its future, scaling, hiring, and modernizing on a level we haven’t seen before. For a company already operating at enormous scale, that says everything about where it’s heading next.