Q&A from the Bais HaVaad Halacha Hotline

In Gear

July 30, 2026

Q Is swimming gear like bathing suits, swim goggles, and pool floats muktzeh?

A There are two main categories of muktzeh:

• Muktzeh machmas gufo: a raw, unprocessed object like a stone or branch. (There are other types in this category, but they are beyond the scope of this article.)
• Kli shemelachto le’issur: a fashioned utensil whose designated use is an activity forbidden on Shabbos.

Objects in the first category may not be moved at all. Objects in the second category may be moved letzorech gufo (to use for a permitted purpose) or letzorech mekomo (if one needs to use the space they occupy). The second category is treated more leniently because the object is a kli.

Swimming is forbidden on Shabbos (Beitzah 36b) due to a gzeirah that a swimmer may inadvertently come to make a flotation device. Swim gear would thus seem to fall squarely into the category of kli shemelachto le’issur. But the picture is more nuanced, as swimming is actually permitted in certain instances; the Shulchan Aruch (339:2) permits it in a pool whose walls are high enough that water does not spill out during swimming, which describes most modern pools. Chazal’s decree only includes places that resemble a river, like a pool whose water flows out.

Technically, then, swimming in a standard modern pool is permitted on Shabbos. Still, the minhag across all of Klal Yisrael (Magein Avraham 326:8) is not to swim on Shabbos, due to various concerns—among them, that it may lead to sechitah (wringing out wet garments or hair). This raises an important question: If swimming is only forbidden as a communally-adopted chumra rather than strict halacha, does that suffice to render swimming supplies muktzeh? There is a reasonable argument that it does not (see Pri Megadim M.Z. 337:5).

In practice, the Piskei Teshuvos (308 fn. 76) leans toward considering such objects melachto le’issur, but he does not rule definitively. On the other hand, the Rivevos Efraim (4:97 section 55) says that a swimsuit is not muktzeh, and he cites a further reason for leniency from Rav Elyashiv: A bathing suit doubles as an undergarment, which isn’t muktzeh. But this last rationale would not extend to goggles or floats.