SUMMARYThis paper is concerned with the stabilization problem for a class of state‐constrained switched nonlinear system in p‐normal form in a domain. A key point in the backstepping design procedure is to find a common stabilizing function at each step. A barrier Lyapunov function, which grows to infinity when its arguments approach some limits, is introduced to ensure that the state constraint is not violated at any time. Bounded state feedback controllers of individual subsystems and a common Lyapunov function are explicitly constructed to asymptotically stabilize the closed‐loop system under arbitrary switchings. An example is given to show the effectiveness of the proposed method. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.