Best time to visit Madeira

Portugal · Europe

All twelve months scored on daily temperature, rainfall, humidity and holiday crowding.

The year in Madeira

Tap a month for its page

Sweet spot
Good
OK
Avoid
Busy

Go in May–Aug — these months score within a whisker of each other; 25C max, 2 rainy days. Feb is the next best.

Plan this trip

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Flights

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Where to stay

Things to do

Car hire

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Each opens in a new tab, on the site's own pages.

Things to do in Madeira

Pico Ruivo Highest peak on the Madeira Islands
Cabo Girão One of the world's highest ocean cliffs, in Câmara de Lobos.
Pico do Arieiro Madeira island's third highest peak
São Vicente Caves Volcanic caves (grutas) where you can visit lava tubes.
Pico de Facho Mountain in Porto Santo, Madeira, Portugal
Laurisilva of Madeira A special kind of subtropical forest found only on Madeira…

Tours and tickets in Madeira

Each site opens on its own search: choose your dates there. A few open on their home page, where you type the place too. Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you; most pay nothing, and what a site pays never decides whether it is listed or where. How we rank

Sights and their lines from Wikivoyage (Madeira), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, and Wikidata; in order of how often each one's Wikipedia article was read on phones in the last 12 months.

Month by month

No fare history for this route yet, so this ranking is climate and crowds only — the price column will fill in as the scanner collects.

Month	Max °C	Rain days	Humidity	Sun h/day	Verdict	Why
Jan	18°	7d	80%	8.0h	good	18C max, 7 rainy days
Feb	18°	6d	79%	9.3h	good	18C max, 6 rainy days
Mar	19°	10d	79%	10.0h	good	19C max, 10 rainy days
Apr	20°	9d	78%	10.9h	good	20C max, 9 rainy days
May	21°	7d	77%	12.0h	sweet spot	21C max, 7 rainy days
Jun	23°	6d	78%	12.7h	sweet spot	23C max, 6 rainy days
Jul	25°	2d	75%	12.7h	sweet spot	25C max, 2 rainy days
Aug	27°	1d	72%	12.1h	sweet spot	27C max, 1 rainy day
Sep	26°	4d	76%	11.0h	goodbusy	busier than usual
Oct	24°	7d	77%	9.6h	good	24C max, 7 rainy days
Nov	21°	7d	80%	8.8h	good	21C max, 7 rainy days
Dec	19°	8d	81%	8.2h	ok	19C max, 8 rainy days

Rain days are the days with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts them.

Weather read at Funchal, 14 km from the airport (FNC): ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.

A busy month is a crowded one, not a bad one — usually it is crowded because the weather is good. It is flagged rather than scored down, and crowds alone never make a month “avoid”: that is reserved for weather worth skipping.

How busy it gets

Busiest in September.

Then and now

Madeira's October days now average 24.1°C, 1.3°C warmer than in 1981–1990. 3 of 12 months are clearly warmer.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
1981–90	17.5°	17.6°	18.5°	18.5°	20.3°	23.1°	25.1°	26.0°	25.4°	22.9°	20.4°	18.7°
2017–26	18.0°	18.3°	18.5°	19.7°	21.1°	23.0°	25.3°	27.1°	25.5°	24.1°	21.0°	19.1°
Change	+0.6°	+0.7°	+0.0°	+1.2°	+0.8°	-0.1°	+0.2°	+1.1°	+0.1°	+1.3°	+0.6°	+0.4°

The average daily high, month by month, for the nearest ERA5 grid cell. Bold is a clear change; grey is within the ordinary spread between years. Every destination, ranked.

Getting there

How far Madeira is, and what it costs, depends on where you set off from — the months above do not.

Before you go

Type C and F plugs at 230 V. Drives on the right. The currency is the Euro. No UK Foreign Office advice against travel. Everything for Portugal: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.

Being there

On arrival

Paying — Cards and cash are both accepted. Use Multibanco cash machines, which mostly charge no fee; Euronet machines charge high fees and poor exchange rates.
UPI, for visitors from India — Not accepted for paying here; bring a card that works abroad.
Tipping — Not expected; about 8 to 10% in restaurants for exemplary service. Round up taxi fares and add €1 to €2.

Getting around Madeira

Pay the driver in cash (€2.05 a ride within Funchal; no cards on board), or load trips (€1.45 each, two at least) or a day ticket (€4.95) onto a GIRO card (€0.50) at Horários do Funchal's counters and ticket machines or Payshop agents, and validate it on every bus, including when you change. The Aerobus from the airport costs €6.70 in cash, or €5.55 prepaid on a GIRO card.

Apps — Rides: Bolt, Uber. Maps: Google Maps, Apple Maps. Messages: WhatsApp.

Bus timetables are very confusing as they do not include clear route details. Pay special attention to any footnotes for your route listed on the schedule, as holidays or school days can change the presence of the route. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Madeira, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Help

Emergency — 112 (any emergency).
TravelCharika is not an emergency service: we cannot call for help or send anyone. Numbers can change; if one fails, ask someone local or your hotel.

Put together by hand from the sources listed, checked 7 October 2026. Apps, cards and rules change, so check before you rely on one.

Sources (22)

Madeira in pictures

Ponta de São Lourenço, Madeira, Portugal, 2019 05 28, DD 31 — i

Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Marina of Machico. Madeira, Portugal — i

Ввласенко, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Nogueira valley view from Balcões, São Roque do Faial, Santana, Madeira, 2023 May — i

Ximonic (Simo Räsänen), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

2016 Vista da costa desde a Ponta do Rosto ate a Ponta do Castelo. Ponta de São Lourenço. Madeira. Portugal 4 — i

Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez (Lmbuga), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Foggy Fanal forest in Seixal, Porto Moniz, Madeira, 2023 May — i

Ximonic (Simo Räsänen), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What Madeira is like

Madeira is a sub-tropical archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and is an autonomous region of Portugal. The archipelago is made up of two populated islands, Madeira and Porto Santo, and two groups of unpopulated islands called the Desertas and Selvagens Islands. More on Wikivoyage

Worth seeing: Levadas An impressive system of aqueducts built between 1461 and 1966 to bring water from the mountains to farmland. Pico Ruivo and Pico do Arieiro The second and third highest peaks in Portugal. More on Wikivoyage
Worth doing: Hiking to Pico Ruivo from Achada do Teixeira (1 hr). You can reach the starting point by car. More on Wikivoyage
Getting in: Madeira has the same immigration laws as the rest of Portugal, and is therefore part of the Schengen Area. More on Wikivoyage
Staying safe: The emergency service telephone number is 112. Some police in Funchal wear red armbands; this means they speak a language other than Portuguese, mainly English and German. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Madeira, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the full article has far more. The numbers above are measured; this is experience.

Around Madeira

Also in Portugal

Nearby

Kind of place

Madeira is in Portugal, Europe. Distances are great-circle, so a short one can still be a long way round.

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