Madeira Hiking Permit Data and Booking Trends

Madeira Fun monitors hiking permit availability across Madeira's protected PR trails and uses current observations to help visitors understand when permits are available, which trails face the greatest booking pressure, and how far ahead they may need to plan. This page explains the data, calculations, limitations, and update schedule behind those insights. Availability was last checked 21 Oct, 20:27 (Madeira local time).

What Madeira Fun monitors

Madeira Fun monitors tourist (non-resident) permit availability for 33 classified PR trails. Coverage: a booking horizon of up to 120 days ahead, at 30-minute time-slot granularity. Availability is expressed as the number of observed bookable tourist slots and the number of open days within a period. Trail open, closed, partially open, and restricted status comes from IFCN.

Data sources

Official Simplifica reservation system: published availability per slot, reported by the government as a rounded percentage, not an exact spot count.
Madeira Fun booking activity: our own recent reservation and booking-velocity data.
IFCN trail status: official open, closed, partially open, and restricted status.

Madeira Fun is not the government permit administrator and does not own the official dataset.

Refresh frequency

Popular trails are checked about every 10 to 20 minutes. For every other trail, the next week is checked about every 30 minutes and later dates every few hours, and a daily sweep revisits sold-out dates. All times are Atlantic/Madeira local. The last-checked timestamp shows the most recent successful observation for a trail; in the open data, every trail record carries its own observation time (observed_at) and every date the time it was last checked (checked_at).

Metric definitions

Earliest available date. The first future date on which the tourist permit category has at least one observed bookable slot.

Available days in period. The number of calendar days within the next 7, 14, or 30 days that have at least one observed bookable tourist slot.

Slot density. The share of observed tourist time slots over the next 14 days that remain bookable, from 0 to 1.

Madeira Fun Booking Pressure Score (version MF-BPS-1.0). A score from 0 to 10 that summarizes how much upcoming tourist availability has already been taken. It measures current permit scarcity, not total visitor volume, trail popularity, or the absolute number of bookings: a trail with a small quota can show high pressure with fewer total bookings than a busier trail, and high current pressure does not necessarily mean a trail sells out fastest over a year. Categories: very low (0 to 2), low (2 to 4), moderate (4 to 6), high (6 to 8), very high (8 to 10). We show the category prominently and the score to one decimal; because the underlying availability is a rounded percentage, we do not imply finer precision. The exact formula is proprietary, but the inputs are disclosed:

Look-ahead period: the next 14 days.
Quota used: tourist (non-resident) availability only.
Weighting: nearer dates count more than later dates.
Booking speed: recent (24-hour) tourist booking velocity raises the score.
Weekend scarcity: weekend slots are weighted for their own pressure.
Minimum observations: a trail needs at least 10 observed slots in the 14-day window to be scored; otherwise it shows "insufficient data".
Closures: a trail that is not open shows "closed" and is not scored.
Missing observations: gaps in data reduce a trail to "insufficient data" rather than a misleading score.
Update frequency: recomputed about every 15 minutes from the latest availability, which is checked on the schedule under Refresh frequency.
Versioning: scores are stamped with a formula version (MF-BPS-1.0). If the formula changes, historical records keep their original version so values stay comparable.

Same-day availability. Whether at least one tourist slot remains bookable for the current calendar day.

Historical findings

The day-by-day snapshot archive used for historical analysis began on 27 July 2026. Published monthly permit reports: September 2026, August 2026. The series is still too short to identify a reliable seasonal pattern.

Rule and fee changes

Permit rules and fees change over time. Madeira Fun keeps them as dated, versioned records (format MF-PRC-1.0) so any figure can be cited as of a specific date. Newest first:

Effective 1 January 2026 · fee

Standard permit fee revised under the new payment model

The standard visitor permit fee changed from EUR 3.00 to EUR 4.50 per person per trail under the fee model set for 2026. Tour operators holding an IFCN protocol pay EUR 3.00 per visitor. Madeira residents, children aged 12 or under, and visitors with a disability of 60% or more remain exempt.

Before: EUR 3.00 per person. After: EUR 4.50 per person, residents exempt, fee eur protocol operators: 3, children 12 and under exempt: true.

Legal reference: Portaria n.º 801/2025, de 10 de dezembro, com a primeira alteracao pela Portaria n.º 48/2026, de 13 de fevereiro

Cited from the official portaria PDF published by IFCN (JORAM I Serie n.º 218); fee levels verified continuously by Madeira Fun's booking concierge against the SIMplifica system.

Effective 1 January 2026 · fee · single trail

Premium fee for PR1 Vereda do Areeiro to Pico Ruivo (full route)

The full PR1 route (Vereda do Areeiro to Pico Ruivo) carries a higher permit fee of EUR 10.50 per person, above the EUR 4.50 standard applied to other trails.

After: EUR 10.50 per person.

Legal reference: Portaria n.º 801/2025, de 10 de dezembro, com a primeira alteracao pela Portaria n.º 48/2026, de 13 de fevereiro

Cited from the official portaria PDF published by IFCN (JORAM I Serie n.º 218); fee level verified continuously by Madeira Fun's booking concierge against the SIMplifica system.

Effective 28 October 2024 to 31 December 2025 · fee

Paid permits introduced for classified PR trails

Access to Madeira's classified walking routes became subject to a paid visitor permit, initially on seven routes from 28 October 2024 and extended to all recommended trails from January 2025, booked through the government's SIMplifica portal. Madeira residents remain exempt.

Before: EUR 0.00 per person. After: EUR 3.00 per person, residents exempt.

Legal reference: Portaria n.º 556/2024, de 22 de outubro (Regiao Autonoma da Madeira); framework: Decreto Legislativo Regional n.º 24/2022/M

Instrument identified from IFCN published legislation and contemporaneous coverage; fee operation verified in the SIMplifica reservation system.

This changelog is also embedded on this page as machine-readable JSON (script#permit-rule-changelog, format MF-PRC-1.0; fields: jurisdiction, authority, scope, resource_key, change_type, title, summary, effective_from, effective_to, previous_value, new_value, legal_reference, legal_url, source_note). Records without a legal reference are operational observations verified against the official reservation system, pending decree citation.

Data limitations

Availability can change immediately after a check.
A visible slot may be taken before a booking is completed.
Separate permit categories (tourists, residents, guides) have separate quotas.
Trail closures and operational changes may supersede observed availability.
Observed availability is not necessarily equal to total government inventory.
Past behavior does not guarantee future availability.
Gaps or outages may affect observations.

Madeira Fun and official authorities

Madeira Fun is an independent travel and hiking information service. Official trail rules, closures, and permit administration remain under the responsible Madeira authorities and IFCN. Where official information conflicts with a Madeira Fun summary, the official source controls.

Citation and reuse

Aggregate figures on these pages are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license: you may reuse them, including for commercial use, with attribution. Suggested attribution: "According to Madeira Fun hiking permit availability data," with a link to this page.

A machine-readable feed of the same coarse aggregate is available for reuse:

JSON feed (https://madeira.fun/api/public/hiking-availability)
CSV download (https://madeira.fun/api/public/hiking-availability.csv)

Both refresh on the same schedule as this page and carry the license and attribution inline. For bulk or historical data, or media enquiries, contact support@madeira.fun.

Open Data

The data behind these pages is open: free to use, with no key and no sign-up, and every feed answers requests from any website. Dates are Madeira calendar dates (Atlantic/Madeira) and timestamps are ISO 8601 in UTC. The open data is per day: exact start times are shown on each trail's page on madeira.fun, not in any feed.

Endpoints

Permit availability, every permit trail (format MF-HAF-1.1): JSON (https://madeira.fun/api/public/hiking-availability) and CSV (https://madeira.fun/api/public/hiking-availability.csv). One record per trail: official status, earliest open date, open days and booking pressure, each with its observation time, and for a trail that can be booked the next 7 days (days_7d) and the address of its day feed (day_feed_url). Both are empty (null) for a trail that cannot be booked.
One trail, up to 120 days ahead (format MF-HAF-1.1): https://madeira.fun/api/public/hiking-availability/<seo_slug>, or the same address ending in .csv, for example https://madeira.fun/api/public/hiking-availability/pr18-rei-231. For each date from today: the day's state and the visitor permits left that day, with the time the date was last checked.
Permit fees and rule changes (format MF-PRC-1.0): the dated records under Rule and fee changes, also embedded on this page as JSON (script#permit-rule-changelog).
Live weather by place (format MF-WX-1.0): JSON and CSV, documented on Madeira weather data.
OpenAPI 3.1 description of these feeds: https://madeira.fun/api/public/openapi.json.
MCP server for apps and data tools: https://madeira.fun/api/mcp (Streamable HTTP, read-only, no sign-in), with the tools list_permit_trails, check_trail_availability, get_permit_fees and build_booking_link. It returns the same per-day data as the feeds. Discovery file: https://madeira.fun/.well-known/ai-catalog.json.

Day states

Each date in days_7d and in a trail's day feed carries one state:

open: at least one start time can still be booked.
full: start times are listed, but none can be booked by a visitor (sold out).
started: Madeira today only: start times were listed and every one has already begun, so none can be booked today. This is not sold out.
closed: the trail is not open that day (its official IFCN status is anything but open, an unknown or missing status included, or a dated closure covers the date).
no_times: the date was checked and lists no start times.
unknown: the date has not been checked yet.

A start time counts as bookable only when it has not begun (Madeira time) and passes the same booking check our reservation service uses, so the day states are stricter than the open-day counts (available_days_7d, available_days_14d, available_days_30d), which keep their original meaning. permits_left is the number of visitor (non-resident) permits left across the bookable start times that day: 0 for a full day, empty for closed, no_times and unknown. checked_at is when the date was last checked, and book_url is set for open and full days.

Booking links

To send someone to book, link to the trail's page with a date: https://madeira.fun/hiking/<seo_slug>?date=YYYY-MM-DD. The page opens that date's start times. Optional parameters: adults and children (visitor counts; children are 12 and under), lang (one of the site's 18 languages, for example de) and utm_source (the name of your app). Example: https://madeira.fun/hiking/pr18-rei-231?date=2026-11-04&adults=2&utm_source=example-app. Links are built from this template: nothing is registered or stored.

How booking works

madeira.fun is a reservation service. On the trail page a visitor picks a start time and presses Reserve; madeira.fun then fills in and submits the government reservation on Simplifica for them and emails the government's PayPay payment link. The visitor pays the permit fee to the government through that link: madeira.fun never collects the permit fee. Signing in, or giving an email address, is only asked for at Reserve. Visitors can also book and pay on the official Simplifica portal themselves.

Changes and alerts

There is no change feed. To hear when a full start time opens up, a visitor signs in on the trail page and sets a permit alert, which emails them when that start time changes: one alert is free, and the Fun Pass watches up to 10.

Reuse and attribution

The feeds are published under CC BY 4.0, including for commercial use, as set out in Citation and reuse. Credit "According to Madeira Fun hiking permit availability data (https://madeira.fun/hiking/permit-data)" or, for the weather feed, "According to Madeira Fun live weather data (https://madeira.fun/weather/data)". Each feed also carries its license and attribution. The Terms of Service allow automated access to the open data, the llms.txt files and our public pages.

Caching, limits and versions

Responses are cached for about 5 minutes and carry ETag and Last-Modified: send If-None-Match or If-Modified-Since and the answer is 304 Not Modified when nothing changed. HEAD works on every feed.
Please cache what you fetch, poll no faster than the data refreshes (see Refresh frequency), and send a User-Agent that names your app. Request limits exist to protect the service and the government booking system; we do not publish them.
Freshness is in the data: every trail record carries observed_at, every date checked_at, and the feed summary_refreshed_at. There is no separate status endpoint.
Errors: an unknown trail answers 404 and a temporary outage 503. The per-trail day feed describes errors as application/problem+json (RFC 9457) with a stable code to branch on (for example trail_not_found or availability_unavailable) and sends Retry-After on a 503; the other feeds keep their JSON error body.
Versions: every response names its format (for example MF-HAF-1.1). Within a format, fields are only added, never renamed, removed or retyped, and CSV columns are only appended, so ignore fields you do not know. A change that would break consumers gets a new format version, and the previous version stays available for at least 6 months after the new one ships.

Questions, bulk or historical data: support@madeira.fun.

Check live permit availability