How to Book Madeira Hiking Trails via SIMplifica (2026)
Since January 2026 you cannot simply turn up and walk a classified trail in Madeira. Every PR route now has to be booked in advance through the regional SIMplifica portal, you get a QR code rather than a ticket, and rangers check it at the trailhead. It is not complicated and it takes about five minutes, but it has to be done before you leave home, because there is no way to pay at the gate and the popular slots go weeks ahead. This is the whole process, including the four places people get caught out.
Booking a Madeira hiking trail, in eight lines
- Where. The regional government's own SIMplifica portal, address in the step by step below. There is no app.
- What to search for. Payment of Fees for Classified Pedestrian Routes.
- What it costs. 4.50 euros a person on most trails, 10.50 on PR1. PR11 is free and still needs booking.
- What you pick. A trail, a date and a 30 minute entry window. Not a whole day.
- What you get. A QR code. Screenshot it before you leave the wi-fi.
- Who is exempt. Under 12s walk free and Madeira residents pay nothing. Both still have to be on the booking.
- When to do it. The week you book your flights. Summer slots go weeks ahead and PR1 goes first.
- If it rains. No refund. Money back only when the IFCN itself closes the trail.
Which trail to book in the first place is a different question, and it is answered in the best hikes and levada walks in Madeira.
What Changed, and Why There Is Now a Fee
Madeira's trail network was free and unmanaged for as long as anyone had been walking it, which worked while a few thousand people a year did. It stopped working somewhere around the point where a single levada was taking well over a thousand walkers on a summer day. The paths are a metre wide in places, they are cut into living forest, and the maintenance burden and the erosion both went up faster than anybody was paying for.
The second reason is rescue. A path with an unprotected drop and no idea how many people are on it is a hard thing to search. Booking a 30 minute entry window means the IFCN, the regional forestry and nature body, knows roughly how many walkers went through a gate and when, which matters on the day somebody does not come back.
So from January 2026 the classified PR routes are ticketed. The fee is small and it is genuinely spent on the paths: what you notice on the ground is more rangers, better handrails and fewer sections closed for months at a time. It is a change worth being relaxed about, and the only thing it really costs you is the ability to decide on a walk over breakfast.
Unclassified paths, municipal walks and the promenades along the coast are not part of this. Nobody is checking a QR code on the Lido promenade or on a footpath between two villages. This applies to the numbered PR routes and only to those.
Which Trails Need Booking, and What Each One Costs
Every classified PR route needs a booking. Most of them cost 4.50 euros a person, PR1 costs 10.50 because of the rescue and maintenance load on the high ridge, and a handful, including PR11, are free and still have to be booked. These are the six our guests walk most, and the figures match the table in our hikes guide.
| Trail | Distance | Time | Difficulty | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PR1 · Arieiro to Ruivo | 9 km one way | 3.5 to 5 h | Moderate to strenuous | 10.50 euros |
| PR9 · Caldeirão Verde | 13 km return | 4 to 5 h | Moderate | 4.50 euros |
| PR6 · 25 Fontes and Risco | 11 km return | 3.5 to 4.5 h | Moderate | 4.50 euros |
| PR8 · Ponta de São Lourenço | 8 km return | 2.5 to 3.5 h | Moderate | 4.50 euros |
| PR19 · Caminho Real | 5.5 km one way | 1.5 to 2 h | Moderate, steep descent | 4.50 euros |
| PR11 · Vereda dos Balcões | 3 km return | About 1 h | Easy | Free |
What the table cannot say is that free does not mean optional. PR11 costs nothing and still has to be booked, and turning up at Ribeiro Frio without a QR code is the single most common version of this mistake we hear about.
Booking It, Screen by Screen
Allow five minutes the first time and two minutes after that. Do it on a laptop rather than a phone if you have the choice, because the payment step is easier to get wrong on a small screen.
Register an account
Go to simplifica.madeira.gov.pt and create an account. It is the regional government's general services portal rather than a tourism site, so it handles everything from building permits to trail fees and the language toggle is worth finding first. You only do this once, and the account keeps your bookings in it.
Find the right service
Search the site for Payment of Fees for Classified Pedestrian Routes. That is the exact service, and searching for the trail name or for hiking will not reliably get you there. If the wording has changed since we last checked, look under the environment or forestry heading rather than under tourism.
Pick the trail, the date and the window
You choose a specific route, a specific date and a 30 minute window in which you will enter. The window is your start time, not a time limit on the walk: nobody times you out the other end. Pick an earlier window than feels necessary, because the cloud builds through the morning on the high routes and the car parks fill.
Name everyone, including the children
Every walker goes on the booking by name, including under 12s who pay nothing and including Madeira residents who are exempt from the fee. The exemption is from paying, not from booking. A party of four with two small children is a booking for four.
Pay, then screenshot the QR code
Pay by card and you get a QR code back. Save it to your phone as an image before you leave the wi-fi. Several of the trailheads have no signal at all, so a screenshot in your photos is worth considerably more than an email you were planning to open in the car park. Print it too if you are the belt and braces sort.
What Actually Happens on the Day
There is a ranger at the trailhead on the busier routes and they will scan the code. On the very busy ones, PR1 and PR6 in particular, expect to be checked a second time somewhere along the path. Bring photo identification as well as the code: the booking is in a name and occasionally somebody is asked to match it.
The 30 minute window is enforced at the entry point rather than throughout the day, so arriving inside your window is what matters. Arriving forty minutes late is a conversation with a ranger you may or may not win, and arriving on the wrong date is not a conversation at all.
There is no desk at the gate and no card machine. This is the part that catches people out most often, because most ticketed attractions in the world let you pay on arrival and this one does not. If you have no booking you do not walk, and the ranger has no mechanism to sell you one even if they would like to.
Same day slots do sometimes exist online if nobody has taken them, and on a wet Tuesday in February you will usually find one. That is a fallback, not a plan. In July and August the popular routes are gone weeks in advance and PR1 goes before any of them.
Changing Your Mind, and What Happens if It Rains
The rule is simple and slightly unforgiving: refunds and reschedules are offered when the IFCN closes a trail, and not otherwise. If the authority shuts the route for weather, fire risk or repairs, you are covered. If you wake up, look at the sky and decide against it, you have bought a 4.50 euro lesson.
In practice this matters less than it sounds, because the fee is small and because trail closures in genuinely bad weather are common and are announced. What it does mean is that you should not book five walks to keep your options open. Book the two or three you will actually do and leave the rest of the week loose.
It also means the sensible order is to book PR1 first, because it is the one that sells out and the one most likely to be closed for wind, and to keep a levada in reserve as the bad weather alternative. A levada in rain is a different walk. The ridge in cloud is a walk you should not be on at all.
The Four Ways People Get This Wrong
These are the four we hear about from guests, in rough order of how often.
Assuming the free trail is exempt
PR11, the Vereda dos Balcões, costs nothing and still needs a booking. Because there is no payment involved people assume there is no process, arrive at Ribeiro Frio with a toddler and a picnic, and get turned round. Book it like any other.
Leaving it until you land
The booking is not part of arriving, it is part of packing. People who plan to sort it out from the apartment on the first evening find that the two walks they came for are full for the whole week. Do it when you book the flights.
Relying on a link instead of an image
An email with a link to a QR code is useless at a trailhead with no signal, and several of them have none. Screenshot the code itself and check it is in your photos before you drive up the mountain.
Forgetting the children
Under 12s walk free, which people reasonably read as meaning they are not part of the booking. They are. Everyone on the path has to be named, and a family that booked two places for four people has a problem at the gate.
Letting Somebody Else Do All of This
A guided day removes the whole of this page from your holiday. Operators working under an IFCN protocol handle the permits themselves, and they pay a lower rate per walker than you do, which is one of the reasons a guided walk often costs less than the arithmetic suggests once you have added up the permit, the fuel and the car.
The stronger argument is transport rather than paperwork. PR1 and PR19 are one way routes, so walking them independently means either doubling the day by coming back the same way or arranging a car at the far end. A guided group solves that by design, and it also solves the problem of driving an hour home after five hours on your feet.
We send guests to Hiking Madeira for this, and to Taxi Service Madeira for the cheaper version, which is a taxi up and a pre agreed pickup at the other end.
Booking Madeira Trails, Answered
Do you need to book hiking trails in Madeira?
Yes. Since January 2026 every classified PR route has to be booked in advance through the regional SIMplifica portal, including the routes that are free. Rangers check a QR code at the trailhead and there is no way to buy a permit on arrival, so turning up without one means not walking that day.
How much does it cost to hike in Madeira?
4.50 euros a person on most classified trails and 10.50 euros on PR1, the Pico do Arieiro to Pico Ruivo ridge. A few routes, including PR11, the Vereda dos Balcões, are free. Children under 12 pay nothing and residents of Madeira are exempt from the fee, but both still have to be named on the booking.
How far in advance should you book Madeira trails?
Book them the same week you book your flights. In July and August the popular routes go weeks ahead and PR1 sells out first. Outside the summer you will often find something a few days out, and on a quiet winter weekday there are frequently same day slots online, but that is a fallback rather than a plan.
Can you pay for a Madeira hiking permit at the trailhead?
No. There is no desk and no card machine at any of the gates, and the ranger has no way to sell you a permit even if they want to. This is the single most common thing visitors get wrong, because most ticketed attractions allow it and this one does not. Book online before you go.
What happens if it rains on the day you booked?
Nothing, and there is no refund. Money is returned only when the IFCN itself closes the trail for weather, fire risk or repairs. Changing your own mind does not qualify. Because of that, book the two or three walks you will genuinely do rather than five to keep your options open.
Do children need a booking for Madeira trails?
Yes. Under 12s walk free but they still have to be named on the booking, so a family of four with two small children books four places and pays for two. The same applies to Madeira residents, who are exempt from the fee rather than from the booking itself.
Where to Stay if You Are Here to Walk
Trailheads decide this more than scenery does. From Funchal you are within about ninety minutes of every route on this page, and the six homes we have there put you close to an early start on PR1, PR9, PR6 and PR8 without ever being far from dinner. From Paúl do Mar on the west coast the picture inverts: PR19 finishes on the seafront a couple of minutes from all three cottages, and Rabaçal and PR6 are much closer than they are from the capital, while anything east becomes a long morning. Use the filter to see one area at a time.
Three guides that go with this one
Hikes
Best Hikes and Levada Walks in Madeira
Which trail to book in the first place, ranked, with distances and times.
Read guide
Itineraries
Madeira 7-Day Itinerary
A week with two of these walks in it, and which days to keep moveable.
Read guide
Plan
Best Time to Visit Madeira
When the trails are at their best, and when the slots are hardest to get.
Read guide