Trail fees and mandatory booking in 2026

The fee is paid before entering the trail, online only, in the SIMplifica system. There are no on-site ticket sales.

The standard rate is €4.50 per trail, both for individual visitors and for tours with tour operators without an agreement with IFCN. Tours with tour operators that have an agreement with IFCN pay €3.00.

PR 1 (Pico do Areeiro - Pico Ruivo) costs €10.50, or €7.00 with a tour operator that has an agreement with IFCN. The full-route ticket also covers the PR 1.1 and PR 1.2 descents (and PR 1.3 once it reopens). A cheaper €4.50 option still exists: to Miradouro da Pedra Rija and back only, with no right to continue.

Fee exemptions include children aged 12 or under, residents of the Autonomous Region of Madeira, and people with certified disability of at least 60% plus one accompanying legal guardian. Residents show a resident card and identity document. Separate resident slot capacity does not guarantee a particular time.

The current IFCN FAQ directs residents to reserve online in SIMplifica too; on-site reservations are not provided.

Note: an exemption does not waive booking. Free entry still requires a reserved slot in SIMplifica.

Entries are spread across time windows from sunrise to sunset, with separate pools of places for visitors, residents and operators; the pools do not transfer between each other. When booking you register all participants, not only the person paying.

The confirmation with a QR code arrives by e-mail. Save it offline (a screenshot), as signal in the mountains is weak. A step-by-step walkthrough is in our booking guide linked below.

You do not buy a pass and the portal does not sell one as a product. In SIMplifica you choose trails and dates, and the system applies whichever is cheaper: single entries or a daily, three-day or seven-day rate. Hunting for a pass button in the portal is the most common mistake guides make.

For reference, the thresholds are: €9.00 for a day, €22.50 for three days and €52.50 for seven, or €6.00, €15.00 and €35.00 with a tour operator that has an agreement with IFCN. The combined rate starts to win at roughly three trails in one day.

No rate waives booking a place on each trail separately, and PR 1 sits outside the combined rate and is always paid on its own.

Fees and bookings are checked by Nature Wardens: they scan QR codes at trail entrances and run random checks along the route.

Statutory fines for entering without payment or on a closed trail range from €250 to €2500 (DLR 24/2022/M). In practice, ignoring the PR 1 closure in September 2025 brought €750 fines from the Polícia Florestal.

A refund or a new date is due ONLY when the trail was officially closed or restricted by an IFCN decision on the day of your booking. Cancelling for personal reasons, a mistaken date, rain, illness or a cancelled flight means the fee is forfeited; that is what the official IFCN FAQ states.

The request goes to the IFCN by email within 10 working days of the booked date, with the tickets and the invoice attached; for a refund also an IBAN with SWIFT/BIC, because refunds are made exclusively by bank transfer. There is a tolerance of about 15 minutes for entering after your time.

Instead of money you can ask to move the booking to another date within a year, subject to availability. The new date cannot be switched to a different trail, and the group must keep the same number of people.

Parking at Pico do Areeiro (the PR 1 start) costs €4 per hour, with the first 15 minutes free. The Horários do Funchal bus runs twice a day: 06:00 and 13:30 from Funchal.

At Rabaçal a paid shuttle runs from the car park to the trail start (about 2 km). As of July 2026, confirm before you go.

The EHIC card covers public healthcare in Portugal, but may not cover mountain rescue operations or medical transport. For exposed routes (PR 1, Larano) consider travel insurance that includes rescue and mountain activities.