Madeira Trail Reservations 2026: How to Book on SIMplifica

To walk one of Madeira’s classified trails in 2026 you need a booking made in advance on SIMplifica, the regional government’s online portal. You open an account, pick a trail, a date and a 30-minute entry slot, register everyone in the group and pay: €4.50 a person for most trails, €10.50 for the full PR 1 ridge. Children aged 12 and under and island residents walk free, but they still need a place in the slot.

In short

• Book on SIMplifica before you set off. There is no booking or payment at the trailhead, and walkers without one are fined.
• €4.50 per person per trail. The full PR 1 is €10.50. Under-13s are free (prices as of September 2026).
• You book an entry time, not just a day: 30-minute slots from sunrise to sunset.
• Same-day booking works if places are left. For PR 1 and 25 Fontes, book a few days ahead.
• Money back only when the IFCN closes the trail, never because you changed your mind.

What you are actually booking

The booking is a ticket for one person, on one trail, on one date, starting in one half-hour window. The forestry and nature institute (IFCN) set a daily capacity for each classified trail, working with the University of Madeira, and shared it out across the day. Visitors, residents and tour operators each have their own share of every slot, and places cannot move between them. When a slot fills, it closes and you pick another.

So do not plan “Tuesday, 25 Fontes”. Plan “Tuesday, 25 Fontes, entering between 08:30 and 09:00”. The IFCN says it usually allows about 15 minutes either side of the slot, a little more if you are chaining trails. That is the whole margin.

The system covers the classified trails the IFCN manages: the ones with a PR number and red and yellow waymarks. Unclassified levadas are outside it, and so are four classified trails run by local councils (more below).

Which trails need a booking

Status from the IFCN’s trail page, September 2026:

Three notes on that table. 25 Fontes is run one way: out along the levada, back on a separate bypass path. When the bypass is shut for works, both directions share the levada, so follow the signs on the day. And Ponta de São Lourenço is listed as open by the IFCN but “restricted” by the tourism board, with small signed diversions. Follow the arrows. And the IFCN table, last updated on 14 September during the PR 1 boardwalk works, still marks the one-way section beyond Pedra Rija as closed, while SIMplifica sells the one-way ticket. Look again before you book PR 1.

The IFCN says closed trails are taken off sale, and on 1 October 2026 PR 7, PR 20, PR 27 and PR 28 were indeed missing from the list of trails you could book. Statuses change with rain and rockfall, though, so look at the IFCN list the evening before, not only on the day you book.

Before you open the portal

Have this ready and it takes about ten minutes:

• Names and details of every walker, children included. Everyone is registered individually. For under-13s, carry something that shows their age.
• A bank card. Payment is online only. The IFCN does not take bookings or money at its offices either.
• An email address you can open on your phone. The tickets and the invoice arrive there.
• A plan for the day: how long the drive is, where you will park, whether the trail brings you back to the car. That decides the slot.

You need an account even if you are walking alone. One account can book for the whole group.

How to book, step by step

1. Open SIMplifica and create your account. It is the only official channel. Other sites may sell a bundle with transport, but the ticket itself comes from here.
2. Search the trail by its PR number. Names repeat (there is a PR 1 on each island, and two PR 1 tickets on Madeira), so the number is safer.
3. Choose the date, then the entry slot. Full slots are blocked; if you get an error at the end, the slot probably filled while you were typing.
4. Add every walker, whatever their age. Exemptions (children, residents, disability) are applied per person.
5. Pay. If you are booking several trails within a few days, the portal works out whether a multi-day rate is cheaper and applies it for you.
6. Save the tickets. Screenshot them as soon as the email arrives.

If the portal throws errors or refuses your card, that is SIMplifica’s contact centre, not the IFCN: +351 800 29 90 90, weekdays 09:00 to 18:00.

Choosing your slot: work backwards from the car park

The slot is your entry time at the start of the trail. Pick it by working back from three things.

Parking. At the famous trailheads the car park fills before the path does. Pico do Areeiro is full before sunrise in summer. Baía d’Abra, for São Lourenço, is full by mid-morning in season. Queimadas, for Caldeirão Verde, is small and costs €2 an hour. Book 10:00 at any of these and you may spend 09:30 to 10:00 circling.

Getting from the car to the start. At Rabaçal you leave the car on the ER 105 and walk 2 km down a paved road, or take the Calheta council shuttle, which has no published timetable. For an early slot on 25 Fontes, plan to walk down. Build that half hour in.

Cloud and light. The mountains are usually clearest early. At Balcões the peaks are often gone by afternoon. São Lourenço has no shade at all, so midday in summer is hard work.

Book the earliest slot you can reach calmly, not the earliest that exists. If an 08:00 entry means mountain roads in the dark from 06:00, take 09:00. With a 15-minute margin, a slow tractor on the ER 110 can cost you the walk.

Booking PR 1: two tickets, one ridge

PR 1 is the trail people most often book wrongly.

The Pedra Rija ticket stops at the viewpoint. If you want the ridge, buy the full route.

Beyond Pedra Rija the path is one way, towards Pico Ruivo, with no walking back the same way. Only the western line through the tunnels is open; the eastern variant over Pico das Torres is closed. So you end at Pico Ruivo and carry on down PR 1.2 to Achada do Teixeira, which the €10.50 ticket already includes, and you need a taxi or a second car from there. Allow five hours rather than the three on the sign.

PR 1.2 on its own, up from Achada do Teixeira and back, is an ordinary €4.50 trail.

No multi-day rate includes PR 1, not even the Pedra Rija ticket. And if you want to start in the dark, check the earliest slot on the portal for your date before you set an alarm for 04:30.

Multi-day rates: automatic, not a pass

You do not buy a pass. You book your trails, and at checkout the portal applies whichever works out cheaper:

A Rabaçal day with Risco, 25 Fontes and Alecrim is three trails for €9 instead of €13.50. Beyond that, you need to walk a lot before the longer rates matter. And the rate is only a price: every trail still needs its own booked slot, subject to space.

Changing plans, weather and refunds

The rule is strict. If the IFCN officially closes or restricts the trail on your date, email the IFCN within 10 working days with your tickets and invoice, and ask for either a new date on the same trail (within a year, subject to space) or a full refund. Refunds go by bank transfer only, so include your IBAN and SWIFT/BIC.

Anything else loses the fee: rain on an open trail, illness, a cancelled flight, booking the wrong date. Moving a booking yourself counts as cancelling it.

What that means in practice:

• A bad forecast is not a closure. If the mountain is in cloud and the trail is open, you walk it or lose it.
• Book the mountains close to the day. Fog and wind decide PR 1 and Fanal. Booking two or three days out, once the forecast firms up, is often smarter than booking before you fly, at the risk of losing the best slots.
• Weather warnings do not close trails automatically. Each closure is announced trail by trail on the IFCN page.

At the trailhead

Checks are real. Between April and mid-May 2026 the IFCN’s forest police checked more than 5,500 walkers and issued 43 fines of €50, paid on the spot, for walking without paying. Walking into a closed trail cost €250.

• Screenshot your tickets. Signal at Pico do Areeiro, Queimadas and Rabaçal is poor.
• Keep them on more than one phone if the group might split up.
• Arrive in your slot. Turning up two hours early on an 11:00 booking is exactly what the system is designed to stop.

Guided walks, residents and other exemptions

A guided walk with an operator that has a protocol with the IFCN is booked by the operator, at a reduced rate of €3 a person (€7 on PR 1). Do not buy your own ticket as well; ask the operator to confirm it is included. Operators without a protocol pay the same as you.

Free, but still booked: residents of the Autonomous Region (with the resident card from SIMplifica and their ID), children aged 12 and under, and people with a disability of 60% or more plus one companion, with proof.

Other pages you may need

• Beating the crowds, for picking days and times.
• Driving in Madeira, because almost every trailhead is reached by car.
• Staying safe, for weather and mountain sense.

In the Tropi Guide app, each trail page shows its current status and warns you when it closes, so you know before you pay for a slot.