Walking a classified PR trail costs €4.50, or €10.50 for the full PR1, and booking a timed slot is compulsory. That is a fee to walk, not to look.
One viewpoint charges: Cabo Girão, at €5.
Every other “viewpoint fee” in circulation is one of two other things — a fee to walk a classified trail, or a tariff to park a car. They are collected through the same government portal, which is why they get muddled, but they are different instruments with different rules.
Why every guide gives a different number
€2, €3 and €5 were all correct, in turn
This is not carelessness by other writers. The price has risen twice in thirteen months, and the chain is recorded in the preamble of the current regulation itself.
- €2 — Portaria n.º 946/2022
- €3 — Portaria n.º 567/2024
- €5 — Portaria n.º 591/2025
And there is a better reason still. The regional government continues to serve a superseded instruction sheet stating 2€, from the same directory as the current one stating 5€. Both were downloaded and read on the same day. A writer checking an official source could honestly land on either.
So the useful thing is not that the other pages are wrong. It is that you cannot tell which are stale by looking — which is why this page carries the date it was checked.
The one that charges
Cabo Girão skywalk
- €5 for over-12s who are not resident in Madeira. Children up to and including 12 go free, as do residents of the Autonomous Region and visitors with reduced mobility.
- Open 08:00 to 20:00 every day. The official document gives no seasonal variation, despite listings that claim winter hours.
- Booking is not required. There are 3 kiosks at the viewpoint; buying online in advance is a convenience, not a condition of entry.
- A ticket stays valid for 180 days from issue, so buying ahead does not tie you to a date.
Filmed and published by Zen Walks.
The confusion, resolved
What is not a viewpoint fee
Two other charges get reported as viewpoint entry. Neither is.
Leaving a car at an IFCN car park is charged by the hour. Walking or being dropped off costs nothing.
The one that genuinely blurs: Miradouro da Pedra Rija is a real viewpoint, and reaching it costs €4.50 — but that is the PR1 trail fee, because the only way there is along the trail.
There is no combined ticket. A Cabo Girão ticket grants access to nothing else, and the multi-day trail rates are volume discounts, not passes.
Work out your trail ticketsParking, which is a different thing again
What IFCN car parks cost
Set by regulation and scheduled to rise in later years, so these are the current figures rather than permanent ones.
| Car park | Per hour | Daily maximum |
|---|---|---|
| Miradouro do Pico do Areeiro | €4.00 | €20.00 |
| Queimadas | €2.00 | €10.00 |
| Other IFCN car parks | €2.00 | €5.00 |
Still free
Viewpoints that charge nothing
Confirmed free, with no booking. Deliberately a short list — every name on it is one we have to keep checking.
- Véu da Noiva
- Ponta do Rosto
- Cristo Rei, Garajau
- Eira do Serrado
Being straight with you
What we could not confirm
These circulate widely. None could be traced to an official source, so none of them appears above as fact.
A 3,000 visitors a day cap at Fanal
No official source exists. The IFCN fees regulation and its FAQ contain no Fanal cap and no Fanal entry charge. An environmental group was still publicly calling for a carrying capacity to be *defined* for Fanal in late 2025, which is evidence that one had not been. What is real: the Fanal trail is a classified trail like any other — €4.50 and a booked slot.
Whether Pico do Areeiro parking is actually being collected
The tariff is legally in force. We found no official confirmation that it is being enforced on the ground, and no official source for the “€1 per 15 minutes” breakdown that circulates.
Whether Balcões costs anything
Hiking sites call it free; the IFCN regime charges for classified trails it manages. Some classified trails are managed by municipalities instead, which would resolve it — but we could not find the official list of managing bodies. So we publish no figure.
Whether Miradouro do Guindaste has reopened
The tourism board’s own page still carried a closure notice whose stated end date had already passed. That is not enough to call it open or shut, so it is not in the free list above.
Sources
The documents themselves
simplifica.madeira.gov.pt
simplifica.madeira.gov.pt
simplifica.madeira.gov.pt
simplifica.madeira.gov.pt
ifcn.madeira.gov.pt
If you are not driving
West coast and Cabo Girão trips
Cabo Girão sits above Câmara de Lobos on the south-west coast. A tour reaches it without a hire car, and usually takes in the coast road as well.