Madeira Without a Car: How to Get Around & See the Island (2026)

You can see every one of Madeira's headline sights without ever driving. Base yourself in Funchal, use the island's bus network for the easy runs, and book a tour or a transfer for the three or four places buses genuinely cannot do. The only real planning is deciding which days need a tour – everything else on the south coast is a €1.45 bus fare away.

The detail that catches people out is that the network changed on 1 July 2024. Horários do Funchal, Rodoeste and SAM no longer run as separate companies – everything is now one network branded SIGA, most route numbers were renumbered, and the 2026 fares are fixed by law. Here is the working version, plus what each bus actually reaches.

Base in Funchal

A car-free trip lives or dies on where you sleep, and the answer is Funchal. The capital is where the bus routes, the tour pickups, the taxi ranks and the widest choice of hotels all converge, and its own highlights – the old town, the market, the cable car up to Monte – are walkable or one short ride away.

Stay central and keep one base for the whole trip. Moving hotels to "be closer" to the north coast rarely pays off, because the tours that reach the north coast collect from Funchal anyway.

The bus network is now SIGA, not three companies

Since 1 July 2024 every public bus on Madeira and Porto Santo runs as a single network branded SIGA, delivered by three concessionaires: CAM (Companhia de Autocarros da Madeira) for the eastern zone and Porto Santo, SIGA Rodoeste for the west, and Horários do Funchal for Funchal city – plus, now, only the Curral das Freiras interurban route. SAM and EACL were merged into CAM, and 127 new buses entered service. Old Horários buses kept their livery with a SIGA logo added, which is why the island looks like it still has several operators.

Most routes were renumbered in the same reform, and the old numbers are still painted on some buses, printed in older guidebooks and used by Google Maps. Quote both when you ask:

What a bus actually costs

Fares are set by regional law (Portaria n.º 128/2026 of 23 March 2026, a 2.28% uplift) and include VAT, so nobody can overcharge you. A new ticketing system went live across the SIGA network on 22 January 2026.

The Bilhete Regional Turístico is the island-wide tourist ticket – every route, every zone, for a fixed block of hours. It only beats a topped-up GIRO card if you are covering serious ground each day; for one or two day trips, the GIRO card is cheaper. Children under 6 travel free on production of ID.

The Aerobus: airport to the waterfront

The airport bus is route 500, run by CAM. It costs €6.70 for adults on board or €5.55 pre-purchased on a GIRO card; children pay €3.30 or €2.75. A €9.00 adult return e-ticket is written into the 2026 fare order but is only "available on a date to be announced", so do not plan around it.

The run to Praia Formosa takes 50 minutes end to end, and central Funchal – Avenida do Mar – is about 26 minutes from the airport. Buses go roughly every 30–60 minutes, the first leaves the airport at 08:30 and the last at 22:00, the last airport-bound departure is 21:00, and there is no service on 25 December.

Two limits decide it for you. The Aerobus serves the Funchal waterfront and the western hotel strip out to Praia Formosa – it is close to useless if you are staying in Caniço or up the hill – and it does not cover the earliest or latest flights. For either of those, a pre-booked private transfer is the fallback, at a fixed fare with the driver waiting at arrivals.

Where the buses actually go

This is the table nobody publishes honestly. Times and frequencies vary by day and season, so treat them as approximate and always confirm the last return.

Three things to read off that table. Curral das Freiras is the one genuinely great car-free day trip – a spectacular ride into the crater on a city bus. Some Santana services are school-term-only or dial-a-ride, so you must book them in advance.

And Cabo Girão barely counts as bussable: only about two weekday departures on the 7 (now 267) actually stop at the skywalk, and sources disagree over whether they reach the entrance or Rancho village, a ten-minute walk below. The Cabo Girão guide has the timetable; most people drive or take a taxi.

Three places have no realistic public bus at all: Pico do Arieiro, Rabaçal and the 25 Fontes levada, and Fanal. Not a thin service – none. Several Ribeiro Frio buses take the tunnel and skip the village entirely, which is why it belongs on the tour list too.

Tours for the parts buses cannot do

This is where the car-free plan earns its keep, and there are only three trips that truly need it.

• The peaks. There is no bus at any hour, so the transfer is the trip: take a Pico do Arieiro sunrise transfer – it drops you at the top and collects you at the far end, which matters now that PR1 is one-way.
• The levada trailheads. Most of the best levada walks start where no bus goes, so a transfer-led walk gets you in and out while the hike itself stays self-guided.
• The west coast. A west Madeira 4WD tour loops the skywalk, Porto Moniz, Seixal and Fanal in one day – a single booking replacing a bus itinerary that barely exists. Our west Madeira tour guide compares the versions.

Budget €40–€80 or more per person per tour day, plus the €4.50 trail fee per non-resident over 12 on classified PR routes – €10.50 for PR1 – which you reserve with a timed slot through the SIMplifica portal.

Taxis, Bolt and the hop-on hop-off

Madeira's taxis are yellow with a blue stripe, metered, and every rank posts fixed tariffs to the main destinations. Airport to Funchal runs about €25–€35 – the airport itself quotes roughly €30 by day and €34.50 at night, for a 22-minute ride. Watch two surcharges: about €1.50 per large bag, and 20% between 21:00 and 06:00 and all day on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.

Taxi drivers also sell half-day tours by the car, not by the head: roughly €70–€175. A central-region half-day starts around €70 for up to eight people, and a Pico do Arieiro sunrise run from about €150 per car – which beats four individual tour seats.

Bolt is the island's only ride-hailing app since Uber left in 2023. It is reliable in Funchal, Câmara de Lobos and along the south coast, and thin to non-existent on the north coast and in the mountains. Airport to Funchal is about €18–€28, and pickup at the airport is at the signed "TVDE" kerb, not the taxi rank.

For the city itself, two hop-on hop-off operators run from Avenida do Mar: City Sightseeing (red, blue and purple routes, the purple one adding Monte) and Yellow Bus "3 in 1" (which adds Câmara de Lobos and a shuttle to the Cabo Girão skywalk). Buses leave every 30–45 minutes on a roughly two-hour circuit, and a 48-hour ticket is around €20–€25. Entry to the Cabo Girão glass platform is not included.

A sample car-free four days

• Day 1: Transfer or Aerobus in, then Funchal on foot – the old town, the market, the cable car to Monte (€22 return).
• Day 2: Guided west-coast tour for the skywalk, Porto Moniz, Seixal and Fanal.
• Day 3: A levada transfer day – Caldeirão Verde or another classified route (€4.50 trail fee).
• Day 4: Pico do Arieiro sunrise or morning transfer, weather permitting (€10.50 PR1 fee).

Reckon on roughly €40–€80 per tour day, plus the trail fees above and a couple of bus or Bolt hops. A 72-hour Bilhete Regional Turístico at €23.00 covers three days of unlimited bus travel if you slot a DIY day like Curral das Freiras in between.

When to just hire a car

Car-free handles a balanced first trip well, but a hire car genuinely wins in four cases: chaining several remote trailheads in one day, basing yourself outside Funchal, chasing clear-weather windows at short notice, or travelling late beyond bus hours.

The maths is honest either way. Once you add rental, fuel and Funchal parking, a car only pays off if you drive it most days. For three or four headline days, tours work out simpler and rarely dearer.