Madeira Island · Portugal
An island people keep not leaving.
Property on Madeira, introductions to licensed Portuguese brokerages, and a house in Funchal we own and rent out ourselves. Written by someone who lives here and pays the bills here.
We are an introducer, not an estate agency, and we hold no AMI licence. Every property is listed by a licensed brokerage, named with its licence number. How we get paid.
Current listings
Property on the island
Each of these is held by an AMI-licensed brokerage. We introduce you; they handle the viewing, the negotiation and the contract, because legally that has to be them.
Three-Bedroom Penthouse at Uptown Lux, Santa Luzia
€3,100,000as listed August 27, 2026
T3 Apartment in Santa Luzia, Funchal, UPTOWN LUX
€1,600,000as listed September 12, 2026
Three-Bedroom Apartment at Uptown Lux, Bloco C
€1,600,000as listed September 4, 2026
T2 Apartment with 27m² Balcony in Santa Luzia, Funchal
€1,150,000as listed September 5, 2026
T5 Villa with Four Units in Porto da Cruz
€975,000as listed August 27, 2026
T2 Apartment in Santa Luzia, Funchal
€970,000as listed September 5, 2026
One-Bedroom Garden Apartment at Uptown Lux
€860,000as listed September 4, 2026
T3 Apartment in Machico with 121 m² Outdoor Space
€510,000as listed August 27, 2026
T1 Apartment at UPTOWN 30, Machico
€420,000as listed September 12, 2026
Building Land in Arco da Calheta, Calheta
€395,000as listed August 28, 2026
Who handles the viewing
David Leça, IAD Portugal, SA
Every property on this page is held under licence AMI 11220 by IAD Portugal, SA, and David Leça is the consultant who works the Madeira archipelago for them. He is a Madeiran, he lives there, and the mediation is his: the viewing, the negotiation, the contract.
iad has no branch offices. That is the point of it — the consultant comes to you rather than the other way round, and he works in partnership with agencies across the region, so an enquiry to him reaches more than his own book and a search does not mean telephoning a dozen agents yourself. There is no cost to a buyer for that. Commission is paid by the owner and is already inside the asking price.
His own description of the job starts a step earlier than most. Not what type of property are you looking for, but what do you want this property to do for you — a home to live in, a second home to use for part of the year, something let long term, something run as tourist accommodation, or some combination of those. The answer changes which properties are worth seeing, and it changes the tax table the purchase falls into, which is why it is the first question on this site too.
What we do is the introduction, and nothing else. We do not sell, value, negotiate, hold money or take instructions on a property. When you ask us for an introduction we pass your name to him with a reference, and from that point you are dealing with a licensed professional and not with a website.
Or just ask
What do you actually want to know?
Every answer on this site is searchable, and comes back with the source it was published with. If nothing here answers you, it will say so rather than improvise.
Before the house, the hillside
Which side of the mountain?
Madeira is fifty-seven kilometres long with a 1,862-metre ridge down the middle. Which side of it you live on changes your weather, your light, your commute and your price per square metre more than the house you pick. Turn the island.
Drag to turn the island. Click a marker for the place.
Loading the elevation data.
Pick a place to see what it is like to live there.
What this model is, exactly. The relief is real elevation data — NASA SRTM, sampled to a grid and checked against Pico Ruivo, Pico das Torres and Pico do Areeiro before it is allowed to ship. The land and the coastline come from the same data, not from a traced outline. Two things are display choices, not measurements: the vertical scale is exaggerated four times so the terrain reads at this size, and detail below about half a kilometre is smoothed away. So the shape is true and the relative heights are true, but it is still not a survey — do not read a metre off it. Porto Santo is a separate island north-east across open water and is deliberately not on this model; it has its own page. It is here because the one thing a photograph of Madeira never shows you is the thing that decides where you should live: a mountain wall down the middle of a fifty-seven kilometre island, splitting the weather in two.
Our own house
Our São Gonçalo Villa
This is our own house in São Gonçalo, on the eastern edge of Funchal, run as an Alojamento Local. It sleeps eight across the main house and loft, has a terrace with a jacuzzi looking over the bay, and a loft set up as a working office. We manage it ourselves.
- Terrace jacuzzi
- Loft office with its own entrance
- Bay views from both upstairs bedrooms
- Terrace wrapping the back of the house
- Full kitchen with washing machine and dryer
- Wi-Fi throughout
- Parking
This one is ours. Nobody is paying us to feature it, and David Leça manages the bookings for us.
Four minutes, and it can tell you no
Is Madeira right for you?
Sixteen questions on citizenship, income, household and how much rain you can live with. It branches — your passport decides whether you ever see the visa questions — and it ends with one of eight readings, sources attached. One of those eight is come and stay for two weeks first, and it is the right answer more often than a property site would like to admit.
Before you buy anything
Would you like to stay here?
Nobody should buy a house on an island they have only seen in photographs. Come for two weeks first. These are the places we send people, by part of the island.
Our São Gonçalo Villa
Our own Alojamento Local. Sleeps eight, terrace jacuzzi, loft office.
Villa Ana D'Arfet, Água de Pena
This is a self-contained villa with two bedrooms and three bathrooms for up to four people, so no one has to share a bathroom. It has its own garden and terrace, air conditioning, free Wi-Fi and private parking on the property. Praia de São Roque is about a 19-minute walk away.
Atlantic Pearl Suite, Câmara de Lobos
The apartment has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, sleeping four, with a kitchenette that includes a dishwasher. It comes with an outdoor pool, a garden, a terrace, free Wi-Fi and free private parking, and sits seven minutes on foot from Praia de Vigário.
Casa das Raposinhas IV, São Martinho
This is a self-contained apartment with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a private pool and a garden, so four people are not sharing a single bathroom. It has air conditioning, free Wi-Fi, a kitchen and free private parking, and it is registered as Alojamento Local under RNAL 164611/AL.
Villa Amor do Mar, São Gonçalo
This is a house built for a group of eight, with four bedrooms and three bathrooms rather than the usual squeeze of extra beds into fewer rooms. The private office with an independent entrance is unusual, and the villa is registered for Alojamento Local under RNAL 173428/AL.
39 guides, every figure linked to its source
The part nobody else does properly
Madeira is an autonomous region. Property transfer tax runs on Madeira's own brackets, health is a regional service, and short-term rental sits on a municipal-filing, regional-oversight split that is easy to get backwards in either direction. Every guide here names which of the two applies and links the instrument it came out of.
Where an alojamento local is actually registered in Madeira
The AL filing goes to the câmara municipal through the national counter. What Madeira's own diploma transfers to the DRT and IRAE is oversight, not the filing.
Buying property in Madeira, step by step
The order a Madeira purchase happens in: tax number, promissory contract and deposit, deed, and the registration that fixes priority against third parties.
What living on Madeira actually costs
Madeira is cheap on tax and dear on power. Electricity, water, fuel and tax at the rates EEM, ARM and the tax authority published for 2026, each linked.
What to eat and drink on Madeira
Espetada on a laurel skewer, bolo do caco, lapas, black scabbardfish and poncha — the dishes, the couvert rule, and menu prices from restaurants that publish.
Madeira weather month by month, at three different stations
Monthly rainfall normals for Funchal, Santana and Chão do Areeiro, from IPMA. The north coast takes roughly twice the south’s rain, and the mountains far more.
Every residence route into Madeira, and which ones are open
Portugal's D7, D8, D2, D3 and family reunification routes as they apply on Madeira, plus the D8 income figure no published instrument could be found to set.
Why this site exists
Every number here has a source and a date.
This site is written from inside the region rather than about it. It pays the bills it describes, and cites the tariff it pays. And the region is not the mainland: short-term rentals register with the regional tourism directorate, property transfer tax runs on Madeira's own brackets, and health is a regional service, not the mainland one. Copy a mainland rule onto this island and you have the wrong answer.
We read the Portuguese sources, link them, and write the date we last checked. When a rule changes, the page changes.