Madeira airport to Funchal: the Aerobus, a taxi, bus 113 or a hire car

Three things decide how you get from Cristiano Ronaldo Airport into Funchal, and you know all three before you land: what time you arrive, which hotel you booked, and how many bags you are carrying. Land at two in the afternoon with a cabin bag and a room on the Estrada Monumental, and the airport shuttle is the obvious answer. Land at half past eleven at night with a family and a house up a hill, and it is a taxi, at roughly three times the price and worth every cent.

Prices and timetables checked on 8 September 2026. Madeira revised its bus fares in March 2026 and reissued the airport shuttle timetable on 1 April 2026, so check the operator pages linked at the end before you build a plan around a specific departure.

• Arriving between 08:30 and 22:00 and staying in central Funchal or along the hotel strip to the west: take the Aerobus, 6.70 euros, 24 minutes to the Avenida do Mar and 50 to Praia Formosa.
• Arriving outside those hours, travelling as three or four, or sleeping anywhere above the main road: take a taxi from the rank outside arrivals.
• Travelling light and in no hurry: bus 113 costs 2.65 euros, but only some of its trips call at the airport.
• Planning to see the north coast and the levadas anyway: collect the hire car on arrival rather than coming back for it.

The airport shuttle is line 500 on the island's SIGA network. It runs along the seafront and then west through the hotel zone, which for a lot of visitors means a stop a few minutes' walk from the door. There are 26 numbered stops between the airport and Praia Formosa. Stop 05 is marked as out of use, so the first useful ones are Boa Nova at 15 minutes, Campo da Barca at 20, Mercado at 22 and Avenida do Mar at 24. West of the centre it calls at Avenida do Infante after 32 minutes, the Lido after 38, Fórum Madeira after 42, Centromar after 44, and reaches Praia Formosa at 50.

The printed route sheet is more useful than it looks. It indexes about 120 hotels and apartment blocks against stop numbers, so you can find yours before you fly: the Pestana Casino Park is stop 10, the Savoy Palace and Royal Savoy are stop 11, Reid's Palace and the Cliff Bay are stop 13, the Four Views Monumental is stop 15, the Enotel Lido is stop 17, and the Pestana Ocean Bay is at the far end, stop 26. Those numbers are stops, not hotels, and the names do not always line up: the stop actually called Lido is number 15, while the Enotel Lido is listed against 17, on Rua Passos Gouveia.

Departures from the airport on weekdays run every half hour from 08:30 to 12:00, then hourly from 13:00 to 22:00. Saturday mornings keep that half-hourly pattern and drop only the 13:00. Sundays and holidays are the thin day: 08:30, 09:00, 09:30, 10:30, 11:30, 12:00, then hourly from 14:00 to 22:00, so a Sunday landing at ten past ten waits for the 10:30 and one at eleven waits for the 11:30. Going back out to the airport, buses leave Praia Formosa from 07:00 on every day of the week, with the last at 21:00, which puts them at the terminal at about 21:50; Saturdays drop the 12:00 from that direction, and Sundays and holidays drop the 09:00 and the 10:00 as well. Nothing runs on 25 December.

The gaps matter more than the frequency. No shuttle leaves the airport before 08:30, so a night arrival has nothing to wait for, and a flight that lands around half past nine in the evening will usually miss the last one by the time the bags come out. Both of those are taxi evenings.

An adult single bought from the driver is 6.70 euros and children aged 6 to 12 pay 3.30. The driver takes cash only. The same ride loaded onto a GIRO card in advance costs 5.55 euros, or 2.75 for a child, and the card itself is 50 cents; there is a ticket machine in the arrivals terminal. One trip does not repay the card, so the pre-loaded fare only makes sense if you will ride the shuttle both ways or use the island's buses anyway. If you plan to do a lot of both, look at the regional tourist ticket instead: 13.75 euros for 24 hours, 18.35 for 48, 23.00 for 72, 29.50 for 120 and 36.00 for 168, and it is the only pass that covers the Aerobus. The cheaper municipal and intermunicipal day tickets specifically exclude it.

Against the shuttle: 50 minutes to the west end, a stop every few hundred metres once you are in the city, and no real luggage hold. Two adults and two children with cases already pay 20 euros and have to wrestle them down the aisle, at which point the taxi is close on price and takes you to the door.

Taxis wait outside arrivals and run on a meter under a regional tariff agreed between the mobility institute IMT-RAM and the island's three taxi associations, in its current form since 5 February 2026. The day rate applies from 06:00 to 21:00. From 21:00 to 06:00 the night rate applies, and so it does all day on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.

The flag fall covers the first kilometre: 4.00 euros by day, 4.80 at night and at weekends. After that the meter adds 10 cents for every 65 metres or 30 seconds by day, and every 52 metres or 25 seconds at night. Each piece of luggage in the boot adds 1.50 euros, while hand luggage under 55 by 35 by 20 centimetres and 25 kilos is free, as are pushchairs. Vehicles for six or eight passengers charge 20 percent more than the standard car. There is no fixed airport fare published, so ask the driver for a price before you set off and ask for a receipt at the end; the rate card he must display says so in English, and complaints go to the PSP police on 291 208 400.

The distance is 18 kilometres to the Avenida do Mar and 24 to the Lido, about 20 and 25 minutes on the fast road. The money mostly buys the last two hundred metres. Funchal is built on a slope, and a booking that looks central on a map can sit up a flight of steps that nobody wants to climb with a suitcase. If that is where you are staying, or if you are still choosing, the rental houses at Madeira with Views sit in exactly that kind of terrain and can tell you what to say to the driver.

Line 113 is the Funchal to Machico and Caniçal service, run by CAM, and it is the cheap way in. The catch is on the timetable itself: only the departures marked with a small "a" go via the airport, and the legend at the foot of the sheet spells it out as "Via Aeroporto". The rest run past on the main road without turning off. Bought from the driver the fare is 2.65 euros, because the airport is in the municipality of Santa Cruz and the trip counts as intermunicipal; the same journey pre-loaded on a GIRO card is 2.00.

Read the sheet before you count on it. It is a local bus with school-term and holiday variants, and it takes the coast road rather than the fast one. Use it if you are travelling light, you have time, and you would rather spend the difference on lunch. Every line on the island is also being renumbered, and SIGA now prints the current number next to the new one. Line 113 becomes 702, so a stop showing 702 is the same bus.

The shuttle runs airport to city and then west. It does not stop between the two, which is exactly where a lot of people are actually staying. Santa Cruz, Caniço, Garajau and Reis Magos all sit along that stretch, served by ordinary CAM lines such as 110 to Boqueirão via Caniço and 157 from Reis Magos via Garajau, not by the Aerobus. For a first arrival at those hotels, a taxi from the rank is the sensible choice, with the bus for the days after.

West of the centre the shuttle is the better bet, because stops 10 to 26 cover the whole Estrada Monumental in order. If you have not settled on a base yet, the where to stay guide sets out what each part of the island is like without a car, the Funchal bus guide explains the GIRO card and the city lines, and getting around covers the rest. Anyone flying in to join a ship should read the cruises page first: the port is a short walk from the Avenida do Mar stop. Walkers heading straight for the hills will want the trails section, and it is worth knowing before you book a late flight that Madeira's runway has a wind problem. The wind outlook shows the forecast against the operating limits and the airport disruption topic covers what happens when a landing is called off.

How much is the Aerobus from Madeira airport? 6.70 euros for an adult single bought on board, cash only, or 3.30 for a child aged 6 to 12. Pre-loaded on a GIRO card it is 5.55 euros. Times and stops are at siga.madeira.gov.pt/aerobus.

What can a taxi charge from the airport to Funchal? The regional tariff is 4.00 euros for the first kilometre by day and 4.80 at night, at weekends and on holidays, then 10 cents per 65 metres by day or per 52 metres at night, plus 1.50 euros a bag. No flat airport fare is published, so agree the price before you leave.

Is there a bus from the airport before 08:30? Not the shuttle, which starts at 08:30 every day. Line 113 passes the airport earlier, but only on the trips marked "via Aeroporto", so check the sheet at siga.madeira.gov.pt/horarios rather than turning up and hoping.

Does the Aerobus reach the Lido and Praia Formosa? Yes. The stop named Lido is 15, about 38 minutes from the airport, Fórum Madeira is 19 at 42 minutes, and the line ends at Praia Formosa, stop 26, after 50 minutes. Hotel names can differ from stop names: the Enotel Lido is served by stop 17, not by the stop called Lido.

• SIGA, Aerobus route sheet and timetable in force from 1 April 2026: https://siga.madeira.gov.pt/aerobus
• SIGA, timetables by line, with the current and new line numbers: https://siga.madeira.gov.pt/horarios
• GIRO fares, including the Aerobus and the regional tourist ticket: https://tiim.pt/index.php/tarifarios/bilhetes
• SIGA points of sale, including the machine in airport arrivals: https://siga.madeira.gov.pt/pontosvenda
• Taxi tariff, second amendment to Convention 1/2019, IMT-RAM, 5 February 2026: https://imt.madeira.gov.pt/images/Documentos%20Noticias/2alt-a-convencao-2019_tarifario-taxis-assinado%2005.02.2026.pdf