Funchal City Guide
Is Funchal Safe? Emergencies, the Hospital and Pharmacies
Is Funchal safe? No Portuguese police or statistics agency publishes a crime rate for Funchal specifically, so this guide prints no number and makes no claim either way. What it does print is the part of safety a visitor can act on: the single emergency number 112, the region's main hospital and its confirmed 24-hour emergency department, how to find a pharmacy when the shop on the corner is closed, where to report a theft, and the region's own mosquito-surveillance programme, which most visitors have never heard of and which the regional government runs in the open. Every address and number below comes from the Direcao Regional de Turismo's own contacts page, SESARAM, IASaude or the mosquito-surveillance site itself. Where an authority publishes nothing, the page says so. For the city start at the Funchal city guide, and for the rest of the practical layer read planning a trip to Funchal.
Quick answer The emergency number, the hospital and the mosquito note in three lines
No official crime figure for Funchal is published, so none is printed here. For any emergency dial 112, free from any phone. Hospital Dr. Nelio Mendonca in Funchal runs its adult emergency department 24 hours a day, per the hospital's own scheduling page, with a paediatric emergency service on a separate floor. Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are established along the southern coast, Funchal included, and the region has run a weekly surveillance programme since the island's 2012-2013 dengue outbreak.
Key takeaways
- Save 112 and the hospital's Avenida Luis de Camoes address before you land, both in the numbers table
- Not sure of the old town's streets after dark? A two-hour tuk-tuk city tour puts a local driver-guide beside you on the first day
- Bring insect repellent for the evenings, since the mosquito programme runs along this coastline, not somewhere else on the island
- A hotel that will not hold a bag after checkout is common; the fix is on Funchal luggage storage
Numbers and Addresses to Save Before You Arrive
The table compares every emergency and help contact a visitor to Funchal might need, taken from the Direcao Regional de Turismo's own tourist-contacts page unless noted. Save the first three rows to your phone before the trip.
| Need | Number or address | Notes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Any emergency: police, fire, ambulance | 112 | Free from any phone, answered by PSP and passed to civil protection as needed | Direcao Regional de Turismo |
| Hospital, adult emergency department | Hospital Dr. Nelio Mendonca, Av. Luis de Camoes 57, Funchal, 291 705 600 | Emergency department confirmed open 24 hours a day on the hospital's own scheduling page | SESARAM |
| Paediatric emergency | 291 705 762, same hospital, separate technical floor | For patients 0 to 17 years 364 days | SESARAM Pediatria |
| Pharmacy register, all 11 municipalities | apps.iasaude.pt/farmacias/farmacias.cfm, 65 pharmacies listed | Search by municipality for a licensed pharmacy and its own phone | IASaude IP-RAM |
| Police, PSP | 291 208 400 | General regional contact, no dedicated tourist-police branch confirmed | Direcao Regional de Turismo |
| Report a theft online | queixaselectronicas.mai.gov.pt | Covers tourists too; excludes emergencies or crimes in progress, which go through 112 | Queixa Eletronica |
| Sea rescue (SANAS) | 291 230 112 | Separate from 112, for incidents on the water | Direcao Regional de Turismo |
SANAS, the road-emergency lines and the national social-emergency line (144) are covered in where else to call. Figures current for in Q3 2026.
Is Funchal Safe? What the Official Record Says
The question most visitors type first has no official answer, and that is the most useful thing to know about it.
No Crime Figure Is Published for the City
No PSP, GNR or Ministerio da Administracao Interna page found for this guide publishes a crime rate or index for Funchal specifically. The figures that circulate in search results and on forums come from personal impressions, not from a counted statistic, so printing one would dress an opinion up as a fact. This page does not.
What can be said from official pages is narrower and more useful. The region runs a single emergency number with round-the-clock ambulance and hospital cover, a police force with an online theft-reporting portal that accepts tourist reports, a searchable pharmacy register across all eleven municipalities, and a public mosquito-surveillance programme that publishes its own findings rather than waiting to be asked. Those are the services that decide how a bad moment turns out.
What This Page Does Instead
- Gives the numbers and addresses in one table, so nothing needs searching on the day.
- Confirms the hospital's emergency-department hours from the hospital's own page, not a blog.
- Explains the pharmacy search tool and why no single named night pharmacy is printed.
- States plainly what the mosquito-surveillance programme covers and does not cover.
- Names every question no authority answers, in the last section.
Is Funchal Safe for Tourists? The Practical Reading
Our reading, not an official finding: the ordinary precautions for any coastal Portuguese city apply here, around the market, the cathedral square and the seafront promenade after dark, where reports on local forums describe petty opportunistic theft rather than violent crime. Keep a bag closed and in front in a crowd, and keep a photo of your passport separate from the passport itself. None of that needs a statistic to be sound advice. Funchal luggage storage helps if you would rather not carry a bag through the old town at all.
Sources: Direcao Regional de Turismo, Contactos Uteis, Queixa Eletronica
The Hospital and Its Emergency Department
Funchal's public hospital sits inland from the seafront, and its own scheduling page settles the one question every visitor asks about it.
Where It Is, and Confirmed Open 24 Hours
Hospital Dr. Nelio Mendonca, run by SESARAM, is at Avenida Luis de Camoes 57, 9004-514 Funchal, switchboard 291 705 600. SESARAM's own hours page for the emergency service states plainly, in Portuguese, 'Aberto 24h', open 24 hours. This is the region's central hospital and the one an ambulance called through 112 will reach.
In a real emergency, do not walk or take a bus: call 112. The hospital sits on the hill above the city centre, so an emergency at the seafront or in Monte reaches the same building from opposite directions. Arriving on your own is the slow route: an ambulance requested through 112 is dispatched by the regional civil protection service after a police call taker forwards the case, and the crew tells the hospital what to expect before you get there.
European Health Insurance Card holders are treated under the state system, and travel insurance is what covers repatriation, which no public hospital arranges.
A Separate Paediatric Emergency Service
The hospital runs a paediatric emergency department, physically separate from the adult one, on the hospital's technical floor, for patients aged 0 to 17 years 364 days, phone 291 705 762. A general information line, 808 201 414, covers wider SESARAM enquiries. A Manchester Triage system sorts patients by clinical severity, not order of arrival, so a minor injury can wait behind serious cases.
The practical consequence is that a family arriving with a sick child should say so at the door rather than join the adult queue, because the two departments are in different parts of the same building. Manchester Triage also explains why a wait can look unfair: a quiet child with a high fever is seen before a visibly painful sprain. Bring the child's passport or ID card, since both services record the patient's age band on arrival.
Before You Go: Charges and Insurance
Portugal's public emergency departments charge a taxa moderadora unless the visit follows an SNS 24 or health-centre referral, and secondary reporting puts that fee in the region of 14 to 18 euros per episode, capped so a visit including tests does not exceed 40 euros, though no single official page fetched for this guide states that figure directly, so it is printed as a range, not a quote. No official EU or Portuguese source states a blanket exemption for non-EU visitors without a European Health Insurance Card equivalent. Carry your EHIC or GHIC if you have one, and travel insurance details regardless, and ask the department about costs when you register.
Sources: SESARAM, hospital emergency schedule, SESARAM, Pediatria, gov.pt, taxas moderadoras
Finding a Pharmacy in Funchal
Most problems on a trip need a pharmacist, not an emergency department, and the region runs an official register rather than a single trusted address.
The Official Register
IASaude IP-RAM's pharmacy register lists 65 pharmacies across the region's eleven municipalities, each with its licence number and phone, searchable at apps.iasaude.pt/farmacias/farmacias.cfm. A separate on-duty search tool covers five municipalities including Funchal, but on the day this guide checked it, it answered that no on-duty pharmacy information was available for the date selected. That is not a fault in this page, it is what the tool returned: the practical route on the day is to phone a pharmacy from the register, or ask at your hotel or the local health centre, rather than trust a printed night-pharmacy name from a third-party site.
What Not to Rely On
Several tourism-portal pages print a single confident address for 'the night pharmacy in Funchal'. IASaude's own duty tool is the only official source for that rotation and it can come back empty, so this page names no single pharmacy as the on-duty one. If the register or the duty tool is down when you need it, the hospital's emergency department, open 24 hours, is the fallback for anything that cannot wait until morning.
Sources: IASaude IP-RAM, pharmacy register
The Aedes Mosquito Surveillance Programme
This is the fact most guides to Funchal never mention, and the regional government publishes it in full on its own site.
Why It Exists
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes have been present on Madeira since 2005. They caused the island's first dengue outbreak, running from late September 2012 to early March 2013, with roughly 2,168 probable cases and 1,080 laboratory-confirmed cases, described by the regional government's own mosquito-surveillance site as the first dengue outbreak in Europe since 1928. That history is why the region now runs a standing surveillance programme rather than treating mosquitoes as a footnote.
Where It Is Today, and What Keeps It Current
The established mosquito population sits along the southern-coast municipalities, Funchal among them, plus Camara de Lobos, Santa Cruz, Ponta do Sol and Calheta, monitored by a weekly egg-trap network across every municipality. Mosquito activity rises above 21 degrees Celsius, which in Funchal's own climate normal is most of the year (see Funchal weather for the monthly figures). A 2025 peer-reviewed study detected dengue virus serotype 2 in local Aedes aegypti populations on the island, which means the surveillance answers a live question, not only a 2012 memory.
What a Visitor Actually Does
Nothing dramatic: use a repellent in the evenings, especially near standing water, and treat a fever that appears after your trip as worth mentioning dengue exposure to a doctor. No official source states an outbreak is under way now, and this page makes no such claim. It states only that the surveillance is real, current and worth knowing about before you dismiss mosquito nets as unnecessary on a European island.
Sources: Governo da Madeira, mosquito surveillance, NCBI/PMC, dengue serotype 2 detection 2025
The Lines Behind the Numbers Table
Three contacts fill gaps the main table leaves open: at sea, on the road, and in a personal crisis.
- SANAS, sea rescue: 291 230 112, separate from 112, for an incident on the water rather than on land.
- Via Litoral road-emergency line (Canical to Ribeira Brava): 800 290 290. Via Expresso (Sao Vicente, Porto Moniz, Santana, Calheta): 800 203 040.
- National Social Emergency Line: 144, for a social crisis rather than a medical or police one.
If Something Is Stolen
File online through queixaselectronicas.mai.gov.pt, which explicitly accepts foreign nationals and tourists for non-emergency crimes such as theft. It is not for a crime in progress or an emergency, which goes through 112. PSP's regional contact is 291 208 400 if you would rather report in person.
No dedicated tourist-police branch for Funchal was confirmed on any official page, so a general station handles it, as a May 2026 local news report of a tourist-assault case names the ordinary Esquadra do Funchal e Brigada de Investigacao Criminal as the unit that handled it, not a separate tourist unit.
Sources: Direcao Regional de Turismo, Contactos Uteis, Queixa Eletronica
What No Authority Publishes About Funchal Safety
Each of these was looked for on the page that should carry it. None of them was found, and here is what to do instead.
- A crime rate for Funchal: not on any PSP, GNR or ministry page read for this guide. Use the practical precautions above rather than a borrowed number.
- A named on-duty night pharmacy: IASaude's own duty tool can return no result for a given day. Phone the register instead.
- Whether non-EU visitors pay the same emergency-room fee as residents: no gov.pt or EU page states it either way. Carry travel insurance.
- A dedicated Funchal tourist-police branch: not confirmed on any official page. The general PSP station and the Queixa Eletronica portal are the routes that exist.
- A live dengue-outbreak status for today: the mosquito-surveillance site describes an ongoing programme, not a current outbreak, and this page makes no claim beyond what it publishes.
Sources: IASaude IP-RAM, Governo da Madeira, mosquito surveillance
Tours That Put a Local Beside You
On a first visit the easiest way to learn which streets lead where is to ride or walk them once with a guide. Prices are in US dollars as listed by each operator.
from $91.89
City Highlights Tuk-Tuk Tour
A 2 hour small-group tuk-tuk ride to 25 Funchal highlights including Pico dos Barcelos, the fortress, the Cathedral and the Farmers' Market, hotel pickup included.
Check Availability
from $18.84
Funchal Old Town Walking Tour
A 2 hour small-group walk through Funchal's Old Town, the Jesuits' College, the Farmers' Market, a wine lodge and a historic sweet factory.
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from $29.86
City Sightseeing Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour
A 24 or 48 hour Funchal hop-on hop-off pass with a 14-language audio guide, a free Historic Centre walking tour and a wine tasting stop at Blandy's.
Check AvailabilityPrices, ratings and details are the platform's own. dollar figures are the listed prices — the platform bills in your account's currency.
Where to Go Next
Three pages that answer the practical questions this one raises.
Funchal luggage storage
Where to leave a bag if your hotel will not hold it, so you are not carrying valuables through crowded streets.
Planning a trip to Funchal
The wider practical layer this page sits inside, from money to transport.
Funchal weather
The monthly temperatures behind the mosquito-activity threshold noted in the surveillance section.
Is Funchal Safe: Questions
Is Funchal safe for tourists?
No official crime figure for Funchal is published, so no rate can be quoted honestly. Take the ordinary precautions for a busy coastal city, and save 112 and the hospital's address from the numbers table.
Is Funchal safe at night?
No authority publishes a night-time safety reading for Funchal. Local forum reports describe petty opportunistic theft around busy nightlife streets rather than violent crime, our reading in the practical section, not an official finding.
What is the emergency number in Funchal?
112, free from any phone, for police, fire and ambulance alike, answered first by PSP. For a theft that already happened, file online through the Queixa Eletronica portal instead, in the numbers table.
Where is the hospital in Funchal, and is the emergency department open at night?
Hospital Dr. Nelio Mendonca, Avenida Luis de Camoes 57, switchboard 291 705 600. Its own scheduling page states the emergency department is open 24 hours a day, confirmed in the hospital section.
How do I find a pharmacy in Funchal?
Use IASaude's official pharmacy register, which lists 65 pharmacies across the region searchable by municipality. Its separate on-duty tool can come back with no result for a given day, as the pharmacy section explains, so phoning ahead is the reliable route.
Are there mosquitoes to worry about in Funchal?
Yes, in the sense that Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are an established, monitored population along Funchal's coast, with a 2012-2013 dengue outbreak in the island's history and continued detection as recently as 2025. No current outbreak is stated. The mosquito section has the detail and the practical response.
Are there any places to avoid in Madeira?
No official police source names a district of Funchal or elsewhere in Madeira as a place to avoid. Local forum reports describe petty theft concentrated around busy nightlife streets late at night rather than a no-go area, our reading in the practical section, not an official finding.
Madeira Safety, on Film
No video covers Funchal's safety record specifically, so these three take a wider Madeira view. Use them for habits, and the tables above for the official numbers.
Madeira: safe to discover and more!
A general look at Madeira's safety reputation for visitors, the wider view this page's official numbers sit inside.
Video: eSky_plIs Madeira Safe? Our Purse Was Stolen at Carnival (Funchal)
A first-hand account of petty theft in Funchal, the kind of practical risk this page's precautions section addresses.
Video: Track Us Down!15 Tips I Wish I Knew Before Visiting MADEIRA, Portugal
Practical before-you-go tips for Madeira, useful alongside the official contacts in the numbers table.
Video: JoeyPVideos load from YouTube only when you press play.
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