How much does a trip to Cape Verde cost? Daily budget and prices

Cape Verde splits into two price worlds. Sal and Boa Vista are resort islands: package hotels, beach restaurants and taxi transfers, at roughly double the cost of the rest. Santo Antão, Santiago, Fogo and São Vicente are guesthouse-and-aluguer territory, where a day can cost less than a single resort dinner.

Season moves the room rate more than anything else. The busy window around Christmas and New Year, and the European school holidays, are when Sal and Boa Vista peak; the same guesthouse on Santiago barely changes. Rain is not a factor — the islands are dry year-round — so the trade-off is wind and heat, not weather risk.

The everyday items are cheap. A plate of cachupa in a local restaurant is €3–6, a glass of grogue €1–2, and an aluguer hop across an island €1–5. The money goes on beds, beach-front fish and moving between islands.

Fish of the day in Santa Maria, the main resort strip on Sal, runs €12–20 — pleasant, but three or four times a local lunch. Inter-island flights are the single biggest add-on at €60–150 one way; the Mindelo–Porto Novo ferry is about €8–10, which is why the Santo Antão run is the cheap way to add a second island. A guided Fogo volcano day is €40–60.

The currency is the Cape Verdean escudo, pegged at about 110.27 to the euro. Euros are sometimes accepted in tourist areas, usually at a rounded rate, so you lose a little on every purchase. Pay in escudos where you can.

Cards work at resorts, supermarkets and larger restaurants. Aluguers, small shops and the smaller islands are cash territory, and ATMs on the Vinti4 network exist in every island town but some foreign cards fail — carry two cards and a cash float. Budget roughly €30–50 a day in cash on the quieter islands.

Pick two islands, not five. Every extra island adds a flight or ferry plus a wasted transfer day, and the parent guide's own advice is Sal or Boa Vista for beaches plus Santo Antão or Santiago and Fogo for hiking and towns. Base on Santiago and use Praia as a cheap city stop, or cross to Santo Antão by the €8–10 ferry instead of flying.

Eat where locals eat: cachupa, grilled fish away from the beach front, and grogue rather than imported drinks. Use aluguers instead of taxis for island crossings, and take a shared inter-island flight rather than a private transfer. The airport security fee of about €31 per person is paid once per trip, so it does not change with trip length.

All figures are 2026 estimates per person and exclude international flights. Resort islands (Sal, Boa Vista) cost roughly double the rest. The airport security fee is paid online before you fly and is separate from the visa or EASE registration. Prices in euros are converted from escudos at the peg, so small differences between islands are rounding, not real.