Portugal public holidays and festivals: dates and closures

Dates below are the fixed national holidays; the movable ones depend on Easter. Municipal holidays vary by town and are worth checking before you count on a shop being open.

On a national holiday, government offices, banks and many museums shut. Large shopping centres and supermarkets often stay open with reduced hours, and restaurants, cafés and hotels generally carry on as normal, especially in tourist areas. Small independent shops in residential neighbourhoods are the most likely to pull down the shutters.

Transport is the part travellers notice most. Airports, mainline trains and intercity coaches keep running, but urban buses and metro services may switch to a Sunday or reduced timetable. Taxis and ride-hailing apps still work, sometimes with surge pricing on New Year's Eve and during big festivals.

If a holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, many Portuguese workers take the Monday or Friday off, so the long weekend behaves like a holiday even where nothing is officially closed. Book accommodation and intercity trains early for those bridges.

Carnival is the loudest movable feast. The biggest parades are in the north, with Torres Vedras, Ovar and Podence among the best known, and Madeira's Funchal Carnival draws crowds in February or early March. Expect packed hotels and higher prices in those towns for the parade weekend.

June is the month of Santos Populares. Lisbon celebrates Santo António on the night of 12–13 June with grilled sardines, street parties in Alfama and a parade down Avenida da Liberdade. Porto takes over for São João on the night of 23–24 June, when people tap each other with plastic hammers and fireworks close the evening over the Douro. Both are free to watch and both fill the city centre.

Other dates to know: the Festa do Divino Espírito Santo in the Azores in spring, the Feira de São Mateus in Viseu in late summer, and the Fátima pilgrimages on 12–13 May and 12–13 October, which bring very large crowds and full hotels to the area around the sanctuary.

If your trip is short, avoid arriving on a national holiday if you want museums. Build the day around markets, beaches, viewpoints or a food neighbourhood instead, and shift the indoor sights to the next day. Belém's monuments in Lisbon, for example, are closed on Mondays in any case, so a Monday holiday is a double loss for that area.

For the long weekends, book intercity transport and accommodation two to three months ahead, especially for Lisbon, Porto and the Algarve. Trains on the Lisbon–Porto line sell out on holiday weekends, and Algarve beach towns fill fast in August.

Shoulder seasons give you the same weather with fewer closures and lower prices: late September to October, and April to early June. If you are driving, holiday weekends put more traffic on the motorways toward the coast and the Algarve, so leave earlier in the day.

Holiday dates and municipal calendars can shift with government decisions, so confirm the current year's list before you lock in museum days or a rental car. This page is general information, not a booking guarantee.

If a holiday affects your plans, travel insurance rarely covers a missed museum, but it can cover a missed flight or a cancelled tour. Check what your policy includes before you rely on it.