# How fuel prices work in Madeira and Porto Santo

Understand Madeira’s weekly fuel price caps, Monday updates, the formula amended in 2026, official JORAM decisions, and refuelling choices.

Canonical: https://www.fuelmadeira.com/articles/en/madeira-fuel-pricing-system
Language: en
Published: 2026-09-08
Reviewed: 2026-09-08
Publisher: FuelAzores (independent).

Madeira applies maximum retail prices to 95-octane petrol, road diesel, and coloured and marked diesel. The normal cycle provides for Friday approval and an effective time of midnight at the start of Monday.

## Friday’s announcement, Monday’s price

In Madeira, a fuel-price announcement on Friday can affect a purchase just a few days later. The regular system works week by week, with approved changes normally starting on Monday. If you live on Madeira or Porto Santo, that makes the weekend a sensible time to check the next applicable price, especially when a refill is already due. It does not mean that Monday will always be cheaper.

The starting framework is [Madeira Ordinance 25/2022](https://joram.madeira.gov.pt/joram/1serie/Ano%20de%202022/ISerie-013-2022-01-26sup.pdf). It covers 95-octane unleaded petrol, road diesel, and coloured and marked diesel. Its ordinary approval cycle is every seven days, on Friday, when a calculated change occurs, with the resulting prices taking effect at midnight at the start of the following Monday. Always read the specific effective clause rather than assuming that every document uses the routine timetable.

There are two parts to understanding a weekly announcement: how the maximum is calculated and when you can use the resulting number. The sections below explain both, using a September 2026 decision as a dated example. For the amount relevant to your next stop, open the [FuelAzores price page](/), select Madeira and the correct fuel, and read the effective date beside the figure.

## What applies over the weekend?

A Friday publication can show Monday's price while you are still paying under the previous period. Keep both amounts until the new one takes effect. For example, a Sunday arrival and a Tuesday rental-car return can straddle the change even during a short stay. Whether moving a refill helps depends on which way the price moves and how many litres you need.

The ordinance's approval provision is linked to a positive or negative movement in the calculated maximum. That is an important qualification: a weekly mechanism does not imply that every fuel must change by a nonzero amount every week. It also does not make an inaccessible announcement proof that the price stayed unchanged. A confirmed unchanged figure and an unsuccessful attempt to retrieve information are different outcomes.

For a household, the useful routine is to check for an official announcement near the end of the week and then calculate its effect on the next intended purchase. For a visitor arriving on Sunday and driving on Monday, the effective boundary may fall inside a very short stay. The calendar matters because it determines which price belongs in the calculation, not because a particular weekday is inherently cheaper.

## What goes into the maximum-price formula

Madeira's framework combines a weighted price before taxes, a transport and storage component, petroleum tax, and VAT. The April 2026 amendment expresses the basic relationship as PMVP = PMP + CT/1000 + ISP + IVA. PMVP means maximum retail price; PMP is the weighted price excluding taxes; CT represents transport and storage costs; ISP is the petroleum and energy-products tax; IVA is VAT. The formula describes components, not a price that can be reconstructed from one headline.

The original 2022 ordinance links the weighted price to values communicated by Portugal's energy authority, DGEG, to the European Commission. Its transport provision also includes an annual updating mechanism. These details make vintage important: an old transport amount or a tax figure from another period should not simply be copied into a current calculation. A sound reconstruction needs compatible inputs for the same product and calculation period.

Be careful with units. A component expressed per thousand litres must be converted before it is combined with a per-litre amount. Be equally careful with tax notation: the formula's VAT component is a monetary contribution, not an instruction to add a bare percentage number to a price. For ordinary refuelling, the published maximum is usually the practical reference; reconstructing the administrative calculation is a separate analytical task.

## Why the formula changed in April 2026

The [official amendment, Ordinance 166/2026 of 10 April](https://joram.madeira.gov.pt/joram/1serie/Ano%20de%202026/ISerie-063-2026-04-10sup2.pdf), removed the adjustment factor from the basic formula. It also repealed the provision defining that factor and the March 2026 ordinance that had altered it. An explanation reproducing the original 2022 formula with its adjustment factor therefore needs a historical label and cannot simply be presented as the April 2026 amended version.

This is a useful example of how to read regulation over time. A base ordinance can still be cited by later decisions even though part of its wording has changed. Seeing a reference to 25/2022 in a weekly decision does not mean that every line of the original publication remains untouched. Read the base framework together with amendments relevant to the period under discussion.

Removing a term from the formula does not tell a driver how many cents to expect at the next refill. The other components still have to be considered for the relevant period. It would also be a mistake to turn the amendment into a claim that Madeira must always be cheaper than the Azores or mainland Portugal. The weekly decision supplies the resulting maximum; comparisons need actual prices from matching dates.

## The decision for 7 September 2026

The [JORAM decision approved on 4 September 2026](https://joram.madeira.gov.pt/joram/2serie/Ano%20de%202026/IISerie-159-2026-09-04Supl2.pdf) is Joint Order 82/2026. It lists €1.921 per litre for 95-octane petrol, €1.951 for road diesel, and €1.493 for coloured and marked diesel, effective from midnight at the start of 7 September 2026. These figures illustrate a historical decision and should not be read as a continuously updated current-price table.

| Dated example: effective 7 September 2026 | Official maximum per litre |
| --- | --- |
| Unleaded petrol 95 | €1.921 |
| Road diesel | €1.951 |
| Coloured and marked diesel | €1.493 |

Read the category before choosing a row. The coloured and marked product is a separate category associated with restricted uses; its lower amount does not make it an ordinary road-car option. A family budgeting for a diesel car should use the road-diesel row. A professional user needs to check the rules for their actual activity and product rather than infer eligibility from a pricing table.

As an arithmetic illustration, forty litres of road diesel at €1.951 per litre costs €78.04. Thirty litres of the petrol example costs €57.63. Those totals are calculations based on the dated maxima, not reports of individual station transactions. Preserve the third decimal in the unit price and round the final monetary result, rather than shortening the source amount before multiplying.

## Finding the price in JORAM and its supplements

Madeira's official journal is JORAM, the Jornal Oficial da Região Autónoma da Madeira. Weekly retail-price approvals can appear in Series II and in supplements. Formula and tax ordinances can appear in Series I. Searching only one series, or only the main issue without its supplements, can therefore miss the document that answers your question. Start from the act's identity and subject, not just a file's date.

The September example appears in a second supplement. A supplement is not a less official news summary; it is part of the journal's publication structure. Check the cover, the responsible authorities, the order number, and the substantive page containing the table. The publication may also contain unrelated administrative information, so a number near the end of a PDF is not necessarily a fuel price.

If a search engine shows an attractive summary, use it to locate the actual document. A snippet can omit a unit, shorten a date, or display text from an adjacent item. The [official-announcement reading guide](https://www.fuelazores.com/articles/en/read-official-fuel-price-announcements) provides a practical method for extracting a price without mixing it with tax rates, journal subscription charges, or figures belonging to another product.

## Refuelling on Madeira and Porto Santo

The example order applies to the Autonomous Region of Madeira. That regional scope is the starting point when reading it for Madeira island or Porto Santo. Do not narrow a regional statement to Funchal merely because that city appears in a news report, and do not infer a separate Porto Santo maximum from an unrelated transport-cost figure. Check whether the act itself distinguishes the product or territorial conditions.

Your practical refuelling choices still depend on the station and your route. A region-wide price reference does not tell you opening times, which payment methods work, or whether a specific branded product is available. For a late arrival or an early departure, those details may matter more than a small difference between two price periods. Confirm them with the relevant operator when planning the journey.

For a rental car, the return agreement adds another separate consideration. A contract requiring a particular fuel level should be read directly; do not assume that a regional maximum determines the rental company's refuelling service charge. Compare fuel purchases as fuel purchases and contractual service charges as service charges. Combining them under one label makes an otherwise accurate budget difficult to interpret.

## Should you refill before or after Monday?

There is no universal rule that Monday is the best day. If a confirmed maximum is rising, buying the litres you need before its effective time can cost less under otherwise identical conditions. If it is falling, a later purchase may cost less. If there is no confirmed change, the calendar alone supplies no exact saving. The decision depends on the direction, quantity, and actual prices available to you.

Consider a hypothetical fall of €0.030 per litre. Waiting to buy forty litres would reduce the cost by €1.20 if the sale-price difference matches that amount. Waiting to buy ten litres would reduce it by only thirty cents. The nominal capacity of the tank is irrelevant when you are buying a smaller quantity. Use the expected refill volume rather than the vehicle's advertised maximum capacity.

Include the cost of a special journey. If reaching a cheaper option adds ten kilometres and your illustrative consumption is seven litres per hundred kilometres, the extra trip uses 0.7 litres. At a hypothetical €1.90 per litre, that is €1.33 in fuel alone. A nominal €1.20 saving would already be outweighed, before considering time or other vehicle costs. A routine stop on an existing journey can have a different result.

## Discounts and the amount you actually pay

At the till, an immediate discount lowers the amount you pay for that purchase. A voucher for a later visit leaves today's payment unchanged and gives you a benefit to use under its own conditions. Keep the two separate when deciding where to stop. This matters particularly near the end of a holiday, when you may have no opportunity to return and redeem the voucher.

Suppose a hypothetical immediate discount is €0.050 per litre on a purchase of thirty litres. Its immediate value is €1.50. A voucher of the same nominal value for a later purchase may have restrictions, an expiry date, or spending requirements. It is not automatically equivalent to paying €1.50 less now. For a visitor leaving the region, a later-use benefit may have limited practical value.

Likewise, do not conclude that an official price is wrong merely because your discounted receipt is lower. First compare the same product, period, unit, and type of amount. If a discrepancy remains unexplained, preserve the receipt and source document for review. A careful question with those details is much more useful than a cropped screenshot containing only two different totals.

## Why the last weekly price is not the monthly average

A weekly price history should keep each effective date and its source. A month can contain four or five Monday boundaries, so the newest weekly value is not automatically the monthly average. If you want an average describing a calendar month, weight each applicable price by the number of days it covers within that month. State clearly whether you are averaging time, purchases, or some other measure.

Missing information needs an explicit treatment. An unsuccessful document lookup does not establish that a price remained unchanged. When an official value is known to continue, show its continuing period; when evidence is incomplete, show the gap. Do not invent intermediate prices by drawing a smooth curve between two weekly decisions, because the interpolated amounts are not necessarily prices that ever applied.

To compare that history with the Azores, pick a day first and find the price then applicable in each region. For a monthly average, use the days covered by each weekly amount. The [regional comparison guide](https://www.fuelazores.com/articles/en/azores-madeira-fuel-price-comparison) includes a worked example. To explore the app's chart controls and inspect a recorded point, follow the [FuelAzores user guide](https://www.fuelazores.com/articles/en/how-to-use-fuelazores-pwa-apps).

## Frequently asked questions

### Are Madeira prices updated monthly like the Azores?

The normal Madeira mechanism is weekly, with Friday approval and Monday effectiveness under the cited framework. The Azores normally uses a monthly cycle. Always follow the effective clause in the actual decision, particularly if an exceptional change is published.

### Does the original 2022 formula still include an adjustment factor?

The original text did. Ordinance 166/2026 removed that factor from the basic formula in April 2026. When explaining a historical period, use the wording applicable to that period and check subsequent amendments before presenting a formula as current.

### Can I use the weekly maximum to calculate a rental-company refuelling fee?

Check the rental agreement. The published maximum concerns the covered fuel, while a rental-company charge may include a refuelling service or other contractual terms. Ask for the breakdown if the total is unclear. For the fuel you buy yourself, retain the station receipt and compare the same product, litres and purchase date.


## Official sources

- [Portaria n.º 25/2022 — Madeira (texto original)](https://joram.madeira.gov.pt/joram/1serie/Ano%20de%202022/ISerie-013-2022-01-26sup.pdf)
- [Portaria n.º 166/2026 — alteração da fórmula da Madeira](https://joram.madeira.gov.pt/joram/1serie/Ano%20de%202026/ISerie-063-2026-04-10sup2.pdf)
- [Despacho Conjunto n.º 82/2026 — Madeira](https://joram.madeira.gov.pt/joram/2serie/Ano%20de%202026/IISerie-159-2026-09-04Supl2.pdf)

Dated examples are not live prices. Read verified prices: https://www.fuelazores.com/prices