When is the rainy season in the Algarve?

October to December, and it is more concentrated than most people expect. At Faro, IPMA's 1991 to 2020 normals give 56.0 mm in October, 75.5 mm in November and 90.0 mm in December, which is 221.5 mm of a 455.1 mm year. Just under half the annual rainfall arrives in three months, and just over half the days with 10 mm or more fall in the same quarter. December is the wettest month of the year.

Does it freeze in the Algarve?

Not at the coast. IPMA's 1991 to 2020 normals for Faro record an average of 0.0 days a year with a minimum below 0 degrees, and Sagres and Vila Real de Santo António both average 0.1. Frost protection for pipes and pool plant is not the winter concern here. Sustained rain, wind driven water on exposed walls and unheated rooms are.

When is the pine processionary dangerous?

The caterpillars only develop their urticating hairs from the third instar, according to ICNF, and the large white silk nests become visible from autumn. The riskiest moment for people and dogs is the procession itself, at the end of winter and through spring, when the colony descends the trunk in single file and buries itself 5 to 20 cm into the ground. That is when a dog can walk into one at nose height.

Why are quotes slower in summer?

Because the number of houses in use roughly doubles in some places. The 2021 census counted 151,269 Algarve dwellings as second homes or seasonal use, 38.6 per cent of the region's total, and in Quarteira parish the figure is 58.6 per cent. Those houses need work in the same weeks that occupied ones do, and access to a let property only exists between changeovers. Small jobs sent in spring or autumn get done faster and cheaper than the same jobs sent in August.

What is the single most useful thing to do each year?

Walk the roof line and the drainage in September, before the rain arrives. Gutters, downpipes, terrace outlets, the seal around roof lights and any flashing. It is unglamorous and it prevents the two most expensive failure modes in an Algarve house, water entering a flat terrace and water backing up because an outlet is blocked, both of which announce themselves on a December night rather than a September afternoon.

The Algarve Home Maintenance Calendar (2026)

An Algarve house does not run on a northern European maintenance calendar. The rain is compressed into three months, the summer is genuinely rainless, nothing freezes, and two seasonal pests keep their own timetable. Everything below is dated 2026 and anchored to a published figure.

The two numbers the whole calendar hangs on

At Faro airport, IPMA’s 1991 to 2020 climate normals give an annual rainfall of 455.1 mm. Of that, 221.5 mm falls in October, November and December: 48.7 per cent of the year in three months. June, July and August together carry 9.0 mm, which is 2.0 per cent. Of the 15.6 days a year with 10 mm of rain or more, 7.9 land in that same last quarter.

So the year splits cleanly. There is a long dry window from roughly May to September in which exterior work is possible and water ingress is invisible, and there is a short wet window in which every weakness in a roof, terrace or gutter shows itself at once. The mistake almost everyone makes is testing the first against the second.

The Algarve is one rainfall region and several heat regions

Rainfall barely changes along the coast. Heat does, enormously. On the same IPMA normals, Sagres averages 8.5 days a year at 30 degrees or above, Faro 35.5, and Vila Real de Santo António 51.8. Tropical nights, where the minimum never drops below 20 degrees, run from 5.8 a year at Sagres to 44.7 at Faro.

That difference decides shade, awnings, cooling and how hard a pool works, and it is why advice written for one end of the region reads as wrong at the other.

January

The wet quarter has just ended and December was the wettest month of the year at 90.0 mm. This is when damp shows. It is also when it is worth knowing that the 2021 census found 38.1 per cent of Algarve main homes have no heating of any kind and only 5.1 per cent have central heating, with a portable heater the single most common arrangement at 32.1 per cent. An unheated, closed room in a wet month is how condensation damp starts, and the fix is usually ventilation and heat rather than a product sold in a tin.

Do: check for staining at the top of walls and in the corners of north facing rooms. Run extractor fans. Open a house that has been shut.

February

Rainfall is easing, 41.9 mm on the normals, and the processions begin. ICNF describes the pine processionary’s fourth and fifth instars developing through winter, then a pause in feeding of one to three days before the colony descends in single file to bury itself 5 to 20 cm into the ground. Anyone with pines or cedars within reach of a dog should be looking up at the crowns now.

Do: look for the white silk nests at the tips of sun exposed branches. If there are few of them, ICNF’s mechanical removal is done by day, while the larvae are inside, and it limits the method to infestations under 100 nests per hectare with goggles and head and neck protection for whoever does it.

March

Rain 46.8 mm, mean daily maximum up to 18.9 degrees. The processions continue. This is the last comfortable month for exterior work before the season fills up.

Do: pool equipment before the water warms, garden irrigation before it is needed, and any repair that has been waiting since Christmas. Book now for April and May rather than in April and May.

April

Rain 39.0 mm, and the last month before the dry run. Anything that involves opening a roof or a terrace is easier from here on, because the weather is cooperating and the trades are not yet at their busiest.

Do: start the exterior list. Render cracks, terrace surfaces, sealant around windows and doors, painted woodwork on the seaward side.

May

Rain drops to 26.2 mm across 3.8 rain days. The INSA REVIVE vector surveillance programme runs its field season from May to October, which it describes as the period of greatest mosquito activity, so this is the month the standing water list matters. ARS Algarve’s own prevention advice is a maintenance list as much as a health one: cover water tanks and septic tanks, keep pools treated, keep gutters clean and unclogged, turn over anything that holds water, put fine sand in plant pot saucers or take the saucers away, change vase water weekly and keep grass short.

Do: air conditioning service before it is needed, not during the first heatwave when every unit in the region has failed on the same day.

June

Rain 5.1 mm on 0.8 rain days. The dry season is real. Mean daily maximum 26.8 degrees at Faro.

Do: exterior painting, rendering, terrace waterproofing, roof repairs. Work that must cure dry has its widest window now. Also: this is the last month before access to let properties becomes difficult.

July

Rain 0.9 mm on 0.2 rain days, mean daily maximum 29.4 degrees, and the tropical nights begin. Faro averages 44.7 nights a year that stay above 20 degrees, and most of them fall now and in August.

Do: as little disruptive work as possible. Emergencies only, plus anything a guest reports. Water use discipline matters: the Portuguese environment agency classifies the Ribeiras do Algarve basin at a 66 per cent water scarcity index over its 1989 to 2015 reference period, the second highest in mainland Portugal.

August

Rain 3.0 mm, mean daily minimum 19.9 degrees, the warmest nights of the year. Trades are at their most stretched and access is at its worst.

Do: keep a list rather than making calls. Photograph what is wrong as it happens, and send the whole list in September. A batch of small jobs done in one visit costs far less than the same jobs requested one at a time.

September

Rain returns to 21.5 mm and this is the pivot month of the entire calendar. Everything that has to keep water out has about four weeks left.

Do, in this order: gutters and downpipes cleared, terrace and balcony outlets cleared, roof tiles and flashing checked, sealant around roof lights and parapets checked, and any known leak fixed rather than watched. Also: ICNF puts the effective window for Bacillus thuringiensis treatment of the pine processionary in September and October, while the insect is still at the egg or first to second instar stage, so a pine problem is treated now, not when the nests are obvious.

For the list of small jobs that tends to accumulate over a summer, see handyman work in the Algarve.

October

56.0 mm, and 2.0 days on average with 10 mm or more. The wet quarter has started. ICNF’s alternative processionary treatment, a growth regulator applied late October to early November, closes here, and it is still only effective on the early instars.

Do: chimney work before first use. The 2021 census found 15.5 per cent of Algarve main homes have an open fireplace or a wood burner, ranging from 5.4 per cent in Vila Real de Santo António to 52.2 per cent in Monchique, so this is an inland and uplands job more than a coastal one. Also: a septic tank is easier to empty before the ground is saturated.

November

75.5 mm across 6.6 rain days, of which 2.7 bring 10 mm or more. Heating goes on, and in a region where 38.1 per cent of main homes have no fixed heating, that usually means a portable heater in a closed room.

Do: watch for the first damp patches and act on them while they are small. Note where water pools outside after heavy rain, because that is the map you will want in September next year.

December

90.0 mm, the wettest month of the year, and 3.2 days on average with 10 mm or more. Nothing freezes, so this is not a pipe lagging month; it is a water ingress month.

Do: after the first serious storm, walk the property and look at ceilings, terrace junctions and the base of walls. A leak found in December and fixed in March is a repair. The same leak left until it has soaked a wall through two winters is a rebuild.

What this calendar is built on

Rainfall, temperature and day counts: IPMA, Normais Climatológicas 1991-2020, stations Faro (554), Sagres (533) and Vila Real de Santo António (866), sheet version 1.0 of 2024.
Pine processionary life cycle and treatment windows: ICNF, Processionária do Pinheiro: Diagnóstico e Meios de Controlo, 2015.
Mosquito season: INSA, REVIVE vector surveillance programme. Household prevention advice: ARS Algarve, saúde pública.
Heating, fireplaces and seasonal housing: INE, Censos 2021, municipal tables.
Water scarcity index: Agência Portuguesa do Ambiente, Relatório do Estado do Ambiente, reference period 1989-2015.

What needs doing to an Algarve house, and when?