Key takeaways
- The Azores counted 157,685 cruise passengers on 178 calls in 2025, up 3.63%, but 2025 was not a record: 2018 had 164,074 passengers and 2022 had 200 calls (Cruise Atlantic Islands; MedCruise, Portos dos Açores data).
- The ecotaxa billed 127,493 passengers for 2025, 30,192 (19.1%) fewer than the series total, and no published source reconciles the two counts (Açoriano Oriental, 15 May 2026; derived).
- Portos billed €382,479 for 2025 and the Region had received €266,277, or 69.6%, by May 2026; €116,202 on 38,734 passengers is owed by shipping agents (Açoriano Oriental).
- No Ponta Delgada passenger or call count is published for 2023 to 2025; the ecotaxa gives São Miguel 104,440 taxed passengers, 81.9% of the total, and Cruise Atlantic Islands itemises only Terceira and Corvo.
- The average Azores call carried 886 passengers in 2025 against 2,250 at Funchal and 2,106 at Lisbon, and expedition vessels made 45% of 2022 calls (Portos dos Açores; derived).
- The season is spring and autumn: March to May held 97.9% of transit passengers reported for January to June 2026, with April alone at 38,294 on 26 ships (Diário dos Açores via Novidades; derived).
- No Azores cruise spend study exists; the €30 a passenger quoted in 2015 came from company surveys, and no cap on calls, no shore power and no PDTA carrying-capacity figure exist (Portos dos Açores; RCG 141/2024).
- Eight claims were tested and none fully held, including 124,000 passengers and 80 calls for Ponta Delgada in 2018, which sat in our own research notes and has no source.
The Azores recorded 157,685 cruise passengers in 2025, up 3.63% on 2024 and 3.3% of the 4.7 million passengers counted by the Atlantic islands' cruise ports association. It was not a record. The same series gives 164,074 for 2018 and 161,729 for 2023, and its 178 calls fell short of 2022's 200 and 2023's 190.
The 2025 count has a second version. The archipelago began charging a €3 ecotaxa on cruise passengers on 1 January 2025, and the regional ports company billed shipping agents for 127,493 taxable passengers, 30,192 fewer than the headline total. No published document reconciles the two. Ponta Delgada, the port that takes most of these ships, has no published passenger or call count for 2023, 2024 or 2025 in any source we could reach, and the ecotaxa island split is the only public São Miguel figure for 2025.
Next to Madeira the Azores are small. Funchal handled 744,699 passengers in 2025, 4.7 times the Azores total, on 331 calls, so the average Funchal call carried 2,250 passengers and the average Azores call 886. Per resident the ratio is 0.64 to 0.67 in the Azores and 2.88 in Madeira. This article sets out the counts, tests eight claims about Azores cruising, one of which came from our own research notes, and lists what nobody publishes. It sits beside our national cruise statistics article and the Madeira companion on Funchal's cruise record.
Three counts for one year
The headline count comes from Cruise Atlantic Islands, an association of ports in the Canaries, Madeira, the Azores and Cape Verde. Its annual table gives the Azores 157,685 passengers for 2025 and 152,155 for 2024, and Seatrade Cruise News reported them on 5 March 2026. Cruise Industry News derives the 2024 figure by subtracting cumulative totals, and no release says what is counted: embarked, disembarked or transit passengers, or which ports are included. The only attribution is the port authority, Portos dos Açores.
Counting bases matter here. Portugal's INE, Lisbon's port authority and Madeira's port authority count every passenger once per call, whether embarked, disembarked or in transit, while Eurostat's port series counts only embarked and disembarked passengers and counts a turnaround passenger twice. Cruise Atlantic Islands and Portos dos Açores do not say which rule the Azores table follows. On a transatlantic crossing that visits two Azorean islands, the difference between one passenger and two is the difference between a count of calls and a count of people.
The longer series sits on MedCruise's Azores page, which carries Portos dos Açores data from 2010 and adds calls. Passengers rose from 62,256 on 60 calls in 2010 to 141,846 on 138 calls in 2015, peaked at 164,074 in 2018, fell to 21,011 in 2020 and 21,266 in 2021, and returned to 125,057 on a record 200 calls in 2022. Passengers per call were 625 that year, the lowest in the series outside 2021, because expedition ships made 45% of the calls. By 2025 the average was 886.
That series does not support a 2025 record. Passengers are 3.9% below 2018 and 2.5% below 2023, and calls are 11.0% below 2022 and 6.3% below 2023. Against 2019 the picture is better: 5.8% more passengers on 25.4% more calls, which is what the falling passengers-per-call column shows. The Azores are being visited by more and smaller ships.
Other versions of the past complicate the record question. Portos dos Açores said in June 2023 that 115,000 passengers in the first half of that year was a new maximum, against 113,000 in 2018. The 2018 full-year figure is 164,074, so the 113,000 can only be a first-half or differently defined count, and the release does not say which. For 2022 Portos reported about 128,000 passengers while MedCruise shows 125,057, and a regional projection in September 2022 had expected 217 calls and more than 200,000 passengers, neither of which happened.
The third count is the tax base. The ecotaxa taxed 127,493 passengers in 2025, which is 80.9% of the series total. The difference is 30,192 passengers, and the rules that could produce it are known even though no source quantifies them.
The ecotaxa is the only published cruise revenue series in Portugal
The ecotaxa marítima was created by Decreto Legislativo Regional 33/2023/A, passed on 14 July 2023 on a PAN proposal with IL against and Chega abstaining, and it took effect on 1 January 2025. It charges €3 to each passenger aged 10 or over without fiscal domicile in the Azores when they disembark from a cruise ship, and only at the first disembarkation on an itinerary that calls at several Azorean ports. Medical cases, displaced people, passengers with a disability of 60% or more and forced landings are exempt. Fines run from €500 to €10,000 for individuals and €1,000 to €40,000 for companies. We read the law through Lusa and regional press because the Diário da República PDF was not reachable.
Under Decreto Regulamentar Regional 31/2023/A the passenger pays the shipowner or agent inside the fare, the agent files passenger and exemption lists, and Portos dos Açores invoices the agent after the call. The money goes to the regional environment directorate. The Region's secretary for tourism opposed the tax in 2023 on competitiveness grounds, because Madeira had no equivalent, and Funchal has since introduced a €2 charge of its own. CLIA Portugal called the Azores levy a triple taxation.
For 2025 Portos billed agents €382,479 on 127,493 passengers. By May 2026 the Region had received €266,277, which is 69.6% of the amount billed, in two instalments: €5,703 in July 2025 and €260,574 in January 2026. That leaves €116,202 outstanding on 38,734 passengers. Nobody has said which agents owe the balance, and no dispute has been reported. For 2026 the invoiced total reached €218,013 by 22 September, with 94.5% collected, which implies about 72,671 taxable passengers so far (derived). The source gives no 2025 figure for the same period, so the 2026 pace cannot be judged.
Divided by the full series total, the 2025 bill works out at €2.43 per passenger (derived). Charging every one of the 157,685 passengers €3 would have produced €473,055, so the 30,192 passengers outside the tax base account for at most €90,576. Some of that gap is legitimate exemption, and some may be the way the series counts calls, so the unbilled amount cannot be read as lost revenue. What the figures do show is that the Region collects a levy on a base that is about four-fifths of the headline count, from agents who have paid about 70 cents of every euro billed.
| Island | Taxable passengers, 2025 | Billed, 2025 (€) | Share of taxable passengers | 2027 plan (€) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| São Miguel | 104,440 | 313,320 | 81.9% | 150,000 |
| Terceira | 19,854 | 59,562 | 15.6% | 39,000 |
| Faial | 2,356 | 7,068 | 1.8% | 70,000 |
| Pico | 552 | 1,656 | 0.4% | 21,000 |
| Santa Maria | 291 | 873 | 0.2% | 15,000 |
| Flores, São Jorge, Graciosa, Corvo | none reported | none reported | n/a | 87,000 |
| Total | 127,493 | 382,479 | 100% | 382,000 |
The plan for 2027 allocates the 2025 billed amount across nine islands, and it does not follow the passengers. São Miguel generated 81.9% of taxed passengers and is allotted 39.3% of the money. Faial generated 1.8% and is allotted 18.3%. The article that reports the plan gives 2027 as the spending year in its body and 2028 in its last paragraph. The government says the revenue funds protected areas, habitat restoration, invasive species control and trails, and the law required it to report to the Assembly on the first year about 1 May 2026 (derived from 16 months after entry into force). We found no report.
A waypoint, not a homeport: the ships and the calendar
Ponta Delgada's cruise berths at Portas do Mar are a 360-metre quay with 11 metres of depth and a 100-metre quay with 10 metres. Portos dos Açores gives a maximum ship length of 340 metres and 9 metres of draft, while MedCruise gives 348 metres. The quay has no shore power. The largest ships that call carry more than four times the Azorean average: Norwegian Escape with 3,965 passengers on 3 October 2026, Celebrity Xcel with 3,026 on its first call and Disney Dream with 2,971. Those are pre-arrival counts from port agents, published by the enthusiast Azores Cruise Club blog, not boarded totals.
The calls follow the Atlantic crossing. In spring, ships repositioning from the Caribbean and the US east coast to the Mediterranean and northern Europe stop in the Azores, and in autumn the flow reverses. The Azores Sustainable Tourism Observatory put about 60% of 2019 transit passengers in March to May, and July to September at 6% in 2019 and 12% in 2022. In the first half of 2026, March to May held 77,763 of the 79,458 transit passengers reported, or 97.9% (derived). This is a spring and autumn business that has little to do with the August beach calendar.
| Month | Ships | Transit passengers | Passengers per ship (derived) | Share of H1 passengers (derived) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| March | 8 | 18,050 | 2,256 | 22.7% |
| April | 26 | 38,294 | 1,473 | 48.2% |
| May | 36 | 21,419 | 595 | 27.0% |
| June | 3 | 1,695 | 565 | 2.1% |
| January to June | 73 | 79,458 | 1,088 | 100% |
The month-by-month averages show the transatlantic liners giving way to smaller ships, which is our reading of the pattern and not a published finding. April carried 38,294 passengers on 26 ships, 1,473 each. May had 36 ships averaging 595. April 2026 alone equals 24.3% of 2025's annual total (derived).
Expedition and sailing ships supply a large share of calls and a small share of passengers. Portos reported that expedition vessels made 45% of 2022 calls, about half were expected in 2023 and the government repeated half in 2025. In August 2024 two sailing ships, Sea Cloud Spirit and Santa Maria Manuela, made 27 of the month's 36 calls, with about 9,000 passengers in all. Two turnarounds are documented, National Geographic Endurance in 2025 and National Geographic Orion on 28 April 2026, and we found no homeport ship. A University of the Azores survey at Ponta Delgada in early 2019 found many passengers stopping "because of the itinerary rather than as first choice."
Portos dos Açores' 2026 tariff charges €4.22 per embarking or disembarking passenger and €1.88 per transit passenger, and during a three-year transition only the first Azorean call on an itinerary pays. We read the tariff through our research tool and did not re-check it against the PDF.
The autumn 2026 calendar shows the mix. Port-agent pre-arrival counts for six October calls total 10,739 passengers (derived): Norwegian Escape with 3,965, Celebrity Apex 2,795, Island Princess 2,085, Volendam 1,236, Amera 586 and the 72-passenger Corinthian. Island Princess was the first call by that ship in more than ten years, and Corinthian made its inaugural call on 15 October and is due back on 22 and 23 March 2027. One 3,965-passenger ship equals 37% of those six calls, which is why the call count and the passenger count move apart.
Where the passengers go: São Miguel, Terceira and Faial
Portos' regional breakdowns put São Miguel at 75 calls and over 123,000 passengers in 2018, about 75% of that year's 164,074. In 2022 it had 84 calls and over 81,000 passengers, 63% of Portos' 128,000, and in the first half of 2023 it had 60 calls and 76,000 passengers, 66% of 115,000. Terceira had 24 to 44 calls a year and Faial 19 to 38. Each share uses a different base and the three are not a clean trend.
The ecotaxa gives the only 2025 split: São Miguel 81.9% of taxed passengers, Terceira 15.6%, Faial 1.8%, Pico 0.4% and Santa Maria 0.2%. The first-landing rule probably inflates whichever island comes first on an itinerary, and on a crossing from the west that is usually São Miguel. Cruise Atlantic Islands itemises only Terceira, with 27,607 passengers in 2025 against 24,997 in 2024 (+10.4%), and Corvo with 209 against 30. Taking both from the Azores total leaves 129,869 for every other island, an upper bound for São Miguel (derived). Terceira's taxed passengers, 19,854, equal 71.9% of its series count, so the tax base covers noticeably fewer passengers than the series at one island where both can be compared.
Praia da Vitória on Terceira is the only place with a plan for a new cruise quay: a multi-use quay at 12 metres depth costing about €30 million under the 2030 programme, first reported in February 2023 and then described as planned but not approved. We found no later status. Ponta Delgada's port works since 2021, €86 million in all, covered tugs, a crane, hurricane repairs and dredging and include no cruise or shore-power item.
What a cruise passenger is worth to the Azores
No study of what cruise passengers spend in the Azores has been published. The figure that circulates, €30 a passenger, was stated by the ports company's then president in July 2015 on the basis of company surveys. The €2.5 million claimed with it equals 84,467 first-half passengers times €30 (derived), and the statement gives no method. The only research we found is University of the Azores student work based on interviews and a survey with no spend figures. National numbers exist, CLIA Europe's €940 million of output, €410 million of GDP and about 9,800 jobs for Portugal in 2024, but they say nothing about Ponta Delgada.
Scale is the better yardstick. SREA recorded 2,374,585 air passengers disembarking in the Azores in 2025, so cruise passengers were 6.2% of cruise-plus-air arrivals (derived). The air figure includes residents and inter-island flights, so this is not a share of visitors. It does show that cruise is a small flow beside air. On average 432 cruise passengers arrive a day against 6,506 by air (derived), though the spring concentration means a busy April day is many times the average.
A cruise passenger also generates no accommodation night, and the Azores measure their tourism in nights. Our Azores tourism statistics article puts 2025 at 4,595,793 nights on SREA's count and shows nights falling for eleven straight months to August 2026. EY-Parthenon's study for Ryanair put the airline's annual tourists at 102,886 to 118,561, equal to 65% to 75% of the Azores' cruise passengers, but a tourist on a typical Azorean stay of about three nights fills hotel beds and a cruise passenger does not. We found no Azores cruise total for 2026, so there is no published sign of cruise offsetting the air decline. The air side is covered in Azores air access.
Capacity, shore power and the plan that was due in July
No cap on calls or passengers per day exists at Ponta Delgada, Horta or Praia da Vitória. The limits are physical. São Miguel's island council noted in July 2026 that passenger ships take priority over cargo at Ponta Delgada, which creates space conflicts, and it called for the port to be requalified. The regional spatial plan was ordered revised into a new tourism plan, the PDTA, by Resolution 141/2024, which requires a carrying-capacity definition within 22 months, about late July 2026 (derived). In August the island council still listed preparing the PDTA as a proposal. The resolution does not mention cruise.
Nobody has measured what a ship day does to the island's sites. We found no count of cruise excursion passengers at Sete Cidades, Furnas or the Lagoa do Fogo, and the Observatory report does not mention them. The nearest figure is the Lagoa do Fogo shuttle, which sold 52,763 tickets between 15 June and 30 September 2024, an average of 489 a day with a peak of 1,180 on 8 August, and which has no stated link to cruise. The summer peak at the sites is a different calendar from the spring and autumn cruise peak, so the pressure from ships falls on the city and its coach routes, not on the lakes. That is our reading.
Ponta Delgada is one of five Portuguese ports on CLIA's map with shore power marked as planned. No date, budget or tender has been published. The Mediterranean sulphur emission control area took effect on 1 May 2025, and no such area covers the Azores today, which is our inference from the IMO's April 2025 notes. The one academic study of Ponta Delgada air quality, covering 2013 to 2020 at a station about 1.3 kilometres from the harbour, found no major correlation with cruise pollutants but a noticeable rise in nitrogen oxides on spring cruise days with southerly wind, and its authors asked for monitoring near the source. A statement that cruise does not affect Ponta Delgada's air overstates it.
Operations are the visible risk. The Artania cancelled a Horta call on 28 October 2025 after the tug from Ponta Delgada could not sail in a 4 to 5 metre swell. Portos said the agent asked for the tug only the previous day at 11:00, and the Horta mayor asked for clarification. It is the only cruise controversy we found for 2025 and 2026.
No Azores forecast for 2026 or 2027 was found from Portos dos Açores or Cruise Atlantic Islands. Portugal's ports association forecast national passengers up 6% to 1,970,275 in 2026 without itemising the Azores. Portos' forward schedule page lists 83 calls for 2027 and 73 for 2028, a count made by our research tool and not verified, with Norwegian Epic at 5,000 passengers on 4 November 2027 the largest. Island Princess returned in October 2026 after more than ten years away.
The Azores against the Atlantic islands
Cruise Atlantic Islands counted 4,708,190 passengers in 2025, up 12.6%. Santa Cruz de La Palma grew 43.0%, the Santa Cruz de Tenerife port 15.9%, Las Palmas 12.8%, Arrecife 8.7%, the Azores 3.6% and Funchal 2.6%. Per resident the Azores sit last on the table below. What separates the Azores is ship size and the absence of a home-port business: 886 passengers a call against the 2,100 to 2,300 that Funchal, Lisbon and the big Canary ports average.
| Port | Passengers, 2025 | Change on 2024 | Passengers per resident (derived) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Azores (all ports) | 157,685 | +3.6% | 0.64 to 0.67 |
| Funchal (Madeira) | 744,699 | +2.6% | 2.88 |
| Las Palmas (Gran Canaria) | 994,954 | +12.8% | 1.15 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife (port line) | 1,126,092 | +15.9% | 1.18 |
| Arrecife (Lanzarote) | 663,396 | +8.7% | 4.06 |
| Santa Cruz de La Palma | 363,325 | +43.0% | 4.27 |
What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts
Travelers. Cruise days in Ponta Delgada are spring and autumn events. If you are staying on São Miguel, check the Portos dos Açores port movement page before booking a busy April weekend, because the largest ships carry 3,000 to 4,000 passengers and several can call on one day. Faial, Pico and Santa Maria together made up 2.5% of taxed passengers in 2025 (derived), so the other islands feel it far less. Our Ponta Delgada guide covers the sights that fill up on a ship day, the island-hopping guide covers the ferries and flights between islands, and the Azores travel guide is the place to start.
Tourism businesses and investors. Cruise in the Azores is a seasonal day-visitor market of about 160,000 passengers a year, flat since 2018, spread over 178 calls with an average of 886 passengers, concentrated in March to May and October to November, and supplying no hotel nights. Anyone underwriting it should treat the €3 ecotaxa as a cost passed to the passenger and the 2027 budget as conservation money, not marketing. The thresholds that would change the assessment are a published Ponta Delgada count, a PDTA with numeric carrying capacity, a dated shore-power project, and homeport or turnaround calls, which bring nights. Leixões turnarounds rose from 2,121 in 2024 to about 24,000 in 2025, and nothing similar has been recorded here.
Journalists and analysts. The citable figures are 157,685 passengers and 178 calls in 2025 (Cruise Atlantic Islands and MedCruise, Portos dos Açores data); 164,074 in 2018 and 200 calls in 2022 as the peaks; €382,479 billed and €266,277 received for the 2025 ecotaxa, on 127,493 taxable passengers; and the 2026 invoiced total of €218,013 to 22 September. Do not repeat Ponta Delgada's 124,000 passengers and 80 calls for 2018, a 2025 record, the 217 calls projected for 2022, the Travel And Tour World figures, or €30 a passenger. The running series finding this article adds is that the Azores publish the only cruise levy receipts in Portugal and no port-level passenger count, so the money is better documented than the traffic it comes from.
Data & sources
Period covered: 2010 to 2025, with ecotaxa data to 22 September 2026
- Cruise Atlantic Islands via Seatrade Cruise News, 5 March 2026 · Azores, Terceira and Corvo passengers for 2025 and 2024, the 4,708,190 Atlantic islands total and comparator ports. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- MedCruise: Azores port page (Portos dos Açores data) · Azores passengers and calls 2010 to 2025, including 2018, 2022, 2023 and 2025. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- Decreto Legislativo Regional 33/2023/A, Diário da República, 16 August 2023 · Legal basis of the ecotaxa marítima: €3 rate, liable passengers, exemptions and fines. Read through press summaries. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- Açoriano Oriental, 15 May 2026 · 2025 ecotaxa billed, received and outstanding, taxable passengers and the island split. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- Açoriano Oriental, 23 October 2026 · 2026 invoiced and collected ecotaxa to 22 September and the 2027 allocation by island. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- RTP Açores, 8 April 2026 · Ports company president confirms the 2025 ecotaxa take at about €382,000. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- Portos dos Açores, 2022 cruise release · 200 calls in 2022, about 128,000 passengers, the island split and the 45% expedition share. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- RTP / Lusa, 11 June 2023 · First-half 2023: 132 calls, 115,000 passengers and the island split; source of the 113,000 benchmark. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- Portos dos Açores: Port of Ponta Delgada · Cruise quay lengths, depths, draft and maximum ship length. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- Portos dos Açores: Regulamento de Tarifas 2026 · Passenger tariffs for embarking, disembarking and transit passengers. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- Novidades from Diário dos Açores, 2 August 2026 · January to June 2026 ships and transit passengers by month. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- Azores Sustainable Tourism Observatory, INSTO report · Cruise seasonality: March to May share of 2019 transit passengers and July to September shares. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- Resolução do Conselho do Governo 141/2024 (POTRAA revision into the PDTA) · Mandate to define tourism carrying capacity within 22 months. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- SREA via Dinheiro Vivo / Lusa, 9 January 2026 · 2,374,585 air passengers disembarked in the Azores in 2025. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- Puertos del Estado via El Estrecho Digital, 2 February 2026 · Spanish port cruise totals for 2025, including Santa Cruz de Tenerife's authority figure. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
- Dinheiro Vivo / Lusa, 8 January 2026 (Funchal 2025) · Funchal's 331 calls in 2025 and Porto Santo's 8. Accessed 24 Oct 2026.
Methodology
This article uses Cruise Atlantic Islands' annual table as reported by Seatrade, Cruise Industry News and MedCruise for the 2024 and 2025 Azores totals, and MedCruise's Azores page, which carries Portos dos Açores data, for the series from 2010 and for calls. Ecotaxa figures come from the government's reply to the PS group as reported by Açoriano Oriental, from RTP Açores and from Lusa and regional press on the law. Island and monthly breakdowns come from Portos dos Açores releases relayed by RTP, Açoriano Oriental and the Diário dos Açores. Comparators use Puertos del Estado, Seatrade and Dinheiro Vivo.
Six limits govern it. INE and SREA pages and the Portos dos Açores statistics images were not readable by our tools, so no primary Azores cruise table was seen. The law and the tariff were read through press summaries and a research tool, not the PDFs. Eurostat's port series and Pordata were not queried. The cruise counts do not say which passenger types or ports they include. Calls for 2023 and 2025 come from one source. Ship details for 2026 come from port-agent counts on an enthusiast blog.
Where sources conflict we report both values. Claims that failed are named in the corrections panel and the disclaimer, including one that came from our own files. Figures we calculated are marked as derived, and every percentage change in the text is computed from the stated counts. Per-resident ratios use Census 2021 definitive population for the Azores (236,413), which corrects the 236,440 provisional figure carried in earlier series notes.
Notes on the data
Gaps. No Ponta Delgada, Horta or Praia da Vitória annual passenger or call series is published in the sources we reached; Portos dos Açores keeps 2010 to 2018 as images. There is no definition of what the Azores total counts, no 2023 or 2025 port split beyond Terceira and Corvo, no 2026 season total or forecast, no 2025 comparison for the first half of 2026, no cruise-line or nationality split after 2018, no Azores cruise spend or economic impact study, no exemption breakdown for the ecotaxa, no list of agents owing the unpaid balance, no report on the levy's first year, no numeric carrying capacity, no date or budget for shore power, and no verified record-day claim after 2019.
Contested figures. 2018: 164,074 passengers on 138 calls (MedCruise, Portos), over 164,000 (Portos via Jornal da Economia do Mar), 113,000 in a Portos 2023 release (basis unstated), and 180,000 on 136 calls on CruiseMapper. 2022: about 128,000 (Portos) or 125,057 (MedCruise). 2024: 152,155 (Cruise Atlantic Islands) or 152,156 (MedCruise). Azores population: 236,413 (Census 2021 definitive), 241,026 (INE estimate, 31 December 2021) or 245,328 (INE estimate, 31 December 2025). Maximum ship length at Ponta Delgada: 340 metres (Portos) or 348 (MedCruise). Ecotaxa collector: Decreto Legislativo Regional 33/2023/A names the terminal operators and the regulation names Portos dos Açores. The article reporting the 2027 plan gives both 2027 and 2028 as the spending year. Santa Cruz de Tenerife 2025: 1,642,960 (Puertos del Estado) or 1,126,092 (Cruise Atlantic Islands port line).
Failed claims. Ponta Delgada 124,000 passengers on 80 calls in 2018 (CruiseMapper and our own notes), a 2025 record, 217 calls and 200,000 passengers in 2022, the 153rd call at Ponta Delgada beating 152, the Travel And Tour World figures of 728,000 passengers and €62.9 million, and €30 a passenger. Derived figures: all changes between years, passengers per call, the 30,192 gap, 19.1%, 69.6% and 94.5% collection rates, island shares, 72,671 implied taxable passengers for 2026, 129,869, per-resident ratios, 6.2% of arrivals, daily averages, month averages and the PDTA deadline. Self-reported or unreliable figures: port-agent passenger counts from the Azores Cruise Club blog, the 2027 call count on Portos' schedule page (counted by a research tool), CLIA's national figures, the 2015 €30 statement, and the tariff and law texts as read through press summaries.
Frequently asked questions
How many cruise passengers did the Azores have in 2025?
The Azores recorded 157,685 cruise passengers on 178 calls in 2025, up 3.63% on 152,155 in 2024, according to Cruise Atlantic Islands and MedCruise data from Portos dos Açores. The total is 3.3% of the 4,708,190 counted by the Atlantic islands' ports. No source states which passenger types it includes.
How many cruise passengers visit Ponta Delgada each year?
No Ponta Delgada count is published for 2023 to 2025. Portos dos Açores gave São Miguel over 123,000 passengers on 75 calls in 2018. For 2025 the ecotaxa taxed 104,440 passengers on São Miguel, and Cruise Atlantic Islands' figures leave at most 129,869 for all islands other than Terceira and Corvo.
Was 2025 a record year for cruise in the Azores?
No. Passengers were 3.9% below 2018's 164,074 and 2.5% below 2023's 161,729, and calls were below 2022's 200 and 2023's 190. The record in 2025 belonged to the Atlantic islands as a group, which counted 4,708,190 passengers.
What is the Azores cruise tax?
It is the ecotaxa marítima, €3 per passenger aged 10 or over without Azores fiscal domicile, charged on first disembarkation on a regional itinerary. It was created by Decreto Legislativo Regional 33/2023/A and has applied since 1 January 2025, with exemptions for medical cases, force majeure landings and some others.
How much did the Azores cruise ecotaxa raise?
Portos dos Açores billed €382,479 for 2025 on 127,493 passengers and the Region had received €266,277 by May 2026. For 2026 the invoiced total was €218,013 by 22 September, with €206,115 collected.
When is the cruise season in Ponta Delgada?
Spring and autumn. About 60% of 2019 transit passengers came in March to May, and July to September carried 6% in 2019 and 12% in 2022. In the first half of 2026 April alone carried 38,294 passengers on 26 ships.
How big are the ships that call at Ponta Delgada?
The cruise quay is 360 metres plus 100 metres, with a maximum ship length of 340 metres according to Portos dos Açores and 9 metres of draft. The largest 2026 calls carried 3,965 passengers (Norwegian Escape), 3,026 (Celebrity Xcel) and 2,971 (Disney Dream), but the 2025 average was 886 passengers a call.
How does Azores cruise compare with Madeira?
Funchal had 744,699 passengers on 331 calls in 2025, 4.7 times the Azores total, with 2,250 passengers a call against 886. Per resident the ratio is 2.88 in Madeira and 0.64 to 0.67 in the Azores. Both charge cruise levies, €2 in Funchal and €3 in the Azores, and only the Azores publish receipts.
Is there a limit on cruise ships in the Azores?
No cap on calls or passengers per day was found at Ponta Delgada, Horta or Praia da Vitória. The limits are physical. The regional plan that must define carrying capacity, the PDTA, was due about July 2026 and had not been published by August 2026.