What to Expect from a Property Manager in Madeira — Owner's Checklist

If you own a rental property in Madeira and you’re deciding whether to manage it yourself, hand it to a friend who does it informally, or sign with a professional property manager, the next few minutes will save you a year of friction. This is the checklist we’d use if we were on the owner side of the table.

We’re an operator. Madeira Friends Enterprise (VAT PT518469670) runs Madeira Paradise Island and the Funchal City Apartment under permit 172524/AL. We compete for management contracts in Funchal. You should read this knowing that — and apply the same checklist to us before you sign anything.

What a property manager is actually supposed to do

A professional short-term rental manager in Madeira covers, at minimum, these areas:

Pricing. Daily rate optimisation across seasons. Reactive adjustments based on local demand events (cruise ships docking, weekend festivals, public holidays). A channel manager (Beds24, SiteMinder, Rentals United, or similar) syncing one calendar across Airbnb, Booking, Vrbo, and the direct site.

Distribution. Live listings on Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, and a direct booking page. Optimised photography, descriptions in at least English and Portuguese, response time managed below the platforms’ thresholds.

Guest communication. Pre-arrival messaging, check-in instructions, in-stay support, post-stay review request. A WhatsApp or similar fast channel for emergencies. Multiple time zones covered.

Cleaning and turnovers. A cleaning team that turns the apartment around between check-out (typically 11:00) and check-in (typically 15:00). Quality control. Linen and amenity restocking.

Maintenance. A first-call list for plumbing, electrical, appliance failure. A schedule for preventive maintenance (HVAC servicing, deep cleans, soft-furnishing replacements).

Compliance. Alojamento Local permit (AL number) registered and visible. Tourist tax collected if applicable (not currently in Funchal as of 2026). VAT correctly applied. Guest registration to SEF (Portuguese border police database) within 3 working days of arrival.

Financial reporting. A monthly statement showing bookings, gross revenue, channel commissions, taxes, manager commission, and your net payout. Annual summary.

If a prospective manager can’t speak fluently about all eight, they’re not professional. They’re a friend with a key.

The questions to ask in the first meeting

In rough priority order. The first three are non-negotiable.

1. Are you registered to manage AL properties under your own VAT?

In Portugal, short-term rentals must operate under an Alojamento Local permit registered to a Portuguese tax number. If the manager handles bookings under your AL permit but issues invoices under their own VAT, there’s a clear paper trail. If they handle bookings informally and pay you cash, you’re carrying their tax risk.

Ask for: their company name, NIPC (Portuguese company tax number), and their service agreement template.

2. Show me a monthly statement from one of your current owners (redacted).

The format of the monthly statement tells you everything. A professional operator has a clean PDF with: each booking line by line, channel commissions broken out, manager fee shown as a percentage and absolute number, taxes itemised, net to owner highlighted. If they email you “your share is €X this month” without a statement, walk away.

3. What’s your fee structure, including everything?

You want a single document that lists:

• Headline commission (typically 20–30 % in Madeira for full-service)
• Cleaning fee — passed through to guest or absorbed?
• Maintenance threshold — at what cost does the manager need owner approval before fixing something?
• Linen/amenity restocking — included in commission or billed separately?
• Channel commissions — does the owner see the gross or the net booking?
• Onboarding fee — for new photography, listing creation, initial deep clean
• Exit fee — if the contract ends, who owns the listings, reviews, guest data?

If any of these is “we figure it out as we go”, the answer in practice will be “more than you expected”.

4. Which channels do you list on, and what’s your sync stack?

You want Airbnb + Booking + Vrbo at minimum, plus a direct site. The sync between them needs a real channel manager — not the manager refreshing calendars manually. Ask the name of the channel manager software. If they don’t name one, they’re updating calendars by hand and you will get double-bookings.

5. What’s your average response time on platform messages?

Both Airbnb and Booking publicly track this. Below 1 hour during business hours is professional. Above 4 hours is hurting your conversion rate.

6. Who actually does the cleaning?

In-house team or subcontracted? In Funchal both work, but you want consistency. Ask whether the same cleaner does your apartment every turnover, or whether it’s a rotating pool. Consistency catches early problems (leaks, broken appliances) faster.

7. What happens in the first 30 days when I sign?

A professional onboarding has clear stages: contract signed, photography scheduled within 1 week, listings drafted and reviewed with owner within 2 weeks, listings live within 3 weeks, first booking taken within 4 weeks. If they shrug at this question, your apartment will sit empty while they “figure it out”.

8. Can I see two current owners as references?

Real references with phone numbers — not testimonials on a website. Call them. Ask whether the manager’s promised monthly net matched the actual net. Ask whether problems were solved or surfaced. Ask whether they’d renew.

9. How are bad reviews handled?

You will get a bad review eventually. Ask what the manager does: contacts you first, drafts a response together, escalates with the platform if the review violates policy. A manager who hides bad reviews from you, or who responds without your input, is making your platform reputation worse.

10. What’s the exit?

If you end the contract — who owns the Airbnb listing? The Booking listing? The reviews accumulated? The guest data? In Madeira the standard is: listings created under the manager’s account stay with the manager; reviews and guest data follow the listing. This is a structural disadvantage you should know about in advance and ideally negotiate.

Red flags

If you see any of these, stop the meeting and move on:

• “We don’t really need a written contract — we work on trust.”
• “We don’t issue invoices to guests, we just collect cash.”
• “We can’t show you a monthly statement, we’ll set that up for you specifically.”
• “We don’t list on Booking, only Airbnb.” (Then you’re missing half the European market.)
• “We update calendars manually.” (You’ll have double-bookings within a month.)
• A commission below 15 % for full-service in Madeira. Either they’re skipping work or they’re a friend doing a favour — both are unstable.
• A commission above 35 %. There’s no full-service market rate that justifies this in Madeira in 2026.

The actual Madeira market for property management commission, 2026

For full-service (pricing + distribution + guest comms + cleaning + maintenance coordination + monthly reporting), Madeira commission in 2026 sits at roughly 18–28 % of gross revenue. Different operators include different things at different points in that range — what looks like a 20 % rate at one manager can be 26 % effective at another once you add separately-billed extras.

This is the actual market. A 15 % rate exists but usually means partial service (only distribution, no cleaning oversight) or an informal operator without proper invoicing. A 30 % rate exists but should come with a clear case for why — premium photography, in-house concierge, deep relationships with specific OTA contacts.

We charge 22 % for the standard Funchal City Apartment-tier service, with cleaning passed through to guests at cost and no maintenance markup. If you’re being quoted significantly above or below that for similar service, ask the manager to show you why.

What we’d offer

If you own an apartment in central Funchal (the area we already operate in) and want a transparent management partner, the offer is straightforward:

• 22 % commission on gross revenue, no hidden extras.
• Cleaning at cost, passed through to the guest.
• Maintenance up to €100 per incident at our discretion, anything above coordinated with you first.
• Listings on Airbnb, Booking, Vrbo, plus the direct site at madeiraparadiseisland.com.
• Monthly statement by the 10th of the following month, in a clean PDF with line-by-line bookings.
• 30-day onboarding with named milestones — photography week 1, listings drafted week 2, live week 3, first booking week 4.
• Exit clause: if you end the contract, your listings revert to your control (they’re created under your AL permit, not ours).

Email paradise@madeirafriends.org with your apartment address, current performance if known, and what you want from a manager. We respond within 48 hours with a transparent proposal.

If your reading of this article is that we are not the right manager for your apartment — also fine. The point of the checklist is for you to pick well, not for you to pick us.

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Last updated June 2026. Written by the team operating short-term rentals in central Funchal. Commission numbers and stage definitions reflect what we and our peers actually charge and deliver in 2026 — if those change, this article will be updated.