Off Limits Madeira Review 2026: Fees, Coverage and What to Ask

Off Limits Madeira publishes a rate, which in this market is normal and in the American one is rare. As of August 2026 it charges 19% of the gross booking cost, plus IVA. This page sets out what that number buys, what it is charged on, and what it leaves for you to pay.

Everything below was read from Off Limits Madeira’s own site in August 2026 and from our directory of Portuguese Alojamento Local managers. We compete with this company, so we have kept to what it says about itself.

Off Limits Madeira at a glance

States it plainly: “Our Complete Package is 19% of the gross booking cost, plus IVA. That’s lower than any other AL Management Company in Portugal.” The rate is real and published; the superlative does not survive contact with the other rates in this directory – Host Wise starts at 9%, MasterHost’s Lisbon Basic is 10%, Super Anfitrioes’ booking tier is 10%, and Alojoeste’s digital tier is 15%.

Those are narrower packages, so the honest reading is that 19% is competitive for full service, not the lowest rate published in Portugal.

Leads on AL legalisation – licence applications, mandatory emergency equipment, multi-risk and civil liability insurance – rather than on marketing.

How much does Off Limits Madeira charge?

The published figure is 19% of the gross booking cost, plus IVA. The number is only half the answer, because a percentage means nothing until you know what it is charged on.

• What is the base? Gross booking value, net of the platform’s commission, and net of cleaning are three different amounts. The same headline percentage can differ by a fifth of your income depending on which one applies.
• What is billed on top? Cleaning, linen, consumables, maintenance call-outs, photography, and the administration of the tourist tax.
• Does the rate change by season? Several Portuguese operators price differently for the summer peak.

One rate, and what it has to cover

This is a single commission on what the property earns, which is the structure most owners picture and the easiest to compare – as long as you compare the right things.

Between the operators in our Portuguese directory the same headline percentage covers meaningfully different jobs. Some include cleaning coordination, linen and call-outs; some bill each separately; at least one charges its percentage on the net amount rather than on gross, which is a materially different calculation from the same number written the same way.

Write down what the quote actually includes before you compare it with anything. Two Portuguese quotes five points apart are routinely the same money once the extras are counted, and occasionally the cheaper headline is the dearer year.

Alojamento Local: the questions that outlast the fee

AL is the registration a Portuguese property needs before it can take short-term guests. It is national law applied locally, so what it means for you depends on where the property is – and this company works Madeira.

Madeira runs its own AL rules rather than the mainland’s, and they are generally more permissive – no equivalent of the central-parish caps that shaped Lisbon and Porto. That is a genuine advantage and it is also why an operator who works the mainland and the island needs asking which rulebook it is actually applying to your property.

Registration still attaches to a named holder as well as to the property, so the ownership question is identical: if the licence is in the manager’s name, leaving is a negotiation rather than a notice period.

Tourist tax is charged per guest per night and remitted locally. As everywhere in Portugal it is not your income, and a statement that shows it inside revenue is flattering the numbers.

Whatever the region, three contract questions outlast the percentage:

• Whose name is on the registration? If it is the manager’s rather than yours, leaving is not simply a matter of notice.
• Who deals with the council? Lisbon and Porto have both restricted new registrations in central parishes at various points.
• Who collects and remits the tourist tax? It is charged per guest per night, it belongs to the council, and it is not your income.
• What happens if the rules change mid-contract? Ask before you need the answer.

Off Limits Madeira vs One Fine BnB

We are a management company and we compete with Off Limits Madeira, so treat that table as our side of the argument and check theirs. What we will not do is publish a score out of five for a competitor we have never been a customer of – see our management FAQ for how we think about fees generally.

The market this company is actually working in

Madeira has the most even year of any Portuguese region, and that single fact should change how you read every quote you get. There is no dead season to survive, so a percentage that would be painful in the Algarve is spread across twelve working months here rather than five.

Demand is walking, levadas, whale watching and New Year, with a British, German and Nordic guest base and a growing remote-working one. Stays run longer than on the mainland coast, which means fewer turnovers for the same revenue – quietly good news for an owner paying cleaning per changeover.

The island’s own AL rules and its distance from the mainland both argue for a manager who is actually on it. Funchal is not a suburb of Lisbon.

Four things to settle in writing before you sign

Most disputes are not about the percentage. These four are the ones specific to letting in Portugal:

• Whose name is on the AL registration. If it is the manager’s rather than yours, leaving is a negotiation, not a notice period.
• The base the fee is charged on. Gross, net of platform commission, or net of cleaning – all three are in use here, and the same percentage on a different base is a different bill.
• Who collects and remits the tourist tax, and how it appears on your statement. It is not your income.
• Whose account holds the listing, and therefore who keeps the reviews when you leave.

The rest – owner stays, maintenance authority, payout timing, notice period, minimum term – is the same in every market and is covered in our management FAQ.

A worked example, in euros

Meet Ana. She owns a two-bedroom flat that took ~€38,000 in gross bookings across 168 nights last year, turning over about 40 times. Here is that year at the rate this company publishes.

• Gross bookings: ~€38,000
• Platform commission at ~15%: ~€5,700, leaving ~€32,300
• Off Limits Madeira at 19% on gross: ~€7,220
• The same 19% charged on net instead: ~€6,137
• Difference from the base alone: ~€1,083 a year
• Cleaning at ~€45 a turnover: ~€1,800, whoever manages it

In plain English: the same 19%, written the same way in two contracts, is worth ~€1,083 a year depending on which number it multiplies. Ana did not negotiate the rate down – she asked what it was charged on. That is not hypothetical here: at least one operator in this directory states plainly that its percentage applies to the net amount.

Published rate: 19% of the gross booking, plus IVA. Against the Portuguese range that sits mid-market – which tells you where to start asking, not whether it is good value.

Figures here are illustrative and worked from published rates, not measured on any real property.

Where Off Limits Madeira sits against the published Portuguese range

17 operators in our Portuguese directory publish a comparable full-service rate. At 19%, Off Limits Madeira is the 7th cheapest of them.

A wide range is not evidence that the cheap end is a bargain. It usually means the plans are not the same job – and in Portugal the cheapest published tiers are typically online-only, with the cleaning and the keys left with you.

What Off Limits Madeira discloses, and what it leaves for the call

How much a company says in public is not how good it is, but it decides how much homework you can do before you telephone. This is what sits on its own site:

3 of the five answered in public. The rest is a phone call, which is normal – and is why it is worth writing your questions down before you make it. Performance figures, where published, are always the company’s own numbers about its own portfolio and are reproduced here as such.

What no management fee covers here

Condominium charges on an apartment, which do not pause out of season. IMI and income tax – AL income is business income and is declared as such. Insurance written for short-term letting rather than for a home you live in.

Furnishing and replacement, because guest turnover wears a property faster than a tenant does. And the tourist tax, collected from the guest and remitted to the council – money that passes through you rather than to you.

Budget for those separately or the percentage will look cheaper than the year turns out to be.

Where Off Limits Madeira operates

Our own guides to these markets list the operators working in each, including the local ones that never appear in a national comparison:

• Management companies in Funchal
• Management companies in Machico

How to tell whether this manager is performing

Occupancy on its own tells you almost nothing – any property fills at a low enough price. Ask monthly, in writing, for revenue per available night rather than occupancy, the share of nights won outside the peak, average length of stay, and the trend in review scores rather than the headline number. A manager who reports those without being chased is telling you something about how the business is run.

You are also allowed to ask for a price on your specific property before you sign anything. A good answer names numbers – a rate for August and a rate for October, an expected number of nights, what the percentage is charged on, what cleaning costs per turnover, and who holds the AL. An answer about passion and peace of mind that arrives at no number at all is the same non-answer you would not accept from a builder.

How to switch managers in Portugal

Changing manager is more involved here than in most US markets, because the licence and the listing can end up in different hands.

• Check which rulebook the new manager works to. Madeira’s AL rules are its own, and an operator who mainly works the mainland may be applying the wrong one.
• Time it around the New Year peak, which on Madeira is a genuine high season rather than a quiet week.
• Establish who owns the listing. A listing built under the manager’s account takes its reviews with it when you leave.
• Honour the bookings already taken. Guests holding a reservation are not part of the dispute.
• Time it for the low season. Changing hands in July is a decision you make once.

Alternatives to Off Limits Madeira

The honest comparison is not us against Off Limits Madeira; it is the shape of the deal against your situation. Our directory of Portuguese managers lists everyone we could verify, grouped by region, with published rates where a company discloses one.

• If you want the whole job taken off you: compare full-service quotes on scope, not on headline rate. Ours is Full Service 20%.
• If you already have a cleaner you trust: a remote or digital tier is usually the better value. Ours is Partner 10%.
• If you are in one market only: a local operator who knows the council is worth more than national coverage. See our locations directory.

Who this company suits, and who it does not

No manager is right for every property, and a page that says otherwise is selling something.

• It suits you if your property sits inside the markets listed above and you want a manager who already works that council’s rules rather than one learning them on your listing.
• It suits you less if you are outside those markets. Coverage on a map is not the same as somebody twenty minutes away when a boiler fails in August.
• Look elsewhere if you need a specific scope this company does not itemise – most disagreements start as an assumption about what was included.

Compare it with the others

The closest comparison is the other operators working Madeira: Homie, Sofliana. The same questions applied to the rest of the directory:

• Homeful review
• ALEP review
• Carleton Properties review
• AB-House Property Management review
• Airnest REIM review
• Algarve Rentals Management review

Or start from the full Portuguese directory, which groups every operator we verified by region. If you are weighing Portugal against a US market, our management-near-me guide and the service overview cover how we work in both.

Sources and method

Read from Off Limits Madeira’s own website in August 2026 and stated as of that date. Its pages were also scored against a vocabulary taken from the search queries Portuguese owners actually use, to confirm it manages Alojamento Local for third-party owners rather than letting on long leases or listing only its own homes.

Our own rates are stated in full above: Full Service 20%, Partner 10% of rental revenue, plus a one-time $500 onboarding retainer, with no long-term contract. More on how we work is on our management page, and the full Portuguese list is in the directory.

Disclosure: One Fine BnB is a management company and competes with the companies named here. Every figure comes from each company’s own website and is dated August 2026.