The map of air conditioning.

1 · The map

The share of dwellings with air conditioning in each of Portugal's 300-plus municipalities, from INE's 2021 Census. Darker shades mark where AC is most common – overwhelmingly the hotter south. Grey means no data.

2 · Why this is a floor, not today's number

Read one thing before you trust any figure here: this is a snapshot from 2021, about 5 years old, and there is no newer national count. Portugal's census runs once a decade, so the next one is only due in 2031. In the years since, the case for buying a unit has only strengthened: 2022 was the hottest year in mainland Portugal since records began in 1931, with more than 90 days in heatwave; 2023 was the second-hottest ever; and the summers of 2024 and 2026 brought further multi-day heatwaves with peaks above 40 °C. Air conditioning is cheap to install and increasingly standard in new builds (36.5% of dwellings built in the last decade already had it in 2021, against 16.6% of all homes), and the market bears that out: sales rose about 9% by volume and 19% by value in 2025 alone (Euromonitor), and through the summer 2026 heatwave retailers reported fans and portable units selling out. So the true 2026 share is higher than the map shows almost everywhere – but nobody has re-counted. We date it plainly rather than inflate it with a guess.

3 · The south-north divide

Air conditioning in Portugal is, first, a map of climate. In the Alentejo and the Algarve – hot, dry, and far from the sea breeze – roughly one dwelling in three had AC in 2021, about double the national 16.6%. In the mild, rainy north-west and up in the interior hills it is a rarity, and in the Atlantic islands rarer still: Madeira sat lowest of all the regions at 2.5%. In all, 126 of the country's municipalities were still under 10% in 2021, and just 14 were at 40% or more. As summers intensify, that spread is also becoming a map of who can afford to stay cool.

4 · Where it is most, and least, common

The top of the table is almost entirely Alentejo and Algarve; the bottom mixes the humid northern interior with the islands, where Machico closes the list at 0.8%.

5 · What the map does not show

A dwelling having AC is not the same as being able to run it: this map counts installation, not comfort or the bill. Cooling is increasingly a question of means. Energy poverty leaves many households unable to cool their homes at all, and equipping one got dearer in mid-2025, when the reduced 6% VAT on heat pumps and reversible AC expired and returned to the standard 23% (Parliament has since recommended restoring the lower rate). By July 2026, public-health doctors were putting it bluntly, "air conditioning saves lives", and calling for public air-conditioned spaces for the elderly and the vulnerable, as heatwaves push hospital admissions, and deaths, up: in the summer of 2022 alone, three heatwaves were linked to roughly 2,400 deaths, most of them elderly (INSA/DGS).

It is also a map of electricity. Air conditioning is one of the big drivers of the summer demand peak – so much so that Portugal has capped public buildings' AC at a 25 °C minimum in summer to save energy (a 2022 measure), since each degree below that adds roughly 7% to consumption – and that peak lands exactly when the same heatwaves strain water supply. The map of who runs the AC and the map of who runs short of water are drawn by the same weather.

The figures

• 16.6%of dwellings in Portugal had air conditioningINE · 2021 Census (83.4% did not)
• 0.8–56.1%from the least- to the most-equipped municipality (Machico to Campo Maior)INE · 2021 Census
• 31.7% / 32.6%Alentejo and Algarve, roughly double the national rateINE · 2021 Census
• 2.5%Madeira, the lowest regionINE · 2021 Census
• 126municipalities still under 10% in 2021Questiona over INE data
• 5 yrssince the snapshot; the next census is due only in 2031INE
• 2022the hottest year in mainland Portugal since 1931IPMA · 90+ days in heatwave
• +19%air-conditioner sales in 2025, by value (+9% by volume)Euromonitor
• 23%VAT on a new AC unit since mid-2025 (was 6%)State Budget 2022 measure expired 30 Jun 2025
• ~2,400deaths linked to the summer 2022 heatwaves, most of them elderlyINSA / DGS