The Algarve in December: Weather, Sea Temperature, Rain Days and Crowds

THE ALGARVE · DECEMBER · 37.0° N

December strips the Algarve back to what it is the rest of the year: a working coast with very good light. Faro’s December average high is 62.8°F and the average low 49.5°F, which means a jacket at breakfast and shirtsleeves by two o’clock when the sun cooperates. The boats still leave for Benagil. The cliff stairs above Lagos are yours. What changes is the queue, or rather the absence of one.

What the month takes back is water and daylight. Lifeguard cover is fixed by law, and it ended on September 30 in most Algarve councils and on October 15 in Albufeira, so a December swim at 63.4°F is an unsupervised one. On December 15 the sun clears the horizon at 7:36 a.m. and is gone by 5:17 p.m. Nine hours and forty-one minutes is a short canvas for a coast this long.

On this page

• Average highs, lows and rain daysDecember weather at Faro, from IPMA normals
• Can you swim in December?Sea at 63.4°F, and no lifeguards on the coast
• Crowds, prices and the holiday weeksWhere December sits in the year
• Things to do in the Algarve in DecemberSagres hours, Benagil rules, free walking
• A two-day plan for 9 hr 41 min of lightThe two-day itinerary, hour by hour
• December vs November and JanuaryThree months compared, in figures
• Is December a good time to visit?The verdict, and who should shift

One caution before any of these figures goes into a suitcase. They are measured at Faro, five meters above the sea, at the eastern end of a coast that runs roughly 150 km west to Sagres. The hills inland are colder and a good deal wetter than the station reads, and the far western end keeps its own weather. Pack for a coastal reading and then add a layer if your plans climb.

Algarve weather in December: average highs, lows and rain days

The numbers come from IPMA, Portugal’s national weather service, and specifically from its 1991-2020 normals for station 554 at Faro: average high 62.8°F, average low 49.5°F, 3.54 inches of rain over the month. Those figures come off a thermometer five meters above sea level, read for thirty years. A reanalysis grid cell would smooth this coastline halfway into the Atlantic before it gave you a temperature, and on a coast this narrow the difference shows.

Three and a half inches sounds soggy on paper, and it does not fall evenly. IPMA counts 7.0 December days with at least 1 mm (0.04 inch) and 3.2 days with 10 mm (0.39 inch) or more. Call it one day in four with something on the windshield and about one in ten with a real soaking. Watch the threshold: American monthly tables usually count days at 0.10 inch, so those two columns are not interchangeable.

Between the 62.8°F high and the 49.5°F low sits a swing of thirteen degrees, and it arrives at the least convenient hour, while you are still out on a cliff path with the car half an hour away. Dress for two days in one: a shirt, a warm mid-layer, a rain shell that closes at the neck. The general list lives in the packing guide. The December additions are a hat, dry socks and shoes you can afford to soak.

Daylight on December 15 runs 9 hours 41 minutes, 7:36 a.m. to 5:17 p.m. in Lisbon time, which sits on UTC through the winter. Sunset comes while the afternoon still feels open, and it takes the cliffs with it. Anything that needs light belongs before four: the stairs at Ponta da Piedade, a boat, the walk out of Carvoeiro. Dinner is the one part of the day the dark cannot spoil.

Can you swim in the Algarve in December? Sea temperature and the lifeguard season

Sea surface off the Algarve averages 63.4°F in December. That comes from the Open-Meteo Marine archive over 2015 to 2024, and it is the mean of daily maxima rather than a flat 24-hour average, so it reads a shade warm against the water you actually meet at nine in the morning. Treat 63.4°F as the friendly end of the range, not the middle of it.

Sixty-three degrees is swimmable and it is not comfortable. Expect a sharp inhale, ten minutes of it without neoprene, and a proper session in a 3/2 wetsuit. November’s 65.3°F and January’s 62.0°F sit either side, close enough that shifting the trip does not change the decision. And every lifeguard chair is empty: the 2026 order runs cover from June 1 to September 30 in Lagos, Lagoa, Loulé, Faro, Olhão, Tavira, Silves, Aljezur and Vila do Bispo, and May 15 to October 15 across Albufeira’s 25 listed beaches.

On wind and swell we have nothing measured for December on this coast, and we would rather say so than hand you an invented wave height. What holds year round is the rulebook at Benagil, and the fact that boat operators cancel on sea state rather than on the calendar (editorial, from how the trips are run, not a published figure). Check the forecast and the operator the night before, not the week before.

How busy is the Algarve in December? Crowds, prices and the holiday weeks

December sits well outside the legal bathing season, which is the clearest seasonal marker the coast has: the last lifeguard came off an Albufeira beach on October 15. Rooms, rental cars and restaurant tables follow that curve down through the first three weeks, then spike hard for the ten days around Christmas and New Year. We hold no measured occupancy or rate data for the Algarve, so read the shape as editorial and the quote in front of you as the fact.

That splits the month in two for booking. Arrive between December 1 and 20 and a few days’ notice is usually enough, outside anything with a dozen rooms. For December 23 to January 2, work six to eight weeks ahead for both the bed and the car, which is our judgment rather than a measurement. Car supply is the tighter of the two, as the rental guide lays out.

On the municipal tourist tax, we are printing nothing. Our sources carry no verified Algarve figure for December, and a plausible-looking per-night number is worse than none at all. Ask the property what it collects at check-in and whether the charge applies in winter at all. If the answer sounds improvised, the council’s own website settles it.

The one line where spending more genuinely changes the month is the car. Nine hours of daylight against 150 km of coast leaves no room for waiting on a rural winter timetable. One caveat we could not close: the A22, the Via do Infante running the length of the Algarve, is reported to have been toll-free since January 1, 2025, but the operator and government pages we tried serve their content in JavaScript and we could not confirm it. Budget for tolls and enjoy being wrong.

Things to do in the Algarve in December: Sagres, Benagil and the cliff paths

December is walking weather that July cannot offer. At 62.8°F you can do the headland paths at midday without rationing water, and the sun stays low enough to light the cliffs sideways from lunch onward. The stairs at Ponta da Piedade, the promontory at Sagres, the boardwalk out of Carvoeiro: all of them punish you in August and behave in December. The rules at Benagil, built for a summer crush, apply to a handful of boats.

The Fortaleza de Sagres opens 09:30 to 17:30, last entry 5:00 p.m., and the ticket covers the fortress and the promontory behind it. We could not read the adult price at source: the monument’s page loads its price table in JavaScript and the regional ticket shop was unreachable, so ask at the gate. At Benagil, swimming in and landing inside are banned under the maritime authority’s Edital 019/2024, in force since August 13, 2024. Kayaks and paddleboards enter by the eastern arch with a licensed guide for up to eight minutes; motorized boats use the western arch, keep 15 meters off and stay two.

Free in December: the walking. Cliff paths, the waterfront at Faro, the salt-pan light at Tavira, none of it costs anything in any month and all of it improves in this one. One free offer that is not for you: Sagres admits visitors free on Sundays and public holidays until 2:00 p.m., but only people resident in Portugal. With a US passport you pay the same on Sunday as on Tuesday.

The Algarve in December: two-day itinerary and daylight hours

Day one runs west. Coffee at eight, with the sun barely up since 7:36, then drive out to be at the Sagres gate when it opens at 09:30 and take the promontory before anyone else does. Back in the town for lunch by one, then work east with the low sun behind you. Ponta da Piedade at three, because those stairs are lit until about four and gloomy after. Dinner in Lagos, where the dark costs you nothing at all.

Day two is the cave, with a plan B attached. Book the first Benagil departure of the morning and accept that the operator decides, not you. If it sails, you are back on land by eleven with the afternoon for the Carvoeiro boardwalk. If it does not, drive east instead: Tavira, the Olhão waterfront and a two-hour lunch lose nothing to rain and nothing to short daylight. Rebook the cave for the following morning, since the guides and the rules run all winter.

The Algarve in December vs November and January

December is the wettest of the three by a clear margin, 3.54 inches against November’s 2.97 and January’s 1.94, and it carries the most rain days at 7.0. On temperature it sits nearer January than November: 62.8°F against 61.3°F and 67.3°F. The sea steps down almost a degree and a half per month across the run, 65.3°F to 63.4°F to 62.0°F. All of it from the same IPMA station and the same marine archive, so the columns are directly comparable.

Shift four weeks back to November and you buy 4.5°F of daytime warmth, nearly two degrees of sea and half an inch less rain, at the cost of a slightly shorter afternoon than you might hope and prices still coming down from autumn. Shift four weeks forward to January and the rain nearly halves while the thermometer barely moves, which is the better trade for a walking trip. Neither month puts a lifeguard back on the sand.

Is December a good time to visit the Algarve?

Yes, if you came for the coast rather than the beach. Walkers, drivers, photographers and anyone who wants the cliffs and the cave without a wait get a strong month: 62.8°F days, sideways light, 24 of 31 days with no measurable rain. No, if the trip has children and a beach towel in it. The sea is 63.4°F, the light quits at 5:17 p.m., and there is no supervised swimming anywhere on the coast until June 1.

If that second description is yours, the alternative is not November, which improves the sea by two degrees and nothing else that matters. It is the legal season itself: June 1 to September 30 almost everywhere, extended to October 15 in Albufeira alone. Albufeira’s fortnight of October cover is the single most useful date on the Algarve calendar, and the twelve-month view sets it against the rest of Portugal.

And December’s own argument, in one line: it is the only month that gives you a 62.8°F headland walk, an eight-minute kayak slot at Benagil and a fortress promontory you can have to yourself at 09:30, all on the same tank of gas.

The last word

Decide the swim first and the rest of December sorts itself. If the water is not the point, book the car before the room, keep the outdoor half of every day inside the 9 hours 41 minutes you are given, and treat rain as three or four afternoons rather than a month. A footnote for collectors: one beach in Castro Marim gets lifeguards only from July 1 to August 31, the shortest season on the coast, which tells you exactly how narrow the Algarve considers its own summer to be.

Sources & data for this guide

• December, November and January normals (highs, lows, precipitation, rain days) · IPMA, 1991-2020 climate normals, station 554 Faro, altitude 5.0 m · checked Sep 9, 2026
• Sea surface 63.4°F, 65.3°F, 62.0°F, mean of daily maxima 2015-2024 · Open-Meteo Marine API · checked Sep 9, 2026
• Daylight 9 hr 41 min, sunrise and sunset on December 15 (UTC, converted to Europe/Lisbon) · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 9, 2026
• Lifeguarded bathing season by council, and the Castro Marim exception · Diário da República, Portaria n.º 204-A/2026/1 of April 30, 2026, Annex I · checked Sep 9, 2026
• Benagil cave rules, arches, 15-meter standoff, two- and eight-minute limits, end of unguided kayak rentals in July 2025 · Autoridade Marítima Nacional, Edital 019/2024 as amended by Edital 009/2025 · checked Sep 9, 2026 · the edital text itself was not read at source, the durations come via the Capitania do Porto de Portimão
• Fortaleza de Sagres hours 09:30-17:30, last entry 30 min before closing, residents-only free Sundays and holidays until 14:00 · Monumentos do Algarve / DRC Algarve · checked Sep 9, 2026 · the adult ticket price loads in JavaScript and could not be read
• A22 toll status since January 1, 2025 · unconfirmed · vialivre.pt and Infraestruturas de Portugal serve their pages in JavaScript · attempted Sep 9, 2026
• Crowd shape, booking lead times and the car recommendation are editorial judgment, not measured occupancy or rate data · no tourist-tax figure is published here because none was verified