Five more than last summer.
Portugal will have 434 beaches with Gold Quality this summer, eight more than it had in 2025, according to an announcement by the nature conservation association Quercus, responsible for awarding this environmental distinction.
Of the total number of beaches awarded the Gold Quality distinction in 2026, 370 are located mostly in coastal areas (85 percent), 53 in inland areas (12 percent) and 11 in transition areas (3 percent), Quercus quantified, noting that the Tejo/Oeste and Algarve regions are the most awarded, with 93 and 86 beaches, respectively.
In terms of municipalities, Vila Nova de Gaia (19), Albufeira (19), Almada (17), Matosinhos (13), Vila do Bispo (12) and Torres Vedras (12) are the municipalities with the highest number of distinctions in 2026.
The environmental association highlighted that the North, Madeira and Algarve are the regions where the biggest increases were recorded, with five, three and two more beaches distinguished with Gold Quality than in 2025, respectively.
The Alentejo region experienced a slight decrease, with two fewer beaches classified than in 2025, countered Quercus, noting that the Tejo/Oeste, Centro, and Azores regions maintained the same number of distinctions as last year.
Making their debut on this list are Fontes beach (inland), in Abrantes, in the Tejo/Oeste region, and Boaventura beach (coastal), in Santa Cruz, in the autonomous region of Madeira.
The association explained that this distinction has been awarded for fifteen years, before the start of the bathing season, to Portuguese beaches that demonstrate good water quality in analyses carried out in the laboratories of the Regional Hydrographic Administrations.
To obtain the Gold Quality classification, beaches must have excellent water quality in the annual classification of the five bathing seasons prior to the last one (in this case, between 2020 and 2024).
They must also have achieved, in all analyses carried out in the most recent bathing season (2025), better results for certain bacterial indicators.
In coastal and transitional waters, all analyses should show values lower than 100 CFU/100 ml [colony=forming units per milliliter] for intestinal Enterococci and lower than 250 CFU/100 ml for Escherichia coli, Quercus specified, referring to one of the bacterial indicators analyzed.
With regard to inland waters, “all analyses should show values below 200 CFU/100 ml for intestinal Enterococci and below 500 CFU/100 ml for Escherichia coli,” he continued.
To receive the award, beaches must also have completed the last bathing season (2025) without any record of “occurrence/warning advising against bathing, prohibition of bathing and/or temporary closure of the beach”.
According to a decree published in the Official Gazette, this year the bathing season officially runs from April 15th to October 31st. Within this period, municipalities define their respective bathing season schedules.
On April 15th, the season kicked off at Porto Moniz beach in Madeira, and on Friday, May 1st, at 13 beaches in the municipality of Cascais, Lisbon district, and four in Madeira.