Porto Belo beaches: a guide to the beaches, the island and where to live near them

Most people looking up Porto Belo's beaches are planning a weekend. Some of them, though, are deciding something else: which stretch of this bay is worth owning an apartment on. This guide is for both.

How the bay shapes Porto Belo's beaches

Porto Belo lies between Itapema and Bombinhas, on the northern coast of Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil. Almost all of its coastline faces a bay sheltered by João da Cunha Island, known as Porto Belo Island.

That is why the water is calm on most beaches, which suits children, kayaks and boats, and disappoints anyone looking for surf.

The town had 27,688 residents in the 2022 Census by IBGE, Brazil's statistics office (table 4714), and receives many visitors in summer, including from cruise ships that call at the bay.

The shape of the bay explains the routine of each stretch. Perequê is the long beach, with a wide strip of sand. Facing the island are Praia de Porto Belo and Baixio, with piers and boats. Around the rest of the bay are smaller fishing beaches, such as Araçá and Caixa d'Aço, and Estaleiro, surrounded by forest.

Porto Belo is still a town of houses. In the same Census, only 18.71% of occupied homes were apartments (table 9803), against 63.35% in Balneário Camboriú. The high-rise landscape is arriving now, and unevenly between beaches.

Beach by beach

The descriptions below follow the list of Porto Belo beaches on Portuguese Wikipedia, checked on October 4, 2026, and the IMA-SC water quality report. The municipal tourism portal did not open on the day we checked. "Praia" means beach.

A summary to start:

Perequê

The largest beach in town, about 2.5 kilometers long, and the most popular in summer. It has a wide, tree-lined strip of sand, but at certain times high tide covers almost all of it, a detail that surprises people who arrive at the wrong hour. It is good for walks, beach sports and swimming with children.

For property buyers, Perequê is the center of attention. Most of the Porto Belo launches in this portal's catalog as of October 2026 are in this neighborhood.

That means more choice of floor plans and prices, and also more construction under way and more competition when renting out. The full guide is in our article on Perequê Beach.

Praia de Porto Belo (Central)

Also called Praia Central, it faces the island and has calm water and a full range of shops and restaurants. It is the town's gateway from the sea: boats to the island leave from here, and the sightseeing schooners depart from its left-hand corner.

In the middle of the beach there are lithic workshops, stones bearing marks left by the peoples who lived there before colonization. As the departure point for boat trips, the beach concentrates boat and tourist traffic on sunny days, which matters if you want quiet.

Baixio

A small beach facing the island, with many piers used by fishermen and tour boats. It has room for beach soccer and volleyball and jet ski rentals. The sand strip is narrow.

Araçá

A fishing village that still keeps customs of Azorean origin, with dark sand and calm water. It has good snorkeling and diving spots.

Caixa d'Aço

Another fishing community, with a narrow strip of dark sand, calm sea and warm water. It is a natural harbor much used by motorboats and sailboats, and it became known for its floating bars, where boats stop for seafood.

Estaleiro

A small beach of about 80 meters, with clear water and surrounded by native vegetation. Access is only by trail or by sea, which keeps it almost empty. It is wild, with none of the facilities of the urban beaches: bring water and take your trash back.

Porto Belo Island

João da Cunha Island lies about 900 meters off the coast and has two small beaches with very calm water. You get there with your own boat or with the boatmen who leave from the municipal pier and charge for the crossing.

The island also has historical value. According to the Porto Belo entry on Portuguese Wikipedia, it holds petroglyphs at least four thousand years old, rock carvings made by the region's first inhabitants, and the ruins of a whale oil mill, both registered as archaeological sites.

Water quality: what the IMA-SC report shows

Before choosing where to swim, look at the official data. IMA-SC, the Santa Catarina environmental agency, takes samples at six points in Porto Belo, all on Perequê and Praia de Porto Belo.

In report no. 47, published on October 2, 2026, with samples taken on September 29, the result was:

Three notes on reading it. First, the result applies to the date and point of sampling, and it changes from one week to the next, especially after heavy rain.

Second, IMA-SC itself states that weekly sampling for the 2026/2027 season began that week and that the first report of the season comes out on October 30.

Third, Araçá, Caixa d'Aço, Estaleiro and the island have no monitoring point. There is no official data about them, good or bad. The updated results are on the IMA-SC water quality website, with the history of each point.

Things to do in Porto Belo beyond swimming

The bay is made for boat trips. Schooners leave from Praia de Porto Belo, boatmen cross to the island and motorboats stop at the floating bars of Caixa d'Aço. If you prefer to be underwater, Araçá and the island have diving spots.

On land, the route goes through the old center. The Igreja Matriz Senhor Bom Jesus dos Aflitos, the main church on Avenida Governador Celso Ramos, was begun in 1814 and listed as heritage by the Santa Catarina Culture Foundation in 1998, according to the same Wikipedia entry.

Azorean culture shows up in bobbin lace, in the Boi-de-Mamão folk play and in mullet fishing with beach seine nets, which Municipal Law 2,514 of 2017 declared historical and cultural heritage of the town. For anyone thinking of living here, these customs say something about the pace of the place: fishing still shares the waterfront with tourism.

Porto Belo or Bombinhas

This question comes up in almost every search about the region. The two towns are neighbors but have different profiles.

Bombinhas occupies the neighboring peninsula, with beaches and coves all around its edge. In the 2022 Census, it had 25,058 residents and a density of 713 people per square kilometer, more than double Porto Belo's (296). It was also slightly more vertical: 25.88% of occupied homes were apartments.

Porto Belo has the calm bay and is in a strong launch phase. According to DWV data published by Portas on January 30, 2026, the town launched 18,899 units in 2025, more than Itapema, Itajaí and Balneário Camboriú.

For a day out, the two complement each other. For buying, the question changes: year-round life in town, or a beach home for the season? Our article on Porto Belo neighborhoods goes deeper into the first option.

How to choose the right beach for your property

People buying near the sea often choose by the summer photo and regret the winter noise, or the other way around. In Porto Belo, each beach has its own routine, and that weighs more in daily life than the color of the water.

The volume of launches matters too. A lot of new supply in one neighborhood widens the choice for today's buyers, but increases competition for anyone who will resell or rent once the buildings are finished.

Watch the vocabulary in listings. "Frente mar" (beachfront) is a building whose facade faces the beach with nothing in between; "quadra mar" (one block from the beach) sits on the first block, behind it.

On a long beach like Perequê, the price difference between the two can be large and the difference in daily life small. Ask for the real distance to the sand, in meters, before comparing price tables.

Three principles help you decide:

1. Visit the beach outside the season and on a weekday. Perequê in January and Perequê in July are different places.
2. Look at water quality through the history of the nearest point, not a single report.
3. Separate use from investment. The beach you prefer for swimming may not be the one that rents best, and vice versa.

The next step can be taken from your couch. Compare the off-plan apartments in Porto Belo by each building's distance to the beach you chose, and see the selection of beachfront apartments in Porto Belo if the view is a priority.

The projects on each stretch of the bay can be presented in an online investment consultation, with price table and floor plan on screen. If you are already in Porto Belo, a visit to the show unit and the site fits into the same afternoon as a walk on the beach.

In Porto Belo, the right beach is the one whose routine you would accept in February and in August.