Feira dos Santos 2026: what's on at Chaves's three-day autumn fair
Chaves hosts the Feira dos Santos from 30 October to 1 November: more than 500 exhibitors and traders, a livestock fair and cattle contests on Saturday, octopus by the São Neutel fort, concerts on Largo General Silveira and the saints' parade on Sunday.
Over the All Saints’ weekend, Chaves turns into one of the biggest street fairs in Portugal. The Feira dos Santos 2026 runs from Friday 30 October to Sunday 1 November, with more than 500 exhibitors and traders spread across the town centre in the far north of Trás-os-Montes.
It is a fair with centuries behind it, and it still does a bit of everything: crafts, regional produce, tractors, cars, livestock and plenty of music.
Friday 30 October
Things get going at 10:30 with a parade of gigantones, the giant festival figures, led by TEF and the Concertinas do Monumento. The official opening is at 5pm at the Aquanatur Palace.
Trio Montenegro play at 3pm, and at 9:30pm the Belcanto Show Orquestra takes the stage on Largo General Silveira.
Saturday 31 October
This is the farming day. The livestock fair opens at 8am at the Mercado do Gado, and the cattle contests start at 11am at the Forte de São Neutel. At 1pm, right next door, the octopus food festival begins.
From 9:30pm, Largo General Silveira hosts a DJ night with DJ Wild, marking 30 years behind the decks, plus DJ Fino and DJ Tabuada.
Sunday 1 November
The saints’ parades set off at 10:30, again with TEF and the Concertinas do Monumento. At 3pm the Banda de Gaitas de Verín, a bagpipe band from just over the Spanish border, leads the afternoon parade.
Every day from 1pm there is a craft fair plus a car and farm machinery show on Largo da Lapa, and a clearance-sale zone in the centre.
Before you go
Traffic and parking have been restricted on several streets since 25 October, and the Lapa and Rua Cândido dos Reis car parks are taken over by the exhibitions. Town bus lines 1, 2 and 3 change stops while the fair is on, so leaving the car outside the centre is the sensible move.
If you like your fairs with animals in them, it is a good warm-up for the Golegã horse fair, which starts on 6 November. The dates and organisers are confirmed in the Município de Chaves announcement.
Image: Turismo En Portugal (Flickr), via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)