Energy certification is a tool that is increasingly relevant today, not only because it allows quantifying and monitoring energy consumption in the building sector but also because it is a booster mechanism of the implementation of international guidelines on energy consumption. The thermal characteristics are the base of the energy efficiency calculation. In this paper, some reference values related to St. Antonio, the most populated parish of Funchal (Madeira), were quantified and analyzed demonstrating its moderate environmental conditions when compared with the rest of Portugal. The variation on the energy certification in last three years was studied for Portugal, Madeira, Funchal and St. Antonio. In general the number of certificates has been decreasing, due to the crisis in the construction sector. All the Regulatory Declarations of Conformity (DCR) and the Energy and Indoor Air Quality Certificates (CE) emitted so far in the St. Antonio parish were considered to study the influence of some factors in the building final energy classification. The findings show that the year of emission, the orientation of the building, the type of building and the type of certificate affect the final energy label of the building. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.