The regular M1 MacBook does have a fan. The M1 Air doesn't, but throttles the CPU to avoid overheating

While we're being technical, there is no M1 MacBook; there is a M1 MacBook Pro and an M1 MacBook Air, as we as an M1 Mac Mini.

You're right, I meant "M1 MacBook Pro", not "M1 MacBook". I cannot seem to edit after a certain period.

In the Macbook Air there isn't. In the MBP there is.

Sorry if there was confusion.

It's an M1 Macbook Pro, so there is a fan, but I've yet to hear it.

My previous laptop was an Intel Macbook Air (2019?).

I have an M1 Macbook Pro for almost a month now as work laptop and I've only heard the fan once so far, while doing a multi-file search/replace in VSCode. For whatever reason that maxed out the performance cores for a few minutes.

Other than that it's been entirely silent and blazingly fast and I had no major issues with it.