The 2026 Tourist Tax Report: what a city break really adds in tax

By TheOneToGo Editorial · Updated July 22, 2026 · 22 destinations compared

Tourist taxes rose again for 2026, and they are rarely in the room rate you booked. We took the official rate for each city and applied the same trip to all of them, so the figures line up like for like: what a normal city break adds in tax, on top of the room.

The basket is one room, two adults, four nights in peak season, at about €200 a night. We price it for August 2026, when the summer rates, seasonal fees and mid-year increases are all in force at once. Below is where it costs the most, where it costs nothing, and what genuinely changed this year. Every rate links to the city's own tax authority.

The figures below normalize every city to the same trip: two adults sharing one mid-range room at about €200 a night, for 4 nights. It is the fairest way to line up a per-person charge in Rome against a percentage-of-room charge in Amsterdam.

What a 4-night stay for two adds in tax

Total tourist tax for the whole stay, not per night, priced for August 2026. Sorted from steepest to none.

≈ marks a figure from a mid band or a currency conversion. Percentage-of-room cities (Amsterdam, Utrecht, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, Edinburgh) scale with the room price, so a pricier hotel pays more; per-person cities (most of Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Croatia) scale with the number of adults. Full mechanics for each city are on the tourist taxes by city page.

Higher rates and new levies for 2026

• Edinburgh introduces a brand-new 5% visitor levy for stays from 24 July 2026, its first ever city tourist tax. Official source
• Barcelona raises its city surcharge from 1 April 2026, and it is set to keep climbing about €1 a year through 2029. Official source
• Paris lifted its taxe de séjour for 2026, up to €15.93 an adult a night at a palace once the stacked surcharges are counted. Official source
• Vienna goes from 3.2% to 5% on 1 July 2026, and is already scheduled to reach 8% in 2027. Official source
• Milan raised its bands in April 2026, now up to €12 a person a night at a 5-star. Official source
• Naples added a second rise from 1 May 2026. Official source

Other 2026 cost changes, not a rate rise

• Amsterdam holds Europe’s steepest rate at 12.5%, but the hotel VAT jump from 9% to 21% pushes the total tax bite toward a third of the bill. Official source
• Venice brings back its €5 to €10 day-tripper access fee for about 60 peak days in 2026, separate from the overnight tax. Official source

Beyond Europe: heavier than it looks

These do not fit the euro basket, but the hotel-tax load is real once the stacked fees are counted.

• New York City USA about 14.75% plus roughly $3.50 a room a night, so around $48 a night on a $300 room, often only visible at checkout. Official source
• Las Vegas USA about 13% room tax, then a near-unavoidable resort fee of $45 to $60 a night that is not a tax but is charged all the same. Official source
• Dubai United Arab Emirates a per-room Tourism Dirham of about AED 7 to 20 a night, on top of a 10% municipality fee, service charge and VAT. Official source
• Tokyo Japan a flat ¥100 to ¥200 per person a night, tiny by European standards, with a move to a 3% system planned for 2027. Official source

Quick answers

Methodology

Every rate is taken from the city's own tax authority, tourism board or council, linked in the source column above and on our tourist taxes by city page, and fact-checked for 2026. To compare cities fairly we apply the same trip to all of them: two adults sharing one mid-range room at about €200 a night, for 4 nights, at a 4-star or equivalent tier. We price it for August 2026, a peak-season stay, so that mid-year increases (Vienna from 1 July, Edinburgh from 24 July), the summer bands (Croatia, Greece) and temporary rates (Istanbul) all apply at once rather than being mixed across different dates. Per-person taxes are multiplied by two adults and four nights; percentage-of-room taxes are applied to the €200 room for four nights. Where a city taxes the net or pre-VAT room price we treat €200 as that base, so a headline room that includes VAT would carry slightly less. Figures marked ≈ come from a mid band or a currency conversion (Reykjavik's ISK 800 at roughly €5.30, mid-2026). A few cities with seasonal or newly banded rates that do not map cleanly to this tier are covered on the by-city page rather than ranked here. The full dataset is downloadable as CSV. Rates change often, so confirm on the official source before you book. Last updated July 22, 2026.