Tourist Tax for Short-Term Rentals: The Host's Guide

Tourist tax, also called a lodging tax or occupancy tax, is a small charge on overnight guests that funds local tourism and services. It goes by different names across Europe: imposta di soggiorno in Italy, taxe de sejour in France, and the impost sobre estades in Catalonia. What they share is that they're set close to the ground. In Italy the tax is instituted comune by comune under a national framework. In Spain it's regional, run by the autonomous community. In France it's the commune that adopts and rates it. That local control is the whole reason a guide like this exists: there's no single number to memorize, only a method for finding the right one and confirming it hasn't changed.

Italy's imposta di soggiorno rests on D.Lgs 23/2011, which lets provincial capitals, unions of comuni, and listed tourist or art towns adopt the tax and set their own rate, cap, and exemptions. The standard reference ceiling is around EUR 5.00 per person per night, applied proportionally to the price of the stay, though high-tourism cities can go higher, which is how Rome reaches EUR 6.00 for rentals. The headline change is platform collection: on 15 February 2026 Airbnb began collecting and remitting across Italy, starting with more than 1,200 comuni. But hosts keep the annual ministerial declaration, due 30 June of the following year, and often a municipal reporting duty on top. Confirm your comune's current rate before you set what you charge.

Spain's tourist taxes are regional. In Catalonia the IEET applies per night up to a 7-night cap, and from 1 April 2026 a tourist apartment in Barcelona city pays EUR 9.50 in total, made up of a EUR 4.50 regional rate plus a EUR 5.00 municipal surcharge. The law fixes a ceiling of EUR 8 for that surcharge, which a municipality can move toward by ordinance, so treat any figure above the current EUR 5.00 as possible, not scheduled. In the Balearics the ITS runs at EUR 2.00 per day for tourist accommodation, with a low-season reduction. Platforms in Spain can only assist collection with express authorization, and even then the host remains the party obliged to file the self-assessment. Check the current tariff with the ATC or ATIB.

France's taxe de sejour splits by classification. A classed property pays a flat per-night rate, while unclassified accommodation pays 1 to 5 percent of the per-person nightly cost, capped at the highest tariff the local authority has adopted. Additional taxes then stack on the base: a 10 percent departmental share, and in the Ile-de-France region a 15 percent regional add-on plus a 200 percent Ile-de-France Mobilites surtax. In Paris the 2026 cap for unclassified lodging is EUR 15.93 per adult per night. Platforms that handle payment have been required to collect and remit the tax under their own responsibility since 1 January 2019, remitting twice a year. Classing a property can lower the rate, so it's worth checking your commune's table on taxesejour.fr.

This is the point competitors skip. Airbnb now collects the tourist tax across much of Italy, starting with 1,200+ comuni and expanding, and, by statute, in France, and that genuinely removes the collection step for those bookings. What it doesn't remove is the reporting. Rome still expects a quarterly Comunicazione through GECOS, Florence wants a monthly filing, and Catalonia's modelo 950 is due twice a year, regardless of who took the money. Collection and declaration are separate duties. On top of that, coverage is uneven: a platform may collect for one stay while a Booking.com reservation, a direct booking, or a stay in a not-yet-covered comune stays entirely on you. The real work is reconciling which nights were already collected against which you still owe, per property and per channel. Get that wrong and you either double-pay or under-report.

Every number in this cluster can change by local decision, and 2026 is a busy year for it. Milan raised its rental rate to EUR 9.50 under an Olympic-year measure. Catalonia reworked its tariffs and surcharges under a 2026 law. Paris reset its caps for the year. So treat any rate you read, here or anywhere, as a starting point that needs confirming. Before each season, check the current amount, night cap, and exemptions with the comune, the ATC or ATIB, or your commune, and update what you charge guests. This guide explains how the systems work; it isn't tax advice, and a local accountant or the tax authority can confirm exactly what you owe and file.