It is not one UK tourist tax. It is three different systems, plus a new English power announced on 10 September 2026. The person who owes the money is almost always the accommodation provider, not the guest. You can add a line to the invoice or take the hit yourself. You cannot opt out of paying the authority once your area has switched the levy on.
This is a reading of published government pages and the 10 September announcement, written for owners of holiday cottages, city flats and other short-term lets. It is not tax advice. Rates, start dates and filing portals move. Check the page for your nation before you reprint a number on a booking confirmation.
The three-nation compliance picture, including Wales’s register and Scotland’s licence, is in the 2026 rules roundup. England’s short-term let register is a separate drawer, covered here. This piece is the charge on the night.
What a visitor levy is
A visitor levy is a local charge on paid overnight stays. Day trippers do not pay it. It is not council tax, not VAT, and not the England register. Papers still call it a tourist tax. The official name in England is the Overnight Visitor Levy. That name matters, because UK residents on a city break pay the same as a visitor from overseas.
The host, hotel or site operator is the taxpayer. Platforms do not take that liability off you. Airbnb can add a collection field. It does not file your Edinburgh return or your Welsh Revenue Authority assessment.
Scotland: already live in Edinburgh
Edinburgh started on 24 July 2026. The City of Edinburgh Council scheme is 5 per cent of the paid accommodation price, charged before VAT, on the first five consecutive nights only. Extra nights in the same stay are not levied. Parking, meals and other add-ons are out of the percentage.
It applies to hotels, B&Bs, self-catering, licensed short-term lets, hostels and campsites inside the council boundary. Businesses under the VAT threshold still owe it. Tourists, people staying for work, and UK or Scottish residents are all in.
Stays from 24 July 2026 that were booked and paid, in part or in full, before 1 October 2025 are out. Everything booked after that date for a stay on or after 24 July is in. Providers file quarterly. The first return window was October 2026 for 24 July to 30 September.
Other Scottish councils can follow under the Visitor Levy (Scotland) Act 2024, on their own rate and timetable. Do not copy Edinburgh’s 5 per cent and five-night cap onto Glasgow or Aberdeen until that council has published its own scheme.
On an £800 week priced evenly across seven nights, 5 per cent on the first five nights is about £28.50. That is large enough to show up in a price comparison. It is not large enough to treat as optional.
Wales: register this autumn, levy from April 2027
Wales split the job in two.
From October 2026 anyone who takes bookings for overnight stays in Wales must register with the Welsh Revenue Authority. Registration is free. Official guidance says you must be on the register by 31 March 2027 even if your council never brings in a levy. Penalties for failing to register start from 1 April 2027.
The levy itself is optional for each council and not optional for you once your council opts in. Councils can start on 1 April or 1 October. Cardiff is first, from 1 April 2027. If you take bookings for Cardiff, you start accounting for the levy from 28 September 2026 on new bookings, and on extra nights or extra guests added to existing bookings, where the stay is from 1 April 2027.
Welsh Government rates are fixed in the 2025 Act:
- 75 pence per person per night for shared hostel rooms, bunkhouses, bothies, dormitories and tent pitches. Under-18s are exempt on that lower rate only.
- £1.30 per person per night for everything else: hotels, B&Bs, cottages, lodges, holiday lets, caravan pitches, shepherd’s huts.
Children in a self-catering cottage are on the £1.30 rate. Stays of more than 31 nights in a single booking are out. Emergency or temporary housing arranged by the council is out. Visitors can later claim a refund from the WRA in a short list of hardship cases. The provider still accounts for the stay unless official guidance says otherwise.
The WRA collects. You can use an agent to file. You remain responsible if they miss the deadline.
Four adults, seven nights, £1.30: £36.40 on the week. That is the number most cottage owners in a levy area will actually write a cheque for.
England: a power, not a live charge
On 10 September 2026 the UK government said mayors and leaders of Foundation Strategic Authorities will get the power to introduce an Overnight Visitor Levy. The levy must be a percentage of the accommodation price, not a flat fee. There is no central cap on the rate. A bill will be introduced in due course. Mayors are expected to set out spending plans by early 2028.
Hotels and other accommodation providers will pay the authority. Temporary accommodation, shelters and refuges are out. Local leaders can offer exemptions such as campsites. The press release does not print a start date or a statutory list of property types. Reporting around the announcement treats hotel rooms, B&Bs and Airbnb-style lets as in scope. Until the bill is published, treat holiday lets as expected to be included, not as already taxed.
Several mayors have already said they want the tool, including London, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, York and North Yorkshire, and the North East. London and some other cities have talked about staying at or under 5 per cent. That is a political promise, not a legal ceiling.
Manchester and Liverpool already run a different charge through Accommodation Business Improvement Districts: £1 a room a night in the Manchester zone since 2023, £2 in Liverpool. Those schemes are voluntary business levies on participating hotels and serviced apartments above a rateable-value threshold. A typical cottage or city flat is usually outside them. A statutory English levy would be wider. Do not file the BID charge as if it were the new tax.
England owners have nothing to collect this weekend. They do have a 2027 and 2028 pricing risk. Watch your own combined authority, not a national headline rate.
Who actually pays
In Wales the provider “will be responsible for paying the levy even if you choose to pass the cost of the levy onto visitors.” Edinburgh’s scheme puts collection and the quarterly return on the accommodation provider. England’s announcement puts payment on hotels and other providers.
So:
- The guest only pays if you pass it on.
- A family from Birmingham in a Cardiff flat is in the same bucket as a visitor from Frankfurt.
- The OTA listing does not move the legal person. If Airbnb or Booking.com fails to add the line, you still owe the authority.
- Direct bookings need a night-and-headcount record in the same folder as the fire risk assessment and the insurance schedule.
Absorbing the levy does not cancel registration, quarterly returns or penalties.
Should you swallow it?
Welsh official pages say providers may absorb the cost or pass it to visitors. That is why some bills will show a separate line and some will not. Edinburgh hosts can make the same commercial choice. The levy is still due.
“We do not levy the tax” is the wrong sentence. You are paying it. “Visitor levy included in the price” is the honest one.
Swallowing it is worth doing when the cash is small and the checkout surprise is the thing you want to kill.
Wales at £1.30 a head is that case. Five to forty pounds on a week is cheap next to a cleaning-fee row or Airbnb’s 15.5 per cent host-only fee. A one-line note on a site you own, “no extra visitor levy at checkout”, is a real contrast with hotels that itemise it.
Inclusive pricing on a direct site is the other case. Guests dislike a new line at the end more than they dislike a nightly rate they saw from the first page. That is the same psychology as the cleaning-fee arguments we covered earlier.
It is a poor stunt when the percentage is material. Edinburgh at 5 per cent, or a future English 3 to 5 per cent with no night cap, is a margin decision. Do the sum on your actual average daily rate before you print a slogan on the homepage.
It is also a poor stunt on the OTA listing unless you have raised the nightly rate to cover it. If neighbours add the levy as a separate line and you bake it in without lifting the rate, you donate the money and still look the same price. If you lift the rate and they itemise, you look dearer in the search results and cheaper at checkout. Pick which screen you want to win.
Do not call the stay tax-free. Trading Standards and a bad-faith review will both notice.
How to show it without making a mess
On a site you own:
- Keep one inclusive total where you can.
- One sentence is enough: “Any local visitor levy is included in this price” or “A visitor levy of £1.30 per person per night applies in this area and is added at booking.”
- Do not hide a percentage inside a “service fee” label. That is how guests write the review you then cannot get down.
- Record heads and nights per booking. Wales is per person. Edinburgh is a percentage of the stay price. England will be a percentage of accommodation cost if the 10 September model survives the bill.
On Airbnb or Booking.com:
- Use whatever tax or pass-through field the platform now offers in that city.
- Do not assume the platform has filed anything.
- If the field does not exist yet for your area, collect on the direct confirmation or at check-in and keep the receipt.
Put the extra in the same mental column as card fees. Taking the booking yourself usually costs 2 to 3 per cent. That is not 15.5 per cent, and it is not a house-rules policy that can change under you with a product announcement. The levy sits on top either way. The platforms remain useful shop windows. They are not the only till.
What to do this month
If the property is in Edinburgh: confirm every live booking from 24 July 2026 was either pre-1 October 2025 and therefore out, or has the 5 per cent applied to the first five nights. File the quarter on time.
If the property is in Wales: register with the WRA when the portal opens this autumn. Do not wait to see whether your council votes for the levy. Cardiff owners should already be pricing bookings from 28 September 2026 for stays on or after 1 April 2027.
If the property is in England: nothing to collect. Watch the bill, then your mayor. Do not reprint “5 per cent from 2027” on a listing. That figure is a rumour until your authority publishes a scheme.
Everywhere: stop describing this as optional branding. Once the levy is on in your area, the return is a filing job. The only commercial choice is whether the guest sees a line or an inclusive price.
This is general information for holiday-home owners, compiled on 11 September 2026. It is not legal or tax advice. Confirm the current position with the WRA, your council, Edinburgh’s visitor-levy portal, or the English bill once it is published.
Key sources
- GOV.UK, Local leaders handed powers to drive investment in communities, 10 September 2026: Overnight Visitor Levy for English mayors and Foundation Strategic Authorities, percentage of accommodation cost rather than a flat fee, no central cap stated, providers pay the authority, bill to follow, spending plans expected by early 2028.
- House of Commons Library, Visitor levies: policy and debates, CBP-10158, updated 7 September 2026: UK-wide policy map, Scottish and Welsh statutes, English consultation, BID charges in Manchester and Liverpool.
- City of Edinburgh Council, About the Edinburgh Visitor Levy: 5 per cent before VAT, first five nights only, short-term lets included, UK residents included, bookings paid before 1 October 2025 for later stays excluded.
- Visitor Levy (Scotland) Act 2024: power for Scottish local authorities to set their own schemes.
- GOV.WALES, Visitor levy for visitor accommodation providers: overview, updated 2 June 2026: provider is liable even if the cost is passed on, £1.30 / 75p rates, councils may start 1 April or 1 October.
- GOV.WALES, Visitor Levy in Wales, and Get ready for Visitor Levy (Cardiff): absorb or pass on, Cardiff from 1 April 2027, accounting from 28 September 2026 for those stays, under-18 exemption on the lower rate only.
- Visitor Accommodation (Register and Levy) Etc. (Wales) Act 2025: WRA collects, national register, statutory rates.
- GOV.WALES, Registering visitor accommodation: overview: register from October 2026, on the register by 31 March 2027.
- Manchester Accommodation BID / City Visitor Charge: £1 per room per night since April 2023, hotels and serviced apartments above a rateable-value threshold in the BID zone, not a statutory tourist tax and not a typical holiday-let duty.