Airbnb Agrees to Pay City Tax

Beginning in 2018, Airbnb will owe the city of Florence €2.5 per guest for each overnight stay. The charge is the equivalent of the imposto o tasso di soggiorno, city tax, paid by the guest at a two star hotel. The rate has been chosen by the city officials in Palazzo Vecchio in agreement with Airbnb after months of pushback and waiting.

Palazzo Vecchio believes that this will increase local revenue from the tax. It’s estimated that Airbnb will bring in over €2 million in addition to the €22 million earmarked for the year. According to official tourism statistics, so far there have been 9.5 million tourists in 2017. A Vodaphone mobile survey has seen a discrepancy between those numbers and recorded 5 million more tourists, to exclude commuters and out-of-towners who come to Florence on the weekend.

Council member Perra believes that the survey could have included students in Florence for their study abroad semester and commuters who live outside the city. Regardless, if only half of the data was taken into consideration the revenue from Airbnb would bring €3-4 million extra revenue to the city.

Airnbnb’s customers will be automatically charged the €2.5 fee as a “city tax” for every night of stay in addition to rental and cleaning charges. Since the tax is paid online, the tourist or the owner can’t avoid the charge. Perra hopes that the deal will be effective on January 1.

Florence hopes to further expand their earnings by also making a deal with Booking.com in the future. Booking.com doesn’t have an official representative in Italy and Palazzo Vecchio’s attempts contact with the company has not been successful to date.

To read more in Italian see Florence’s La Repubblica news site.  (deanna carbone)