The Edinburgh visitor levy, explained

What the levy is

The Visitor Levy (Scotland) Act lets councils charge a percentage levy on paid overnight accommodation. Edinburgh has adopted a rate of 5% of the net accommodation charge, charged on the first five consecutive nights of a stay, with charging beginning on 24 July 2026. It applies to hotels, guesthouses, B&Bs, self-catering, short-term lets, hostels and other paid overnight accommodation in the council area.

What is and isn't charged

Only the accommodation portion of what the guest pays is levied. These costs stay in the accommodation charge:

• Standard cleaning and changeover fees between guests
• Utilities, heating and WiFi
• Basic amenities such as soap and toilet paper
• Complimentary welcome refreshments given to all guests
• Essential agency fees — granting access, standard cleaning or laundry between guests

These must always be stripped out before you apply the 5%, even when they're bundled into a single price:

• Breakfast, dinner and other food or drink
• Parking, where charged separately
• Laundry, where charged separately
• Transport, tours, entertainment and other optional add-ons
• Refundable deposits

Cleaning fees often trip hosts up — a standard changeover cleaning fee that every guest pays counts as part of your accommodation cost and is levied. It's only excluded if it's a genuinely optional service a guest can choose to add.

Two further rules catch people out. Use the guest's full gross paid price, not your net payout after a booking platform's commission. And breakfast must be deducted using a reasonable assigned value even when it's bundled into the rate and never itemised — value it consistently, per guest, per night.

If your platform reports a single combined payout figure, you need to separate the accommodation element before you calculate. Visitor Levy App's import asks for accommodation and extras as separate columns for exactly this reason.

The five-night cap

The levy is charged on a maximum of five consecutive nights per stay. A ten-night stay is charged on five nights only; nights six to ten are not levied. This is per stay, not per guest and not per quarter.

The cap is Edinburgh's own choice, not a national rule. Other Scottish councils set their own — Glasgow, Aberdeen and West Dunbartonshire apply the levy to the full length of stay with no cap at all. We apply whichever rule belongs to the property's council area.

VAT: the order matters

This is where most calculations go wrong. The correct sequence is:

1. Take the accommodation charge and remove VAT to get the net figure (if you're VAT registered and your rates include VAT).
2. Apply the 5% levy to that net figure, for the chargeable nights only.
3. Charge VAT on the accommodation plus the levy.

Applying the levy to a VAT-inclusive figure overstates what you owe. Charging VAT before the levy understates the guest total. Both are common and both show up in an audit.

Worked examples

Try your own figures in the free calculator.

Bookings made before the start date

Fringe pricing means Fringe-sized levy amounts

August rates during the Festival Fringe are often three to five times your usual nightly price — which means the 5% levy on those bookings is three to five times larger too. A small miscalculation on a handful of Fringe bookings adds up fast, and August sits inside the same quarter as the scheme's first return.

Nothing about the method changes at surge rates: strip out extras, remove VAT to get the net accommodation figure, apply 5% to the first five consecutive nights, then charge VAT on the accommodation plus the levy. What changes is the size of the number, and therefore the cost of getting the order wrong.

Two practical points for August: the five-night cap applies per stay, so a run of short festival bookings is charged in full on each one rather than capped across the month; and your advertised August prices need to show the levy the same way as the rest of the year.

Bookings made before the start date

Where a booking was made before the scheme's start date, no levy is due — even if the stay itself falls after 24 July 2026. Keep the booking date in your records; it's the evidence that supports the exemption. Visitor Levy App applies this automatically when you supply a booked-on date.

Exemptions

The Act provides exemptions and rebates for certain guests, including those receiving disability-related benefits and their companions, and people in specific forms of temporary or emergency accommodation. In practice, guests claim these directly with the council.

You should not be collecting benefit letters, ID or evidence of someone's circumstances — that is sensitive personal data with real risk attached. Visitor Levy App deliberately provides no way to upload or store it. You can flag a booking locally as "guest claimed exempt" for your own reference and nothing more.

Key dates and returns

• 24 July 2026 — charging begins on stays in Edinburgh. A stay straddling that date is pro-rated first, then the five-night cap is applied to the nights that remain.
• October 2026 — the first return, covering 24 July to 30 September 2026, is submitted during October, with payment due by 13 November 2026.
• January 2027 — the Q4 2026 return is submitted during January, with payment due by 13 February 2027.
• Published calendar dates — deadlines are fixed dates per quarter, not a flat number of days after quarter end, and submitting early doesn't move the payment date.
• Every quarter — you must declare whether the property was available for paid overnight stays for all, part or none of the quarter, even when the levy total is nil.
• Five years — keep your underlying booking records for the retention period your council requires.

Check the current scheme details on our Edinburgh council page, and see when other areas are expected on the Highland and Glasgow pages.

How to show the levy in your prices

UK price transparency rules require any unavoidable charge to be included in, or displayed clearly alongside, the headline price. The levy is unavoidable for the guest, so it can't be sprung on them at check-in. Show a price that includes it, with the levy broken out clearly at the point of booking, and make sure your listing says the same thing on every platform.

If a guest refuses to pay on arrival, the amount is still due from you to the council — so the cost of getting this wrong lands on your side of the transaction.

What the council hasn't confirmed yet

Edinburgh's own guidance (Version 1, August 2025) flags parts of the scheme as still being worked out. The 2% administration fee providers may retain is indicated, but the process for claiming it is not settled. The enforcement and penalty regime for late or inaccurate returns is likewise described as subject to change. We show both so you can plan, and label them provisional rather than presenting them as final.