The Edinburgh visitor levy for Airbnb and holiday let hosts

You collect it yourself, even on Airbnb bookings. It is 5% of the accommodation price, net of VAT, on the first five nights of any stay that starts on or after 24 July 2026. The first return covers stays up to 30 September and goes in between 1 and 30 October 2026. The money is due by 13 November.

Checked on 18 October 2026 against the council's guide for accommodation providers (version 2.1, September 2026), VisitScotland's visitor levy pages and the Welsh Government. I'm not an accountant, and the council's guidance is what counts if anything here disagrees with it.

Airbnb doesn't collect it for you

Airbnb's help page on the Edinburgh levy is direct about it: "The obligation is on the host to collect the visitor levy and remit it to the City of Edinburgh Council", and "there are no systems in place that would allow Airbnb to automatically pay it on your behalf."

There's a catch in how you collect it. Under UK price rules, Airbnb says the price the guest sees has to be the final price "inclusive of the visitor levy", and the levy "will need to come out of the amount you receive for your booking." You shouldn't ask guests for extra money afterwards. For bookings made between 1 October 2025 and 23 July 2026, Airbnb's advice was to build the levy into your nightly price in the calendar. For later bookings it said it would offer a tool for setting up custom taxes.

I couldn't find an equivalent statement from Booking.com or Vrbo. The council's guide covers every platform the same way: "the accommodation provider remains the liable person and is responsible for ensuring the visitor levy is correctly calculated, collected and remitted."

What the 5% is charged on

The accommodation part of what the guest pays, before VAT. The guide is more specific than most hosts expect.

• Cleaning counts. The guide says the standard clean is part of the accommodation "irrespective of whether the accommodation provider itemises cleaning separately". It only drops out if guests have "a legitimate choice to opt out" of it.
• A booking site's fee counts when the guest pays it. The guide's example is a two-night stay at £200 plus £50 commission paid by the guest: the levy is 5% of £250, which is £12.50.
• Meals and drinks, parking, laundry, entertainment and transport are left out, along with any optional extra guests can choose not to have.
• Only the first five consecutive nights count, at their actual price "rather than the average". A charge made once per stay, whatever its length, is likely to count in full.
• Stays that began before 24 July 2026 are exempt. So are bookings paid for, in part or in full and non-refundably, before 1 October 2025.

Some guests are exempt, for example people who get certain disability benefits, but they pay like everyone else and claim it back from the council. Airbnb's page puts it plainly: "Hosts are not responsible for determining whether a guest is exempt." The council's exemptions page has the details.

Check one booking

This works out the levy on a single stay using the rules above. The council's portal, visitorlevy.scot, has a calculator too. The council says it doesn't endorse any online calculator and takes no responsibility for the portal's own one either, so treat this as a way to check your own sums.

Worked examples from the guidance

Returns and payment

You register and file on visitorlevy.scot. Returns are quarterly, each with a 30-day window to submit, and payment is due about two weeks after the window closes.

A stay that runs across two quarters goes in the quarter the guest checked out. If a pre-paid booking is cancelled before the guest arrives, VisitScotland's guidance says the levy goes back to the guest rather than to the council.

The return asks for figures month by month, not just a total: what customers paid for accommodation only (without the levy), revenue from stays booked before 1 October 2025, and revenue from the sixth night onwards. It also asks whether the property was fully, partly or not available that quarter. Pulling those monthly figures out of a booking platform's export is the slow part for most hosts.

You can keep 2% of the levy you collect. The guide's example owes £100, keeps £2 and pays £98, and the portal works it out when you file.

Keep records for five years from the date you submit each return: the stays, what each guest paid, and the payments. The council can ask you to show how you worked out any figure. For bookings made before 1 October 2025, it's five years after the stay.

Penalties are set in the council's penalty framework. A late return on a property that pays Council Tax costs 10% of a year's Council Tax (the council puts the range at £108 to £398), charged 31 days after the due date and rising to 50% at six months and 100% at twelve. Properties on business rates are charged on rateable value instead. Late payment adds 10% of the return, more at five and eleven months, and interest at 2.5% above the Bank of England base rate.

Other Scottish councils

Edinburgh is the only one with a five-night cap so far. From VisitScotland's council list:

So a Glasgow booking you take today for a stay on or after 25 January 2027 is already liable, and the price you quote should allow for it. Dundee, Falkirk, Highland and Perth and Kinross are consulting until November 2026, and nine more councils are at an earlier stage.

Wales

Every accommodation provider in Wales has to register with the Welsh Revenue Authority by 31 March 2027, "even if your local council does not charge Visitor Levy". Registration asks for the address, how many people can stay and the number of rooms or units.

Cardiff is the only council charging so far. It starts on 1 April 2027, and bookings made from 28 September 2026 for stays from 1 April 2027 onwards are caught, so a Cardiff booking you take now for next April or later already carries it.

Wales charges per person per night instead of a percentage: £1.30 for every guest, babies included, in hotels, B&Bs, guest houses, self-catering and caravans, and 75p per adult for tent pitches and shared hostel rooms. There's no five-night cap, but a single booking of 32 nights or more pays nothing. The Welsh Government's tally page says to work it out stay by stay (guests times nights times rate) rather than from your totals.

The return is yearly, covering 1 April to 31 March and due by 31 May, unless you owe more than £1,000 a year, in which case it's quarterly, within 60 days of each quarter. It gives the levy for each address, higher and lower rates separately, and leaves VAT out. Keep records for six years after each return, cancelled bookings included.

What I'm building

In development

A page where you drop in a quarter's booking exports from Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo and get the figures your return asks for, month by month, plus a records file (a spreadsheet and a PDF) listing every stay and how its levy was worked out. That file is what you'd show the council if it asked. It will handle the five-night cap, VAT, cleaning and booking fees, a levy built into the price, stays that cross a quarter, cancellations, several properties at once and the Welsh per-person rates. The judgement calls stay yours, such as whether your cleaning fee is optional, and it remembers them for next quarter.

It isn't finished, and it won't file anything for you: you still submit on visitorlevy.scot or the Welsh Revenue Authority's service. The plan is for it to run in your browser, so the exports, which have guest names in them, stay on your computer. I haven't settled a price; my guess is around £39 a year per property.

If you'd try an early version against a return you've already done by hand, tell me when I write, or email jonathonwager@plaugstudios.com.

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