Northern municipality seeks to charge all visitors over age of 16 up to €7.50 per stay
Viana do Castelo, in the far north of Portugal, has today begun levying a municipal tourist tax, of €1.50 per head per night in the high season and €1 in low season, with bookings previously scheduled excluded from the measure.
This makes the area just the latest in a series to start taxing tourists for bringing their business to the region.
The idea is that the money will be used to “mitigate the impact of tourism” on the area.
“In the first year of the regulation’s validity, tourist resorts and local accommodation establishments… that can prove that they have bookings made between the date of publication of the regulation and the date of its entry into force, are exempt from paying and collecting the tourist tax from their guests,” stipulated the regulation published back in February.
According to the document, the “overnight stay tax is payable per guest over the age of 16 and per night, up to a maximum of five consecutive nights per person and per stay.”
The tax covers overnight stays “in any type of accommodation in tourist resorts and local accommodation establishments located in the municipality.”
Exempt from payment are “guests travelling to Viana do Castelo at the invitation of the council or for health reasons, those with disabilities equal to or greater than 60%, and those who, for reasons of conflict and displaced from their countries of origin, temporarily reside in Portugal.”
The municipality justifies the implementation of the tourist tax with “the significant increase in the number of local accommodation establishments (short-term rentals), which in 2014 totalled eight units, rising to 408 units in 2021,” and the increase in the number of guests and overnight stays in the municipality.
LUSA
