Council continues to push hotel bed tax for Dublin

If Dublin City Council had a hotel bed tax of €2 per bed per night, then in the year up to November 2025, it would have raised an estimated €17.5 million, said a council official on Thursday.

The council has looked a little at how other cities operate similar levies, said Ross Curley, head of economic development, to members of the council’s finance committee.

Key issues to decide, if it were ever to happen in Dublin, would be whether it would be a flat rate tax or a percentage of the room cost, whether money raised would be ringfenced or deposited in the general pot.

For years, Dublin councils and councillors have lobbied the central government to roll out legislation that would allow them to levy a hotel bed tax.

In October 2024, the Dublin City Taskforce report also recommended a tourism tax.

At Thursday’s meeting, Aidan Sweeney, a representative of business group Ibec, who sits on the committee, was a lone voice in speaking with scepticism about a tourist levy or bed tax.

Figures in Curley’s presentation didn’t take into account charges such as commercial rates and VAT which are already levied on hotels, he said. “That has an inflationary effect on prices.”

Labour Party Councillor Dermot Lacey, like other councillors, spoke in favour of the levy. 

The hospitality sector had benefited from VAT reductions, while ramping up prices at times of big concerts or matches, he said.

“I have no sympathy, whatsoever, for the leading hoteliers in the country,” said Lacey. 

So, said Lacey, “What’s next? Where do we go? How do we advance it?”

Still at the drawing board

A tourist tax is basically a charge levied on visitors, said Curley. 

At the moment, 21 of the 27 European Union member states have these in some form to support infrastructure, environmental projects, and culture.

“It’s the user-pays principle,” said Curley. 

Money raised may pay for goods and services and infrastructure, or to repair damage from the heavy use of an area, he said.  

It can be used to curb negative environmental effects of tourism, he said. The council’s research looked in part at the degree of transparency around how it is raised, and how it is spent.

Edinburgh is rolling out its tax from July 2026. It has opted to levy 5 percent of the cost of a room per night, for the first five nights.

Porto opted to make it per person, rather than per room, charging €3 for each human of 13 years and older, each night.

Manchester, meanwhile, has a flat rate of £1 per room per night. It raised £2.8m in the first year.

Amsterdam – where the council has brought in a regulation to cap the number of overnight visitors each year – also has the highest rates in Europe, at 12.5 percent per room per night. 

It collects the levy annually, with nine employees in Amsterdam City Council, said Curley, adding a bit of context to the resourcing behind the levy.

An example fee structure in Curley’s presentation is much more modest. 

The council could levy €5 per room per night for 5 star hotels, and €3 per night for 3 and 4 star hotels and Airbnbs, and €2 for 1 and 2 star hotels and hostels, it suggests.

It triggered a bit of discussion on the pros of flat fees versus progressive percentage taxes.

Flat fees are harder to dodge but aren’t really linked to prices in terms of inflation while a percentage is, said Green Party Councillor Michael Pidgeon. “We charge a flat rate for something and then forget to change it for some time.”

“It’s also a bit more progressive,” he said, of percentages.

True, said Curley. But “a flat fee allows you to sort of plan”.

 Tourism operators have been the primary opponents of the introduction of a bed tax, said Curley, because of concerns that it could reduce visitor numbers. 

But that hasn’t really happened elsewhere, he said.

Still pushing

Last year, Dublin City Council’s budget was €1.69 billion. But most of that is already accounted for, and councillors have little discretion over how it’s spent.

At the talk of hard cash, councillors and committee members began to list what it could be spent on – if, when, a levy were ever to be enabled by the central government.

What could it be ringfenced for? asked Kourtney Kenny, a Sinn Féin councillor. 

She would want it to support communities, she said, mentioning how the council struggles to keep streets clean in high tourist areas. 

Susan Whelan, of the Greenfields Residents Association who sits on the committee through the Public Participation Network,, said that it could go towards supporting hotels to train staff in supporting those with disabilities. Or to back Irish language in the city, she said.

Pidgeon said he thought it should just go into the general budget and councillors could decide each year how to spend it.

They shouldn’t tie the budget of particular projects or services to how much they get through any tourism tax, he said.

Nial Ring, an independent councillor, said he agrees with the concept of a levy, which is miniscule in light of what some hotels charge.

But his main concern is that the central government would snare whatever they raised anyway, he said, cutting other grants by the same amount. 

That is what the central government has done with the local property tax.

“My genuine worry would be we would never get a chance to decide what to do with it,” he said.

Sweeney, of Ibec, said that any hotel bed tax isn’t the solution to gaps in local government financing. That’s something to be solved through wider debate about government finances, he said.

Earlier this month, the Local Democracy Taskforce handed its report with recommendations for broader local government reform, including financing, to Minister of Housing and Local Government James Browne.

That’s being considered, said a department statement, “and a plan to implement its recommendations will be developed and presented to Government for approval in the coming weeks”.