Tourism Tax/Taxe de Séjour
Calling all French property managers! Navigate the complexities of tourism taxes with this comprehensive guide. Learn essential tips.
A guide for French Property Managers how to manage your Tourism Taxes
Normally, in France the Tourism Tax/City Tax is managed and paid directly by the Booking Channels (for example Airbnb) and not by the Rental Agency.
However, the Tourism Tax/City Tax will ALWAYS be reflected in the Accounting Statement and in the Booking Breakdown. This information cannot be deleted from it as it contains the pricing paid by the Guest, which is sent to the platform by the Booking Channel (Airbnb) via your Provider.
However, the details of this "Fee" are always separated in the Fee Section of the Statements. # !Tourism Taxes are considered a Fee by the Booking Channels!
In order to separate the Tourism Tax in the Accounting, meaning that it will not be paid to the Agency nor the Rental Owner, we suggest you to separate this Fee in the Recipients' Strategies.
Below, we will show you how to do the set up of this step by step:
It is very important you read on until the end of the Article to make sure that all steps are completed!
1. Assign 0% of the Tourism Tax to the Rental Owner + Rental Agency + other implicated Recipients
If you do NOT want the Tourism Tax to be included in any of the Payments to your Recipients, you will need to make sure that you do NOT assign the Tourism Tax/City Tax to them in their Strategies.
1a. If you ONLY have Tourism Tax as a Fee and do NOT have any other Fee in your activity, the Fees Strategy of the Recipients mentioned above will look like as follows:
1b. In case that you work with multiple Fees (for example Cleaning Fees, Laundry Fees, Pet Fees), all of these fees will need to be assigned to a Recipient. As a consequence, this will implicate that the Strategies of the Rental Agency/Rental Owner will probably have Exceptions in their Fees Strategy for the tourism tax, indicating that they earn 0% of this Fee. See below:
(If the Recipient earns 0% of ALL Fees, please us the example of point 1a.)
NOTE: Remember that you will need to create an Exception for every language you publish in and consider the different names the Tourism Tax has in each Booking Platform, some suggestions/examples of names to put in the exceptions are: Séjour - Taxe - Additionnelle - Tourism - City.
!Your Strategy might not be the same as in the printscreen. It depends on various factors, such as the amount of Fees you are working with - in how many Languages you publish your Rentals and how earns which Fee!
2. Create the Tourism Tax / Taxe de Séjour Recipient.
As (according to the logic) you need to assign 100% of the Earnings between your Recipients, you will have to create a New Recipient called "Taxe De Séjour" (or any other name you want to give it).
Next, as a consequence to Step 1, you will need to assign all Tourism Taxes to this Recipient, by indicating that it earns 100% of any Fee containing the word "Tourism", "Séjour", "City", etc.
Leave the Strategy Blank and ONLY assign the Tourism Tax/City Tax to this Recipient - assign 100% of the Tourism Tax to this Recipient.
This means that in the Rental Price Strategy, the Taxes Strategy and Recurring Expenses you will not put anything and leave all like: CANNOT EARN
It will need to look similar to the below:
Now the Strategies have been set up!
3. At the end of the Accountable Period when you will create your Statements and its corresponding Payment, you will need to create an extra "Payment" for the Taxe de Séjour Recipient
By creating this Payment you will make sure that all numbers will be correct, meaning that all money that comes in, is "paid" to someone.
You don't remember how to create a Payment? Click here.
EXAMPLE
To give you a more accurate picture, let's say you have multiple FEES, such as a Cleaning Fee AND Laundry Fee AND Tourism Tax.
Let's say that the Cleaning Fee is paid entirely to the Rental Owner, the Laundry Fee to the Rental Agency and the Tourism Tax is separated to the Taxe de Séjour Recipient. In this case, the *Fees part of the Recipient's Strategies will be as follows:
Rental Agency:
Taxe de Séjour:
Rental Owners
It is very important that you write the word of the Exceptions correctly. The platform will only capture the Fees in the Exceptions that include that Exact word!