How much does the tourist tax in Italy cost?
Italy's tourist tax is municipal and varies from town to town: in Rome it runs from EUR 3.00 per person per night at a campsite to EUR 10.00 at a five-star hotel, with EUR 6.00 for a three-star or a short let. It is charged for a maximum of ten consecutive nights in the same property.
Verifiable answer
Italy's tourist tax is municipal and varies from town to town: in Rome it runs from EUR 3.00 per person per night at a campsite to EUR 10.00 at a five-star hotel, with EUR 6.00 for a three-star or a short let. It is charged for a maximum of ten consecutive nights in the same property.
- How much does the tourist tax in Italy cost?
- €6 / night per person
- €3 – €10
- Italy, with the tariff schedule documented for Rome
- 24 July 2026
- Confidence: Medium
- The municipal tax owed for each person and each night of stay; Application for up to ten consecutive nights in the same property; Collection by the property on behalf of the municipality; Coverage of every type of accommodation, hotel and non-hotel alike
- The price of the room or the accommodation; Venice's access fee, which is a separate levy and not a tourist tax; Final cleaning charges applied by short lets; Booking platform commissions; Tourist levies in other countries, which follow their own rules
- The destination municipality, which sets its own rates; The property's official classification: stars for hotels, category for non-hotel accommodation; The number of people, because the tax is counted per head rather than per room; The number of nights, up to the cap set by the municipal rules; Locally granted exemptions, by age or by the guest's circumstances
- 2 sources
Short answer
There is no national tourist tax rate in Italy: each municipality sets its own within a framework laid down by law. The result is that two identical trips to two different cities can differ by tens of euros on an item no booking ever shows in advance.
The tourist tax is one of the few travel costs almost nobody budgets for, and not out of carelessness: it simply does not appear in the price you see when booking. You discover it at check-in, often in cash, often with mutual embarrassment between guest and host, who collects it on the municipality's behalf and keeps none of it. The tax was created by decree-law 78 of 31 May 2010, which gave municipalities the power to introduce it: the consequence is that there is no Italian rate, but several thousand different municipal rates, each with its own bands, its own exemptions and its own cap on taxable nights. To give a verifiable figure rather than an invented average, this guide uses Rome as a case documented line by line: it is Italy's most visited destination, it publishes its full tariff schedule, and it can therefore be checked by anyone. The Roman figures should be read for what they are — one municipality's rates, not a national average — but they give the right order of magnitude for how much this item weighs on a real stay.
What is included
- The municipal tax owed for each person and each night of stay
- Application for up to ten consecutive nights in the same property
- Collection by the property on behalf of the municipality
- Coverage of every type of accommodation, hotel and non-hotel alike
What is not included
- The price of the room or the accommodation
- Venice's access fee, which is a separate levy and not a tourist tax
- Final cleaning charges applied by short lets
- Booking platform commissions
- Tourist levies in other countries, which follow their own rules
How the price breaks down
| Item | Type | Frequency | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|
| Three-star hotel in RomeThe rate that best represents an average tourist stay: EUR 6.00 per person per night, for up to ten consecutive nights in the same property. | Compulsory | one-off | €6 |
| Five-star hotel in RomeThe top of the Rome scale: EUR 10.00 per person per night. A couple staying five nights in a five-star property pays a hundred euros in tax alone, a figure almost no online booking shows before check-in. | Optional | one-off | €10 |
| Short lets, B&Bs and tourist accommodationApartments booked through platforms are not exempt: in Rome they pay EUR 6.00 per person per night, the same as a three-star hotel. Category 2 holiday homes and apartments come down to EUR 5.00. | Optional | one-off | €6 |
| Hostels, mountain refuges and hiking refugesThe lowest band among covered properties, at EUR 3.50 per person per night. Only campsites sit below it, paying EUR 3.00 in Rome but capped at five nights instead of ten. | Optional | one-off | €3.50 |
What the price depends on
- The destination municipality, which sets its own rates
- The property's official classification: stars for hotels, category for non-hotel accommodation
- The number of people, because the tax is counted per head rather than per room
- The number of nights, up to the cap set by the municipal rules
- Locally granted exemptions, by age or by the guest's circumstances
Hidden costs
- The tax almost never included in the total shown at booking: you meet it at check-in
- Counting per person rather than per room, which doubles it for a couple and quadruples it for a family of four
- Cash payment demanded by many properties, forcing a withdrawal for an otherwise trivial sum
- Changing property mid-trip, which restarts the count of taxable nights from zero
- The tax owed for children too, in municipalities with no age exemption
Three realistic scenarios
Economy scenario
€21
Two people for three nights in a hostel in Rome: EUR 3.50 each per night, twenty-one euros in total. This is the lowest band among the accommodation types covered, campsites aside.
Typical scenario
€48
A couple for four nights in a three-star hotel or a short-let apartment in Rome: six euros each per night, forty-eight euros in total, paid at check-in and absent from the price that was booked.
Premium scenario
€100
Two people for five nights in a five-star hotel in Rome: ten euros each per night, a hundred euros in tourist tax alone, excluding the room, breakfast and every other service.
How to spend less
- Before booking, look up the tariff on the destination municipality's website rather than the property's: the rate depends on the accommodation's official classification, not on how the listing describes itself.
- On long stays, check the cap on taxable nights: in Rome it is ten, and from the eleventh night nothing more is due in the same property.
- Do not split a long stay across two properties out of habit: changing accommodation restarts the count of taxable nights and can cost more than the price difference between them.
- If you travel with children, ask in advance whether the municipality grants an age exemption: they are common but not universal, and the count is per person.
- Budget for the tax before you leave rather than at the end of the trip: for a family of four on a week in a three-star hotel in Rome it exceeds a hundred and sixty euros, roughly the price of an extra night.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a single tourist tax rate for the whole of Italy?
No. The tax was created by decree-law 78 of 31 May 2010, which gave the power to municipalities: each one decides whether to apply it, at what rates, with which exemptions and up to how many nights. The result is that there is no national amount but thousands of different local rulebooks, and that two identical stays in two different cities can carry very different charges. That is why the only way to know what you will pay is to consult the destination municipality's rules, not a generic table found online.
How much is the tourist tax in Rome?
Under the schedule approved by Council resolution 255 of 17 July 2023, in force since 1 October 2023, it runs from EUR 4.00 per person per night in a one-star hotel to EUR 10.00 in a five-star, passing through EUR 5.00 in two-star, EUR 6.00 in three-star and EUR 7.50 in four-star properties. Bed and breakfasts, holiday houses, farm stays, aparthotels, tourist accommodation and short-let properties pay EUR 6.00. Hostels and refuges pay EUR 3.50, campsites EUR 3.00.
Does the tourist tax apply to apartments booked online?
Yes. This is one of the most common misunderstandings among travellers. In Rome, short-let properties and tourist accommodation pay EUR 6.00 per person per night, exactly like a three-star hotel, while holiday houses and apartments pay EUR 6.00 or EUR 5.00 depending on their category. Hosts are required to collect the tax and pass it to the municipality: if it does not appear in the booking total, that does not mean it is not owed, only that it will be asked for on arrival.
For how many nights is the tax charged?
It depends on the municipal rules. In Rome the tax applies for a maximum of ten consecutive nights in the same property: from the eleventh night onwards nothing more is due. Campsites and temporary-stay areas are the exception, where the cap falls to five nights. Watch the most expensive detail: the cap applies per property, not per trip. Anyone changing accommodation mid-stay restarts the count and can end up paying for more taxable nights than someone who stays put.
Who is exempt from the tourist tax?
Exemptions are set by each municipality's rules and are not uniform across Italy. The most frequent cover children under a given age, residents of the municipality, people accompanying a hospital patient, certain categories of staff on duty, and coach drivers or tour guides travelling with a group. Since the list changes from city to city, the only correct way to check is to read the destination municipality's rules: assuming an exemption you saw elsewhere is the most common route to an unexpected charge at check-in.
Is the tourist tax the same as Venice's access fee?
No, they are two separate levies with different triggers. The tourist tax is owed for each night spent in an accommodation property, so it applies to people sleeping in the city. Venice's access fee applies instead to people entering the historic city on certain days without staying overnight — precisely the visitors the tourist tax does not reach. Anyone staying overnight in Venice pays the tourist tax and not the access fee: the two levies are designed not to overlap.
Sources and methodology
How we worked it out
We chose not to publish a national average, because no official dataset collects the resolutions of every Italian municipality, and an average built on a sample of cities would have been a figure with a precise look and arbitrary content. Instead we publish the full tariff schedule of one verifiable municipality: Rome, taken from the tariff document annexed to Council resolution 255 of 17 July 2023, in force since 1 October 2023. Every figure quoted comes from that document, including the ten-night cap and its reduction to five for campsites. The legal basis of the tax and the acts governing it come from the municipality's own service page. The range we state — EUR 3.00 to EUR 10.00 — is therefore the Roman range, and confidence is Medium precisely because the question is national while the documentation is municipal.
Why this confidence level
Medium confidence, and the reason lies in the distance between the question and the source. The figures published are first-hand and verifiable to the cent, because they come from Rome's official tariff schedule and the acts that approved it: for Rome alone, confidence would be High. The question, however, is national, and Italy has no official register collecting the rates of every municipality that has introduced the tax. We therefore present the Roman range as a documented, representative case rather than an Italian average, and the confidence label reflects exactly that gap. Anyone needing the exact amount for another city has to consult that municipality's own rules.
Complete official tariff table by accommodation type, with the maximum number of nights
Nuove tariffe del contributo di soggiorno in vigore dal 1° ottobre 2023 (opens in a new tab)
Roma Capitale · Public authority · Verified on 24 July 2026
The municipality's own tariff annex, not a press summary: it lists line by line the amounts from EUR 3.00 to EUR 10.00 per person per night and the ten-night cap, cut to five for campsites and temporary-stay areas. Extracted from the PDF published by the administration.
Authority5/5
Legal basis of the tax and the acts that set its rules and rates
Contributo di soggiorno — descrizione del servizio (opens in a new tab)
Roma Capitale · Public authority · Verified on 24 July 2026
The source of the reference to decree-law 78 of 31 May 2010 that created the tax, the municipal regulation approved by Assembly resolution 87 of 3 November 2022, and Council resolution 255 of 17 July 2023 that set the rates in force. It shows the amount is not a commercial decision by the property.
Authority5/5
Revision history
First published on 24 July 2026 with Rome's full tariff schedule in force since 1 October 2023, taken from the document published by the administration rather than from secondary sources.
- 24 July 2026
- 24 July 2026
- 24 January 2027
What did you actually pay?
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