The government is preparing a bill to abolish the tourist tax. Instead, it is proposed to introduce a 3% tourist tax, which will be applied to hotel stays.
Photo: Oleg GOLD
The government is preparing a bill to abolish the tourist tax. Instead, it is proposed to introduce a 3% tourist tax, which will be applied to hotel stays. Vedomosti writes about this based on government sources. The Cabinet plans to present the bill in the spring for approval to the State Duma.
The government has not yet decided what exactly the tax rate will be, but the main proposal is 3% of the price of accommodation. Travelers will see a surcharge when booking a hotel on travel aggregators and it will also be reflected on the hotel bill.
The new tax will apply throughout the country, but regions may not introduce it if they wish. The regions will have to use the funds raised to develop the tourism sector, just as they did with the tourist tax.
Recall that the tourist fee was introduced in Russia in 2018 as an experiment. At the moment, it operates only in several regions of the country: Altai, Krasnodar, Stavropol Territories, St. Petersburg and the federal territory of Sirius. The resort fee experiment is scheduled to end on January 1, 2025.
As a general rule, a resort fee is charged to individuals who have reached the age of majority and who stay in accommodation facilities (hotels, hotels, etc.) for more than 24 hours. A resort fee will be charged for each day you actually stay at the property. In this case the day of arrival is not taken into account.
Even within the same region, the resort fee amount may vary. For example, in Sochi the resort fee is 50 rubles per day, and in Anapa – 30 rubles per day. Additionally, the resort fee may not apply throughout the region. For example, in the Altai Territory an amount of 50 rubles per day is charged only in the city of Belokurikha. In the Stavropol Territory, the resort fee this year is 100 rubles per day and is charged for stays in Essentuki, Zheleznovodsk, Kislovodsk, Pyatigorsk and in the urban district of Mineralovodsk.
In the federal territory of Sirius in 2024, the resort fee will be 50 rubles per day.
In St. Petersburg, from October 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024, the resort fee was 0 rubles. And from April 1 it is 100 rubles per day.
The experiment with tourist rates has been clearly justified from the point of view of replenishing regional budgets. According to the Ministry of Economic Development, over the years of the tourist tax, more than 4 billion rubles have been entered into regional budgets. In the Stavropol Territory alone, for 5 years, thanks to resort fees, the budget received 1.8 billion rubles. All money raised by the regions through resort fees was spent on the design, construction, reconstruction and improvement of more than 100 tourism infrastructure facilities.
