Collecting and investing a levy
If a visitor levy is approved for Edinburgh, accommodation providers will be responsible for collecting the levy from overnight visitors. We will set up a process to collect the visitor levies from the providers.
Exemptions
We are still exploring whether any overnight visitors should be exempt from paying the levy. We will share information on proposed exemptions when we have more detail.
Investing the levy
The underlying rationale for introducing a visitor levy is that visitors who
- pay to stay in the city
- use public spaces and services
should contribute to managing the impact of a successful tourism economy.
The draft Bill says that funds raised must be reinvested in local facilities and services used by visitors. By investing the income back into our city, we would be able to
- sustain Edinburgh’s status as one of the world’s top UK cities to visit
- invest in Edinburgh’s
- culture
- heritage
- arts
- sport experiences
- enhance the appeal and experience for residents and visitors
- strengthen public services with the contributions from visitors so that both they and residents will benefit
By doing this, we would help to manage the impacts a successful visitor economy has on a city by making sure Edinburgh continues to be attractive. It will also keep the city a desirable place in which to
- visit
- live
- work
- invest
- study.
Deciding on where the levy fund is invested
We are considering creating a steering group of
- industry representatives
- residents
- community groups
- Council officers
to help inform and shape how the levy will be invested.
Reporting on how we invest the levy
If we introduce a visitor levy, we will need to report to Scottish Government
- on the amount we collect
- how we will use the net proceeds, that is the amount collected minus costs or expenses of operating the levy
- demonstrate that we are delivering on how we said we would invest proceeds from the levy.