The tourist tax: who collects it and who pays it over

The tourist tax is a municipal levy paid by the guest, not by you. It applies per person and per night, usually up to a maximum number of nights set by the council. For the owner it is a pass-through item: you collect it along with the stay and pay it over to the council, so it is not your revenue and it never enters the taxable base of the cedolare secca. It is collected by whoever takes the money from the guest and paid over by whoever the council's rules identify as responsible: if an intermediary does the collecting, the intermediary is the one responsible.

It looks like the most trivial topic of the lot, and it is the one where I see the numbers go wrong most often: a taxable figure inflated because the tourist tax ended up inside the year's takings. Here is how it actually works.

1. What it is, in two lines

The tourist tax is a levy that Italian councils may introduce and govern through their own regulations, to fund tourism, local public services and cultural heritage. It is owed by whoever stays overnight, so by your guest, and it is calculated per person per night. Almost every set of rules fixes a cap on the number of nights beyond which nothing is due, and almost all of them provide for exemptions.

You never pay it out of your own pocket: you collect it, set it aside, pass it to the council and account for it. The trouble starts when it gets mixed in with the rest of the money coming in.

2. It is a pass-through item, not revenue

This point matters more than all the others put together. The tourist tax is not your revenue, it is not your cost and it is not part of the rent: it is third-party money passing through you on its way to the council. It does not enter the taxable base of the cedolare secca, and it is not part of the consideration on which an intermediary's withholding is calculated.

Anyone who adds it to their takings ends up with an inflated taxable figure and pays tax on money they never earned. The remedy is simple and it works: keep it on a separate line from day one, not at the end of the year when you have to reconstruct everything from memory. On the rest of the taxable base I have written the guide on the cedolare secca, which is the other half of the same reasoning.

3. Who collects it and who pays it over

These are two distinct roles and it is worth keeping them separate in your head. It is collected by whoever takes the money from the guest: it might be you at check-in, it might be the manager looking after the house, in some cases it is the portal that has already charged it on the booking. It is paid over to the council by whoever the rules identify as responsible for the levy.

In practice the two roles almost always coincide: when an intermediary does the collecting, the intermediary answers for the payment and the return. There is only one question to ask before signing a mandate: on every sales channel, who collects the tax from the guest and who pays it over to the council. If the answer is vague, the risk is that neither of them does.

4. Every council is a world of its own

There is no national rule telling you how much is due and when. Everything changes council by council, and it changes by resolution:

• the amount per person per night, often different by type of property;
• the maximum number of nights subject to the tax;
• the exemptions: usually children below a certain age, people with disabilities and those accompanying them, residents, and other categories decided locally;
• the period of application: some councils apply it all year round, others only in high season;
• the payment frequency and the filing method, normally through a dedicated council portal.

You will not find the nightly amount for Cagliari or Villasimius on this page, and that is not laziness: a table copied from a blog is the quickest way to pay the wrong figure after the council has updated its rules. The only source that counts is your council's regulation in the version in force this year. These are the councils where we operate and handle it, each with its own rules, its own deadlines and its own portal:

• Cagliari
• Quartu Sant'Elena
• Villasimius
• Arbus (Torre dei Corsari)
• Dorgali and Cala Gonone
• Olbia (including Pittulongu)
• Golfo Aranci
• Arzachena (Porto Cervo and Porto Rotondo)
• Alghero
• Milan

5. The periodic return, and what happens if you skip it

Paying is only half the job. Almost every set of rules also requires a periodic return to the council, listing guests, nights sold, exemptions applied and tax collected. It is the document that shows the numbers add up, and as a rule it has to be filed even when the period was empty.

If you skip it, file it late or file it with figures that do not match, the council applies the penalties set out in its own rules and in the legislation on local levies. I am not quoting amounts here because they change from council to council. What I will tell you is the substance: the tax still has to be paid, the penalty is added on top, and the challenge arrives once the season is over.

6. SPID, and who is using your credentials

Many council filing portals only open with the digital identity of the person registered for the property, meaning the owner's SPID or CIE. That is why, sooner or later, a manager asks you for your SPID. If the request makes you uneasy, you are right to feel that way: your credentials also open your tax records, not just the tourist tax portal.

We handle it in two ways, and neither involves you handing over your credentials and forgetting about it. Where the portal allows it we work with a written authority or power of attorney, which sets out the filings it covers and stays on record. Where no such authority is provided for, we use assisted access: you authenticate, we fill it in together, we close the session. Asking who is using your SPID and under what mandate is legitimate, and a serious manager answers without taking offence.

7. What we do

On the houses we manage we collect the tax from the guest, keep it separate from your takings and pay it over to the council on your behalf, together with the periodic return required by the rules. It appears on its own line in your statement: when you look at your net figure you really are looking at yours, and when your accountant asks for the taxable amount they do not have to do subtractions by hand.

It is not a separate service and it does not carry its own price: it sits inside the management, which works with no fixed costs, no monthly fee, only a percentage of revenue. How we work is set out on the owners page.

Last updated in August 2026. We review figures, rules and references periodically; before making tax or operational decisions, check the linked sources and your circumstances with a qualified adviser.

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