So Im leaving for Europe (Munich, Rome & Paris) in 88 days... I printed off all of my flight & hotel information to get everything organized...
While doing that I read the fine print (which obviously I should have done when I purchased everything- thought I did!!) & all of the hotel confirmations say Municipality fee's & city taxes not included - yet somewhere else it says "including taxes & fees"
One hotel even says "Municipality fee of 22euro/person/night will be collected at hotel"
Holy crap thats a lot of money!!
I mean why wouldnt that be included in the hotel cost??
If I have to do that for each night, thats gonna end up being 220 euro's I didnt plan on spending, which is like a third of my spending money!
Just wanted to see if this really is the case & if all hotel's in Europe do this?...
Oh & of course no cancellation allowed on the hotels I bought...
Thanks for any tips/advice!

Hotels here in California often advertise low-ball prices and then tack on 10-12% fees to pay required municipal hospitality taxes. If you're paying around 200 Euros for a hotel room, which is quite possible in major cities like the ones you will visit, that sounds pretty similar to what goes on here.

I was just booking some private B&B's for my trip to Germany this March and grousing about the 1.68 Euro resort tax that will be handed over to the local authorities on top of the advertised room price. In some places like these it's a flat tax. In my case, the rooms are pretty cheap and a tax like 1.68 is about 6-8% of the room cost.

I wish that was all it would be!! What a bummer!

22 Euro certainly does sound a lot - sure it's not a misprint?

Details for Rome, where the tax starts on New Years' Day, are here...
http://en.turismoroma.it/oggi_a_roma...ggiorno_a_roma

From all I've read, the rates for Paris and in Germany are roughly the same...

Peter

I think it's a misprint and is 2.20 euros.

I think most cities charge hotel taxes, some cities in the US have astronomical fees. They are usually not included on website prices.

Can't speak for Munich or Rome, but in Paris the city tax varies by the star level of the hotel (higher for more stars), but is usually around 1 euro per person per night. I think it is 1.5 euro pp per night in the top hotels.

A few cities in France have a tourist tax on hotel rooms that generally runs from 0.50€ to 1.00€ per night. This is sometimes collected separately from an online payment. I think it was in Cherbourg two weeks ago that I had to fork over 0.80€ when I checked out.

Sounds like you have made your reservations through a service, perhaps - and the taxes and fees are those charged by the service, but they aren't authorized to collect the municipal fees, so the hotel has to do it.

Whatever the case, I'd contact the hotels and ask.

And in defense of CA hotels, they don't "low ball" - they give the nightly rate of the hotel room. Hotels have no control over how much taxes are and they don't get to keep any of that money. In the US, it is uncommon for taxes to be included in the published prices of items, whether they be a meal in a restaurant, a DVD in a store, a car, or a night in a hotel.

true, it isn't in the hotel's fees because it isn't the hotel's fees, that's all. It's the government's.

And I agree about California, they don't "low ball" the rates, which are their own, and then "tack on" a tax. They aren't doing the taxing. I think most hotel websites I've seen in the US tell you the local tax rate somewhere if you look for it. When you look for a price of a car rental or a DVD online, the rate doesn't include taxes.

The fee I saw quoted for Rome was 2.2 euros, but I have paid 16.5% in Columbus, Ohio, higher at that time than New York. That is $16.50 on a $100 room.

And I have used car rental sites that do in fact tell you the full cost, with taxes, at least on weekly rates.

Interesting.

Since prices in Europe include the VAT, why would they not just show to cost of a room including any municipal tax?

Probably because it is a different accounting process -- fixed per room per day even when the rates are different, compared to a percentage rate for VAT covering all expenses from rooms to meals to telephone calls.

These fees are often to pay per person, not per room. Thus it depends on how many people stay in the room and it's often excluded.

This site has all the information for France: http://www.taxedesejour.net/

Taxe de sejour in France must legally be paid by the user, not by the hotel or owner. In practice, most of us just include it in the rental rate. But my forms from the Mairie specifically state that it is to be paid by the user, and obviously for a hotel wanting to quote a competitive rate, it is easier not to include this in the room rate.

Could I just also point out that 'fees' is a plural, and does not need an apostrophe in the title. Maybe picky, but something that bothers me.

This whole city/visitor tax thing has been growing in the last 10 years or so. Most things cost what they say they will be in Europe but this has managed to get past the rules and needs to be pushed back against.

In most areas the tax is 1 to 2 euros a night per room

22 Euros is may too high and sounds like a Ryanair price (who like to avoid any civilised responsibility ), I'd drop them an email and if true I'd cancel

I have 3 different reservations & they all say something like this:
Average rate per night: 111.49 USD
Taxes & fees : 35.12 USD
Amount charged to your credit card: 369.59 USD
Unless otherwise specified, all costs are provided in US dollars.
Mandatory Charges: The following mandatory hotel charges will be collected by the hotel at checkout:
<b>Municipality Fee of 18.00 EUR or Per Person/Night </b> that is not taxable - City Tax 2 Euro per person per night

I cannot believe it is 18.00 euro per person per night. Like Carlux, when I was renting my house in France it was more like a euro or two a night per person, and I never collected it separately or in cash. It has to be 1.8 euro per person per night.

And agreeing with Carlux again, it's not hotel's or fee's. They are simple plurals.

There's a concurrent thread about this out there somewhere where I went into more detail about the taxe de séjour.

They probably just separated the VAT from the room rate to make it more confusing. When we complain about the tax being separated from the price in the U.S., somebody always quickly tells us that they like it that way "because that way you know how much the government is stealing" or some such. Great attitude.

"I cannot believe it is 18.00 euro per person per night. "

It's not. And only our less numerate posters think it is

The example shown is for three nights, at €2/person/night. €18 is €6/night. Presumably, at a stated rate of €2 per person, there's two adults and a child.

The poster hasn't bothered substantiating her initial claim that "One hotel even says "Municipality fee of 22euro/person/night will be collected at hotel". Instead, she says "I have 3 different reservations & they all say something like this...City Tax 2 Euro per person per night"

If she seriously believes €2/night is "something like" €22, we can safely assume her account just isn't reliable.