---
title: "The 2026 Tourist-Tax Ledger: A Week for Two Costs €15 in Fees in Bali and €147 in Hawaii"
slug: "tourist-tax-ledger-2026-seven-night-fees"
category: "Trip Planning"
read_time: "6 min read"
excerpt: "One trip, nine places: 7 nights, 2 adults, a €150 room. Fees alone run from €15 in Bali to €147 in Hawaii. Bhutan charges €1,230."
author: "Vanpelt"
author_url: "https://travelmaxing.app/about"
date_published: 2026-10-03T08:43:24.729Z
date_modified: 2026-10-03T08:43:24.729Z
canonical: https://travelmaxing.app/blog/tourist-tax-ledger-2026-seven-night-fees
---
# The 2026 Tourist-Tax Ledger: A Week for Two Costs €15 in Fees in Bali and €147 in Hawaii

> One trip, nine places: 7 nights, 2 adults, a €150 room. Fees alone run from €15 in Bali to €147 in Hawaii. Bhutan charges €1,230.

Book the same week in nine places and the fees alone swing from €15 to €147. Bhutan, which plays a different game, charges €1,230.

The trip is deliberately boring: two adults, one hotel room at €150 a night (VAT included, tourist taxes not), seven nights. Every line below is a fee you pay because you are a visitor, not a general sales tax a local would also pay. I priced each one with the rules in force this month.

## The ledger

| Destination | How it's charged | Per night, room | Nights taxed | Per-trip fees | 7-night total | % of room bill |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [Bhutan](/when-to-visit/bhutan) | US$100 per person per night | €175.75 | 7 | none | **€1,230** | 117% |
| Hawaii (O'ahu) | 11% state + 3% county | €21.00 | 7 | none | **€147** | 14.0% |
| [Barcelona](/destinations/barcelona) | €8.40 pp (4-star) | €16.80 | 7 | none | **€118** | 11.2% |
| [Amsterdam](/destinations/amsterdam) | 12.5% of ex-VAT price | €15.50 | 7 | none | **€108** | 10.3% |
| [Kyoto](/destinations/kyoto) | ¥400 pp (tier 2) | €4.44 | 7 | ¥3,000 pp departure tax | **€64** | 6.1% |
| [Venice](/destinations/venice) | €4.50 pp (4-star) | €9.00 | 5 | none | **€45** | 4.3% |
| [Edinburgh](/destinations/edinburgh) | 5% of ex-VAT price | €6.25 | 5 | none | **€31** | 3.0% |
| Tromsø (from 2027) | up to 3% | up to €4.50 | 7 | none | **≤€32** | ≤3.0% |
| [Bali](/destinations/bali) | flat levy | none | n/a | IDR 150,000 pp | **€15** | 1.4% |

*Method: room bill = €150 × 7 = €1,050. FX mid-market on 24 September 2026: €1 = US$1.138 = ¥180.3 = IDR 20,254. Bhutan: $100 × 2 × 7 = $1,400 = €1,230. Hawaii: 14% × €150 × 7 = €147 (the 4.712% O'ahu general excise tax is excluded because residents pay it too; include it and Hawaii passes €190). Barcelona: €8.40 × 2 × 7 = €117.60. Amsterdam: €150 ÷ 1.21 × 12.5% × 7 = €108.47. Kyoto: ¥400 × 2 × 7 = ¥5,600 (€31.06) plus ¥3,000 × 2 = ¥6,000 (€33.28). Venice: €4.50 × 2 × 5 = €45. Edinburgh: €150 ÷ 1.2 × 5% × 5 = €31.25. Tromsø: 3% × €150 × 7 = €31.50 ceiling. Bali: IDR 300,000 = €14.81.*

Two of the four most expensive rows are percentage taxes. Bhutan is a special case. Barcelona is the most instructive row on the table.

## Flat per-person taxes land hardest on the cheap room

Barcelona's charge does not care what you paid. Since 1 April 2026 the Catalan tax on a four-star hotel has doubled to €3.40, and the city surcharge has gone from €4 to €5, so every adult pays €8.40 a night whether the room was €150 or €450. A youth hostel bed still costs €6 a night in tax. The surcharge is scheduled to rise by €1 a year until it reaches €8 in 2029. Under-16s are exempt, which is the only discount on offer.

Percentage taxes scale with the bill. Flat taxes scale with headcount. That makes a flat tax regressive by construction, and cities that pitch it as a fairness measure against overtourism should be asked why the backpacker pays a bigger share than the suite guest.

Run the per-person nightly fee against the mid-tier daily spend per person in [our country-costs dataset](/data/country-costs.json):

| City | Tax per person per night | Country mid-tier daily spend | Tax as % of a day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barcelona, 4-star | US$9.56 | US$59 (Spain) | 16.2% |
| Barcelona, hostel (vs survival tier) | US$6.83 | US$39 (Spain) | 17.5% |
| Venice, 4-star | US$5.12 | US$68 (Italy) | 7.5% |
| Kyoto, tier 2 | US$2.52 | US$49 (Japan) | 5.1% |
| Edinburgh | US$3.56 | US$117 (UK) | 3.0% |

The data covers countries, not cities, so Barcelona's real daily spend is likely above the Spanish average and the 16% overstates it somewhat. The hostel row survives any correction: a traveller living on Spain's survival-tier budget loses about one day's spending in six to the tax.

## Kyoto built a staircase with a cliff at the top

Kyoto went the other way. From 1 March 2026 its accommodation tax is set by the room charge **per person per night**, in five bands:

| Room charge per person per night | Tax per person per night | Effective rate at the band floor |
|---|---|---|
| under ¥6,000 | ¥200 | n/a |
| ¥6,000–19,999 | ¥400 | 6.7% |
| ¥20,000–49,999 | ¥1,000 | 5.0% |
| ¥50,000–99,999 | ¥4,000 | 8.0% |
| ¥100,000 and up | ¥10,000 | 10.0% |

The old top rate was ¥1,000. The new one is ten times that, and it only touches people paying ¥100,000 a head. Our ¥27,045 room for two works out at ¥13,523 each, squarely in band two.

I like the design and I would defend it to any hotelier: the people who can most afford the tax pay the most, in yen and in percentage. The flaw is the cliffs. A guest paying ¥99,999 per person pays ¥4,000; one yen more and it is ¥10,000. At the ¥50,000 line the jump is from ¥1,000 to ¥4,000. Expect a lot of luxury rates priced at ¥49,800 and ¥98,000 next spring.

Then Japan charges you to leave. The international tourist tax, collected inside the air or ferry fare, tripled from ¥1,000 to ¥3,000 for departures from 1 July 2026, per the [Japan Tourism Agency](https://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/content/001996466.pdf). For our couple that single line (€33) is bigger than a week of Kyoto's hotel tax (€31). See [the Japan guide](/when-to-visit/japan) for timing.

## The caps do more work than the rates

Edinburgh's 5% levy, the UK's first, started on 24 July 2026. It is charged on the price before VAT and stops after five consecutive nights, per the [City of Edinburgh Council](https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/news/article/14452/edinburgh-visitor-levy-comes-into-effect). Venice's hotel tax also stops at five. Catalonia stops at seven.

For a seven-night trip, that means two of the seven Edinburgh and Venice nights are untaxed, a 29% discount on the fee that no brochure mentions. Stay 14 nights in Edinburgh and the levy works out to 1.5% of the room bill. The longer you stay, the more these cities agree with you that you are not really a tourist.

Amsterdam has no cap. It also got more expensive through a door that is not a tourist tax at all: Dutch VAT on hotel rooms rose from 9% to 21% on 1 January 2026 ([business.gov.nl](https://business.gov.nl/amendments/vat-overnight-accommodation-goes-up/)). Because the 12.5% city tax is charged on the ex-VAT price, the VAT hike did not raise the tourist tax. It raised everything around it.

## Fees that never reach the hotel bill

Bali's levy is IDR 150,000 per foreign visitor per trip, paid through the provincial [Love Bali portal](https://lovebali.baliprov.go.id/). That is under €7.50 each, the cheapest line in the ledger, and after two years of honour-system collection it is now being spot-checked at sites like Tanah Lot and Uluwatu. [Indonesia's guide](/when-to-visit/indonesia) has the dry-season months.

Venice's access fee does not appear in the table because overnight guests are exempt. It applied to day-trippers on 60 dates between 3 April and 26 July 2026: €5 booked four or more days ahead, €10 after that. A day-tripper couple who booked late paid €20 for seven and a half hours of charged time. That is more than two nights of four-star hotel tax.

Galápagos charges foreign adults a US$200 national-park fee plus a US$20 transit card. Pre-arrival authorisations belong on the same list: the [ETA toll booths](/blog/visa-free-toll-booths-eta-etias) we priced in July add £16 for the UK and US$40 for the US before you reach any hotel.

Bhutan stands apart. Its Sustainable Development Fee is US$100 per person per night until 31 August 2027, down from US$200. On our budget the fee costs more than the room.

That is the policy, not a side effect.

## Norway passed a law and nobody is collecting yet

Several 2026 roundups told readers Norway would charge 3% from this summer. The law did enter into force on 1 July 2026, but it only lets municipalities apply, and each needs ministry approval plus a local regulation. Tromsø voted on 24 June to start on 1 January 2027. The Lofoten municipalities are approved pilots with no collection date I could confirm. As of this month a week in Norway costs €0 in tourist tax, which is why the Tromsø row above is marked 2027.

If you are pricing a trip in euros, the [exchange-rate ledger](/blog/where-your-euro-dollar-buys-more-2026-exchange-rates) moves the same totals from the other side: in our August numbers a euro bought 7.2% more yen than a year earlier. Compare the [destinations](/destinations) side by side before you let a tax decide anything.

*Sources and verification: every rate above was checked in September 2026 against official notices or reporting that cites them, with at least two sources per figure. Authorities: Kyoto City, Japan Tourism Agency, City of Edinburgh Council, Barcelona City Council, Comune di Venezia access-fee site, City of Amsterdam, Hawaii Department of Taxation and City & County of Honolulu, Love Bali, Tourism Council of Bhutan. Independent reports: Travel Voice, Catalan News, Forbes, TravelMole, Kyoto hotel rate notices. Exchange rates are mid-market on 24 September 2026. Daily spend figures come from [our country-costs dataset](/data/country-costs.json). Hotel categories and room prices change what you pay: check your booking's tax line.*