News of: Thursday, December 18 2014,
The City of Amsterdam has made a tax deal with the apartment rental website Airbnb.
Airbnb is going to levy tourist tax for all rentals in Amsterdam, and pay it to the City of Amsterdam.
It is the first such tax deal of Airbnb with a city outside the United States.
The regulation will take effect starting February 1, 2015.
Tourist tax in Amsterdam is (in 2015) 5%. It is a local (city) tax. The deal is not about national taxes, such as income tax or VAT. Amsterdam does not know how much income to expect, but thinks it runs in the millions of Euros.
Airbnb is a world-wide apartment rental website, and in Amsterdam about 4,000 entire apartments are listed (not just a room). The total number of listings in Amsterdam is about 11,000.
The agreement is also about fighting illegal hotels. In Amsterdam, private properties can be rented to tourists for a maximum of 2 months per year. Otherwise, the property is deemed to be a hotel, which is illegal without a license. Amsterdam will get insight in how often an apartment is rented.
Illegal hotels cause complaints about pollution, noise and other irresponsible tourist behaviour.
Kitchen in apartment
