A call has been made to delay the start of Edinburgh’s visitor levy until next year in response to concerns from tourism bodies.
The Scottish Tourism Alliance, a coalition of tourism and hospitality firms, wrote to council leader Jane Meagher in July, raising concerns about the levy.
It said that, in the absence of practical guidance on how the levy would be implemented, the October 2025 deadline to start the levy is impractical.
Now, an Edinburgh councillor is asking for the launch of the levy to be delayed until at least the start of 2026 in order to give more time for businesses to prepare.
Conservative councillor and group leader Iain Whyte has filed a motion for Thursday’s full council meeting requesting the delay “in light of concerns highlighted”.
It asks the council to agree that a report be filed to the earliest possible meeting, either of the city’s Policy and Sustainability Committee or the full council, to obtain the delay.
His motion would see it extended to either January 1, 2026, or a set amount of time after guidance on how businesses are to interact with the levy is published.
It also said that the council leader had ‘failed to refer’ to an ask by the group to delay the implementation in a letter she sent to them.
Last month, another group, the Federation of Small Businesses, also raised concerns about the preparations made for the scheme.
They said that “time is running out” to inform businesses of what they have to do, and that short-term let operators were struggling with a lack of information.
Edinburgh’s visitor levy will formally launch on July 24, 2026, with all stays on or after that date seeing the extra tax to mitigate the impact of tourism on the city.
Visitors to the city will see a 5% surcharge on their stays for up to five consecutive nights.
The October 1 deadline is when accommodation operators will need to start applying the tax for pre-booked stays from that date forward.
Questions have been floating for months on how the approximately £50 million per year windfall from the tax will be spent.
Some of the funds have already been set aside for certain purposes, but much of it will be for councillors and council officers to decide in the coming months.
By Joseph Sullivan Local Democracy Reporter
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) is a public service news agency. It is funded by the BBC, provided by the local news sector (in Edinburgh that is Reach plc (the publisher behind Edinburgh Live and The Daily Record) and used by many qualifying partners. Local Democracy Reporters cover news about top-tier local authorities and other public service organisations.
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