Accommodation tax bookkeeping: the hotel's entries and the company guest's expense

The accommodation tax (konaklama vergisi) is a Turkish expenditure tax on accommodation, shown as its own line on the hotel's invoice and outside the VAT base. The hotel credits it to a payable account and clears it when paid; the company receiving the invoice records it as an expense and, per a 2023 Revenue Administration ruling, may deduct it.

The invoice leaves the front desk with three numbers on it: the room charge, the VAT, and a third line most guests never read. That third line is where the hotel's accountant and the guest's accountant stop agreeing. The hotel holds the money for the state for about a month; the company on the other side asks whether it can deduct it. This guide walks one month through the hotel's books, shows where each entry lands, and then sets out the buyer's side, separating what an official text says from what remains the accountant's call.

Why is the accommodation tax not revenue for the hotel?#

Because the hotel collects it for the state. The tax becomes a debt the moment the facility issues the document, and it leaves the bank account the following month.

Define the term once. The konaklama vergisi is an expenditure tax under Article 34 of the Expenditure Taxes Law (Law No. 6802, rewritten by Law No. 7194 in 2019), charged on the amount paid or owed for accommodation services. The base is the total paid or owed for the taxable service, excluding VAT. The tax itself is not part of the VAT base, so it never enters a VAT calculation.

The document carries the tax as its own line, and no deduction of any kind may be made from it. A discount, a commission or a package price changes what the hotel receives, not the rule that the line appears. The period is each calendar month. The month's tax is declared by the evening of the 26th of the following month and paid in the same period, to the tax office the business is attached to for VAT (Law No. 6802, Article 34, consolidated text, mevzuat.gov.tr (opens in a new tab)).

The rate is set in Article 34 at 2%, and the President may raise it to double or cut it to half. Presidential Decision No. 11263 (Resmî Gazete, 1 May 2026, No. 33240) applies 1% until 31 December 2026 inclusive (Resmî Gazete, 01.05.2026, No. 33240 (opens in a new tab)).

The common error is booking the gross receipt as revenue. That overstates turnover and hides a liability that still has to be paid on the 26th.

What does one month look like in the hotel's ledger?#

Five postings carry the whole month: the sale, the day-end posting, a correction or refund, the month-end balance, and the payment.

At check-out the invoice is issued and the tax is owed from that date, not from the date the guest pays. The receivable or cash account is debited; the revenue account, the calculated VAT account and the tax payable account are credited. If you want to see how these figures travel from the property system into accounting, see what moves from the PMS to the accounting system at day end.

The day-end posting (night audit) is where the tax should already be separated. If the separation happens only at month end, the payable account stops being readable during the month. A correction is not a deletion: the original document is reversed and the corrected one posted, so the ledger mirrors the paper trail rather than the intention. A refund reduces what was owed for the service; the corrected document and the reversal must land in the same month wherever possible, or the reconciliation described below will not close.

For example, take a room charge of TRY 10,000 with a tax line of TRY 100 at the 1% rate. The posting credits TRY 100 to the payable account and TRY 10,000 to revenue, plus VAT at whatever rate applies to the stay. At month end the payable account should equal the sum of the tax lines on every document issued that month. That single comparison is the whole reconciliation.

Which account does the accommodation tax go in?#

Group 36, Ödenecek Vergi ve Diğer Yükümlülükler, and in practice account 360 Ödenecek Vergi ve Fonlar, usually with a sub-account of its own.

The chart is set by the Accounting System Implementation General Communiqué, Serial No. 1 (Resmî Gazete, 26 December 1992, No. 21447 bis). Group 36 holds the taxes, duties, fees and similar debts a business pays as taxpayer or responsible party. Account 360 tracks taxes, duties, fees and funds payable for the business itself, its staff and third parties: credited as they accrue, debited as they are paid (Communiqué Serial No. 1, Resmî Gazete (opens in a new tab)).

Debts deferred or instalment-planned beyond a year go to 438, not to 360. A monthly accommodation tax debt normally has no reason to sit there.

Practice varies on the sub-account, not on the group. Some hotels open one sub-account per tax type; others keep a single 360 and analyse it outside the ledger. The test is whether anyone can read the month's balance against the return without rebuilding it.

Two things to avoid: parking the tax in a sales account because it arrived with the room charge, and netting it against receivables when a guest pays a single amount. The chart does not decide who posts. If front office, night audit and the accounting team all touch the tax, name one owner for the 360 sub-account.

What changes when an agency or a package sale is involved?#

The invoice route changes; the tax line does not disappear.

Article 34 requires the tax to be shown separately on the invoices and similar documents the facility issues, with no deduction of any kind made from it. So a commission, an agency discount or a package price changes the amount the hotel finally receives, not the requirement that the tax appears as its own line on the document it issues. The base remains the total paid or owed for the taxable service, excluding VAT. The ledger entry follows the document actually issued, not the bank receipt that arrives later and net of commission.

Where an agency invoices the guest, the hotel's document to the agency still carries the line, and the month-end reconciliation must include it. How the line appears, and how refunds and receipts are handled on the document itself, is covered in separate lines, refunds and receipts on hotel invoices. Exemptions change what appears on the document and therefore what reaches the payable account; who is outside the accommodation tax and how the invoice shows it sets that out.

Practical check: reconcile the payable account against the sum of tax lines on issued documents, never against collected cash.

Is accommodation tax deductible for the company that receives the invoice?#

Yes, on the strength of a Revenue Administration ruling of 1 December 2023, provided the stay is related to the business and proportionate to its importance and extent.

The ruling (Ankara Tax Office Directorate, 1 December 2023) holds that the tax is by nature an expenditure tax and that Article 34 of Law No. 6802 contains no rule barring its deduction for income or corporate tax (GİB, özelge, 01.12.2023 (opens in a new tab)). The condition comes from Income Tax Law Article 40/4: the expense must be related to the business and proportionate to its importance and extent. A stay that fails that test is a different question from the tax itself.

Where it lands in the buyer's books is the accountant's classification call. Under option 7/A the candidates are 770 Genel Yönetim Giderleri for general and administrative costs, or 760 Pazarlama, Satış ve Dağıtım Giderleri where the travel is a selling cost; under option 7/B, 795 Vergi, Resim ve Harçlar. What the company needs from the hotel is an invoice that shows the tax as its own line, plus documentation that ties the stay to the business.

The ruling answers one fact pattern. Group allocations, mixed business and personal travel, and foreign-currency invoices are not settled by it, and no other official text on those points was opened here.

How do you reconcile the ledger with the return?#

Compare the payable account's balance for the month with the return's tax figure, document by document, before the 26th.

The return for a month is declared by the evening of the 26th of the following month and paid in the same period, so the reconciliation has a hard deadline. Keep an analysis beside the ledger: document number, date, base, tax. Without it, a difference can only be found by re-reading every invoice.

The usual breaks are timing, not arithmetic: an invoice issued on the last day and posted in the next month, a correction whose reversal and replacement fall in different months, a refund, or a document cancelled after the return was filed. The comparison is between the payable account and the documents issued, not between the payable account and the bank. Cash arrives late and net of commission. Whoever owns the reconciliation should sign it off before the return is submitted, not after.

For the wider filing routine, see the month-end accommodation tax return checklist.

What should you settle with your accountant?#

Four decisions, taken once, that determine how the ledger looks for the whole year.

First, the sub-account layout under 360 and who is allowed to post to it, so that front office and accounting do not both invent a code. Second, on the buyer side, where the expense sits (770, 760 or 795) and whether the company's own policy fixes that choice across all travel. Third, how corrections and refunds are documented and which month they land in, agreed before the first one happens rather than after. Fourth, whether the hotel's systems separate the tax at posting or at month end, and who signs the reconciliation before the 26th.

What to do before the next 26th#

Pull last month's payable sub-account and the return that was filed for it, and put them side by side before the next 26th. If they match, the hotel side is under control and the remaining question is the buyer side: take the 2023 ruling and your own facts to your accountant and settle the expense treatment in writing.