Accommodation tax in Türkiye: what hotels charge it on and how

Accommodation tax (konaklama vergisi) is a Turkish tax on overnight stays, set by Article 34 of Law 6802. It covers the stay and the services sold with it inside the facility, appears as its own line on the invoice, and is not part of the VAT base. The facility declares it monthly.

The folio closes, the invoice prints, and the room charge carries VAT. The accommodation tax that also sits on that stay is the line most often folded into the room rate, or worse, into the VAT base, and both mistakes surface at the month-end return. After reading this you will be able to look at any folio and say which lines carry the tax, which do not and why, and what to confirm with your accountant before the next return.

What is accommodation tax in Türkiye?#

It is a tax on overnight stays, set by Article 34 of the Expenditure Taxes Law (Gider Vergileri Kanunu, Law No. 6802), separate from VAT and shown on its own line on the invoice. The law names hotels, motels, holiday villages, guesthouses and similar facilities. The implementing communiqué, the Konaklama Vergisi Uygulama Genel Tebliği published by the Ministry of Treasury and Finance's Revenue Administration in the Resmî Gazete on 14 December 2022 (No. 32043), widens the scope to every facility that offers overnight stays, whatever its type or class and whether or not it holds a tourism operation certificate or a business licence. The tax has applied since 1 January 2023, the communiqué's effective date.

The guest's nationality and residence do not change the tax. The exemption list is short and specific, and it is covered further down. It is not VAT and it is not a municipal charge: it has its own monthly return, filed electronically even for months with no taxable transactions. The facility shows the tax on its invoices and similar documents, which is why the guest sees a separate figure rather than a slightly larger room price.

The accommodation tax is one of the fixed steps of a stay in Türkiye, alongside the payment, the fiscal document, the guest identity notification (KBS) and personal data protection (KVKK). If you want the full picture of those steps, see the four compliance steps of every stay in Türkiye.

Which services fall into the accommodation tax base?#

The base is the overnight stay plus the other services sold together with it inside the facility, even when those services are shown or invoiced separately. Bundled concepts are taxable as a bundle: room and breakfast, half board, full board and all inclusive, whether the price is quoted as one figure or split into components on the folio. The law names food, drink, activities and the use of pool, sports or thermal areas as services sold with the stay.

Services sold to people who are not staying overnight are not taxable. Organisation services such as weddings and meetings, when sold independently of a stay, are outside the tax. Off-site services (transfers, tours) and organisation services sold together with a stay can be left out of the base when their nature and amount are shown separately on the invoice or invoiced separately. The accommodation part must then be priced by an objective method and not below its market value (emsal bedel).

Free stays given to operators, their relatives, staff or third parties, for example as a promotion, are taxed at market value rather than at zero. VAT is excluded from the base. Late-payment, price and exchange differences are included, and customary trade discounts shown on the invoice may be deducted.

What stays out of the base, and on what condition#

Why is the tax outside the VAT base and shown on its own line?#

Because Article 34 requires it to be shown separately and keeps it out of the VAT base, so VAT is calculated on the price of the service and never on the price plus accommodation tax. If the tax is added to the VAT base, VAT is charged on a tax. The invoice then overstates both the VAT and the guest's total, and the error repeats on every folio until someone corrects the tax code.

The separate line is what lets four readers see the same figure: the guest, the front desk, the accountant and an inspector. Folding the tax into the room rate hides it and defeats the separate-showing duty. A single room line with one all-in price is the usual shape of this mistake.

The VAT base excludes the accommodation tax. On the accommodation tax side, late-payment, price and exchange differences are included in the base. Amounts in foreign currency are converted at the Central Bank buying rate on the date of the taxable event, which is a second reason the tax belongs on its own line with its own date. A correct invoice therefore carries three things: the service price, the accommodation tax on its own line, and VAT computed on the service price. For how e-invoices fit into this, see invoicing guests and agencies in Türkiye.

What does the tax look like on a worked folio?#

One folio, three nights, four charge lines, and the tax computed only on the lines that belong to the stay. For example: three nights at 4,000 lira, a dinner charged to the in-house guest at 1,500, a spa entry at 800, and an airport transfer at 600 shown as its own line with its own amount.

The base is 12,000 + 1,500 + 800 = 14,300 lira. The transfer stays out because it is an off-site service shown separately. At the 1% in force, the accommodation tax is 143 lira. VAT is calculated line by line on the service amounts, never on the 143. The guest's total is the service amounts, plus the accommodation tax, plus VAT.

Had the transfer been folded into the room price, the base would have been 14,900 and the tax 149, and the invoice would no longer show the transfer's nature and amount separately. Change the numbers and the mechanics do not move. The rate is the only figure that changes with a decision, which is why the calculation should live in one place in the system.

When does the tax arise on agency bookings and packages?#

The tax arises when the service is provided, not when the room is sold to a travel agency or invoiced in advance. An invoice issued before the stay does not show the tax. The tax follows the night the guest actually spends, which is why a prepayment is a cash event and not a taxable event for this tax.

For stays that run across two months, the tax falls in the month of the check-out day if the departure date is known in advance; otherwise it falls on the last day of each month. All-inclusive and other package prices are taxable as a bundle even when the components are shown separately, so splitting a package into room and board lines does not remove the tax from the board part.

Who bears the tax in an agency contract, the hotel, the agency or the guest through the rate, is a contract and pricing question. Settle it in the contract and with your accountant, not from a blog. The check-out date on the folio decides the return period: a wrong departure date moves revenue and tax into the wrong month and is hard to unpick later. Agencies invoiced through the city ledger need the same discipline as direct guests, because the service date, not the invoice date, drives the tax. See invoicing agencies and companies through the city ledger.

How should the hotel system handle accommodation tax?#

As its own tax code, its own invoice line and its own total, applied when the charge is posted and checked at night audit. Give it a separate tax code, never a VAT code, so the two totals can be read independently at any moment. Apply it at posting to the folio lines that belong to the base, so a transfer or an off-site tour can be excluded by its own code rather than by a manual adjustment at invoice time.

Build the invoice template with one accommodation tax line and its own total, and a VAT calculation that ignores that line entirely. At night audit, compare the day's accommodation tax total with the base total multiplied by the rate in force. A difference means a line was coded wrongly, and it is cheaper to find that at night than at month end. At month end, the tax total for the return period must follow check-out dates for cross-month stays, not invoice dates.

For a correction, tax charged in excess or in error is refunded to the guest first, and the return is then corrected. The order matters. Journal entries, account codes and deductibility belong to the accountant: the system's job is to produce the right totals and the right invoice lines.

For the return itself, see the month-end accommodation tax return checklist for hotels.

What should you confirm with your accountant?#

The rate that applies to the service date, the exemptions that apply to your guests, and the timing rules for your contracts. The rate: check the presidential decision in force for the service date, not the invoice date. The law allows a range from half to double the statutory 2%, so a rate copied from an older source can be wrong twice over.

Exemptions: services to students in student dormitories, student pensions and student camps; on a reciprocal basis, services to foreign diplomatic missions and consulates in Türkiye and their members with diplomatic rights, where the guest presents a Ministry of Foreign Affairs document; and services to international organisations and their members that are exempt under international agreements.

Returns are filed electronically every month, including months with no taxable transactions, so a quiet winter month still has a filing. Corrections follow the refund-first order. Penalties and interest are not stated in this article: confirm the current position with your adviser before you rely on any figure you have read elsewhere. Journal entries, account codes and whether the cost is deductible are accountant territory. This article stops at the invoice line and the return period.

The primary sources behind this article are Article 34 of Law 6802 on the Presidency's legislation portal (opens in a new tab), Presidential Decision No. 11263 in the Resmî Gazete of 1 May 2026 (opens in a new tab) and the Konaklama Vergisi Uygulama Genel Tebliği in the Resmî Gazete of 14 December 2022 (opens in a new tab).

What to do next#

Open one folio from last month and trace three numbers on it: the service amounts, the accommodation tax line, and the VAT. If the tax is missing as its own line, or if the VAT was calculated on a figure that includes it, you have found the setting to fix before the next return. Everything in this article hangs on one rule: the tax follows the service, sits outside the VAT base, and is shown on its own line, and the rate is whatever the decision in force for that service date says.