Environmental cleaning tax for hotels: who pays, how it is worked out and what a lease changes

The environmental cleaning tax (çevre temizlik vergisi) is an annual municipal charge under Mükerrer Article 44 of Law No. 2464, paid by whoever uses the building. A hotel pays a fixed amount set by its bed-capacity group and the grade its municipal council assigns, in two instalments with the property tax.

In January the municipality posts a list at its notice board, and a hotel's group and grade appear on it next to every other building in the district. The amount is small beside the property tax, but the argument it starts between an owner and an operator can run for years. After reading this article you will be able to find your building's group and grade, check the 2026 amount, know who owes it when the hotel is leased, and put the paperwork in one file that settles the question before it starts.

What is the environmental cleaning tax in Türkiye?#

It is an annual municipal charge on buildings that benefit from the municipality's environmental cleaning services, set by Mükerrer Article 44 of the Municipal Revenues Law (Belediye Gelirleri Kanunu, Law No. 2464), published on mevzuat.gov.tr (opens in a new tab). The scope is buildings used as homes, workplaces or in any other way, inside municipal and adjacent-area (mücavir alan) boundaries, that benefit from those services.

Two mechanisms sit inside one article. Homes are taxed on water consumption per cubic metre and the tax is collected on the water bill. Workplaces and other buildings, which is where a hotel sits, pay a fixed annual amount taken from a tariff. The taxpayer is the person who uses the building, and liability starts when use starts.

The article was rewritten by Law No. 5035 in 2003 and Law No. 5281 in 2004, which is why older summaries of the tax describe a different mechanism. Amounts rise each year by the revaluation rate, so a figure copied from an old budget is wrong by construction. And this is a building charge, not a transaction charge: it never appears on a guest's bill and is not calculated from revenue or from the room rate.

Who pays the environmental cleaning tax: the owner or the operator?#

The law puts the tax on whoever uses the building, so in a leased hotel the operator is the taxpayer, whatever the lease says about who carries the cost. Liability follows use, not title, and begins when use begins.

The lease decides who bears the cost in practice. A lease that is silent on municipal charges leaves the operator paying and arguing afterwards, so name the charge explicitly. Municipal records may still sit in the owner's name, so a notice or a payment demand can reach the owner; correcting the record with the municipality is a separate step from agreeing the cost privately.

The structure matters too. Under a management agreement the hotel is run for the owner's account, while an ordinary lease or a hasılat kirası puts the operating cost on the operator. Read the contract's own words before assuming either; the differences between these structures are set out in leasing out a hotel: an ordinary lease, a hasılat kirası or a management agreement. When the operator changes, the building's group and grade do not change; only the person liable does, and that is the moment to tell the municipality. Confirm your own case with an accountant and with the municipality's revenue desk before the first instalment falls due.

How is the tax worked out for a hotel?#

By two lookups: the building group, which for a lodging facility follows bed capacity, and the grade the municipal council assigns, which together fix an annual amount from the tariff. The tariff has seven building groups and five grades. Municipal councils decide which grade a building falls into; the power to set the building groups sits with the President, and the current groups were set by Council of Ministers Decision 2005/9817, published in the Resmî Gazete of 26 December 2005 and applying from 1 January 2006.

Lodging facilities are grouped by bed capacity, as hospitals are: over 500 beds is Group I, 500 to 300 is Group II, 299 to 150 is Group III, 149 to 50 is Group IV, 49 to 20 is Group V, and fewer than 20 beds is Group VI. Bed capacity is counted whatever the occupancy, so an empty hotel sits in the same group as a full one.

Three modifiers exist. Metropolitan municipalities charge 25% more. Municipalities outside metropolitan boundaries that are in priority development regions, or have fewer than 5,000 people, apply 50% reduced amounts. And a building producing one tonne or more of household waste a day is Group I, while a building with its own working waste treatment, recovery or disposal facility moves down two groups, if it documents this.

The 2026 amounts come from General Communiqué Serial No. 59, issued by the Revenue Administration in the Resmî Gazete of 31 December 2025 (opens in a new tab) and effective from 1 January 2026, applying the 25.49% revaluation rate.

The 2026 amounts for a lodging facility#

Annual amounts for 2026, General Communiqué Serial No. 59, Resmî Gazete 31.12.2025. Grades 2 to 4 sit between the two columns shown.

Where does a pansiyon or an apart hotel fall in the tariff?#

The decision groups lodging facilities by bed capacity and does not name pansiyons or apart hotels separately, so the group comes from the bed count and the grade from the municipal council; ask the municipality to confirm both. The published text has one line for lodging facilities, grouped by bed capacity, with no separate line for apart hotels, pansiyons or guesthouses, so do not assume a category of your own.

The grade is not a quality rating in the tourism sense. It is a band the council assigns to the building, and two similar buildings in different municipalities can sit in different grades. Buildings that form one service whole count as one building; parts used outside that whole, or used by other people, are taxed separately under their own group, which matters when a spa, a shop or a staff block is let to someone else. Floor area, not beds, is the basis for eating, drinking and entertainment places, counted as covered and open areas together, so a hotel restaurant operated by a third party falls under that line, not the lodging line. Ask for the group and the grade in writing before you sign a lease or fix a budget, and keep the answer with the contract.

How is the tax notified and paid?#

The tax is deemed accrued in January each year, announced once for a month at the municipality's notice places, and paid in the two property tax instalment periods: March to May, and November. Municipal councils match building groups to grades without regard to individual taxpayers; the list with grades and amounts is posted at the municipality's notice places throughout January, and posted again each January with any changes.

Because the announcement is collective, no individual letter is required. The absence of a notice is not the absence of a debt. Taxpayers notified their buildings under the lists published in January 1994 and paid the first instalment in that period; as long as the group, the grade or the liability does not change, no new notification is made and the tax is deemed accrued from January each year.

Payment follows Article 30 of the Property Tax Law (Law No. 1319): two equal instalments, the first in March, April and May and the second in November, and the Ministry of Finance may change the payment months by region. Homes see the tax as a separate line on the water bill and pay it with the bill; workplaces do not. The Law also lets the Ministry of Finance require notifications about liability and set their procedure, so the paperwork can change even when the amount does not.

Does a seasonal hotel pay while it is closed?#

Yes. The tax is an annual amount deemed accrued in January, so closing for the winter does not reduce it. Bed capacity is counted regardless of occupancy, so the group does not fall when the rooms are empty, and there is no month-by-month accrual to switch off: the closed months are already inside the annual figure, which was fixed before the season began.

What does change the amount: a documented waste treatment, recovery or disposal facility, which moves the building down two groups; a change in bed capacity after a renovation, which can move it across a band; or a change of user. A closure decision should be built on the costs that actually stop, and this one does not, so it belongs in the fixed column of the winter budget, not the variable one. If part of the building stops being used as a workplace, ask the municipality whether the group or the liability changes for that part. The wider winter checklist is in closing a seasonal hotel for winter: an operations checklist.

How should the hotel record it?#

As a building-level municipal charge, kept off the guest's bill and posted to the account your accountant confirms. It is never a line on the folio and never appears on a guest invoice, unlike the accommodation tax, which is calculated from the bill and shown on it; the entries for that tax are covered in accommodation tax bookkeeping: the hotel's entries and the company guest's expense.

Keep four things in one file: the posted list entry for the building, the payment receipts, the lease clause that names municipal charges, and the municipality's written answer on group and grade. That file is what settles the owner-operator question years later. Ask the accountant which account it sits in and whether it is treated as a period cost; the answer depends on the structure and on the chart of accounts in use, and it is not a decision to take from an article.

Check the figure every January against the revaluation. A stale amount carried forward in the budget is the most common error, and it is invisible until the municipality reconciles. When the building changes hands or the operator changes, tell the municipality first, then check the record: the group and grade travel with the building, and the liability travels with the user.

What to do next#

Pull the posted list for your building, check the group against your bed count and the grade against the council's record, and put the answer in writing next to the lease clause that names municipal charges. Then confirm the treatment with your accountant. The tax itself is small; the ambiguity around it is what costs money, and the ambiguity is removed by one file, not by an argument.