Taxes and Fees applied in OTAs

If you are connected to Booking.com, Airbnb, Expedia, or Vrbo via the channel manager, taxes and fees will be exported in a specific way. In the following, you will learn how fees and taxes are synchronized with each platform, how taxes are calculated, and how fees and taxes are displayed in OTA bookings.

Which fees and taxes are synchronized

Please carefully consult the below table prior to setting up your Fees and Rental Taxes.

💡 Note: Tax remittance is managed by the respective OTAs. Please refer to their support channels for further information. The exception is Vrbo. See How taxes and fees are calculated in Vrbo.

Airbnb fees synchronization

Fees exportation

If you have two or more fees with the same fee type:

• With different calculation models: these fees won't be exported to Airbnb. You will need to change the fee type or remove duplicates for them to be exported.
• With the same calculation model: The amounts will be summed, and a single fee will be exported to Airbnb. All fees are included in the nightly price, while only taxes are displayed as a separate line item.

In this table, find whether the fees are exported to Airbnb based on their type and calculation model:

¹ Any fee categorized under Linens, LinensBath, LinensBed in Lodgify will be sent to Airbnb as a Linen Fee.
² Any fee categorized under AdditionalBed, AirConditioning, BabyBed, Electricity, Equipment, Gas, Heating, Internet, Parking, Spa, Toiletries, UtensilsCleaning, Water, Wood in Lodgify will be sent to Airbnb as a Community Fee.
³ Any fee categorized under Class, DrinkingWater, FoodUtensils, Gardening, HotTub, Laundry, Oil, OnSitePaymentMethod, WaterCraft, or WaterCraftMooring in Lodgify will be sent to Airbnb as a Management Fee.
⁴ Any fee categorized under Concierge, DamageProtectionInsurance, Food, HighChair, Labor, Phone, Pool, PoolHeating, PropertyAssociation, Rent, Resort, ServiceFee, Tour, Transportation, TravelInsurance, Vehicle in Lodgify will be sent to Airbnb as a Resort Fee.

Fees mapping

The fee names in Airbnb may not match exactly with those in Lodgify. For instance, Lodgify’s “Additional bed” fee corresponds to Airbnb’s “CommunityFee”.

When several Lodgify fee types map to the same fee category in Airbnb, they will be combined and displayed as a single total fee. This is particularly important to consider when using the taxable base feature.

The table below shows the different Lodgify fee types and how they sync with Airbnb.

How taxes and fees are calculated in Airbnb (REST API)

Taxes

Taxes exported to Airbnb via REST API will show separated from the room rate in the quote.
They are calculated on the amount of the base rate. They will be shown as a separate line item in the Airbnb quote.

🔎 Example: In Lodgify, you have set up 2.5% City tax and 20% VAT. The amount exported to Airbnb will be 22.5% and the taxes will be separated from the room rate in Airbnb's quote. 

🔎 Example with cleaning fees: In Lodgify, the VAT for cleaning fees will be included in the taxes line of Airbnb's price breakdown. If you have set up a 10% VAT on the cleaning fees, this VAT amount will be separated from the room rate in Airbnb's quote and shown in the taxes:

Make sure to select the appropriate Tax type in the configuration of the tax. To do so:

1. Go to Settings, click Local taxes.
2. Choose to create a new tax, or Edit a tax by clicking on the three dots.
3. Then scroll down to the Tax Types section:
   
4. Once done creating / editing your taxes, click Save.

If your tax Scenario allows, make sure to add both the Business tax ID and the TOT registration ID into the respective fields, at the bottom of the Pricing section of your rental. Find out more here about what a Business Tax ID is and where to find it.

Taxable base for Airbnb

The taxable base lets you define which items a tax should apply to.
🔎 For example, if you need to set a tourist tax that only applies to the base price, you would set the tourist tax at 3%, and it would apply only to the Base Price.

This option is only available for Local taxes calculated as a percentage.
You can apply it to the following items: Base Price, Cleaning Fee, Linen Fee, Resort Fee, Management Fee, Community Fee, Pet Fee.

You must select at least one taxable base per rule, with multiple selections allowed.

When you select a taxable base using one of the fee types supported by Airbnb, the tax will apply to all fees that are mapped to the corresponding Airbnb fee type. For example, if you set up a hotel tax with CommunityFee as the taxable base, the tax will apply to all fees mapped as CommunityFee on Airbnb, such as Additional bed, Air conditioning, etc, if any of these are set up in your account. You can find the full list of fee mappings here.

Airbnb tax collection scenarios

You have 3 possible tax collection scenarios that you can apply to your Airbnb listings.

1. Go to your left-hand menu and select Channel Manager
2. Click Airbnb and View details.
3. Click the pencil icon on the right of Airbnb Advanced settings.
4. Check your Airbnb tax collection scenario, scroll to the bottom and click Send user taxes.
5. Then click Save.

💡 Note: Don’t forget to first add your tax details by going to your rental, then Pricing, and then Tax information.

Fees

All fees will be included in the room price.

🔎 Examples:

If you don’t want to send fees or taxes to Airbnb:

You can restrict fees and taxes to specific OTAs.
For example, you can exclude a fee from Airbnb by adjusting the fee restrictions.
Then click Save.

💡 Note: By default, restrictions apply to all connected OTAs.

How taxes and fees are calculated in Booking.com

How taxes and fees are calculated in Vrbo

Taxes and fees are sent to Vrbo. Vrbo includes all mandatory fees (such as the cleaning fee) in the price guests see, together with the Vrbo service fee, as part of its upfront pricing. Only taxes are shown separately at checkout. Guests can see the full price breakdown by clicking the information icon.
For more details, see How-to check for price discrepancies on Vrbo.

💡 Note: For Vrbo, the tax will only be calculated on the room rate.

With a Vrbo connection through Lodgify, all Vrbo reservations are charged through your payment gateway in Lodgify, so you are the merchant of record, not Vrbo. This means you are responsible for collecting and remitting the taxes on your Vrbo bookings. The taxes you set up in Lodgify are charged to the guest together with the reservation.

💡 Notes:

• Payments processed through Vrbo, where Vrbo collects and remits lodging taxes on your behalf, aren't available on rentals connected through Lodgify.
• In a separate transaction, Vrbo processes only its own service fee and the taxes that apply to it.