England's tourist tax: where things stand in September 2026

Where England's tourist tax stands on 1 September 2026

England has no national tourist tax. The government named an Overnight Visitor Levy Bill in its legislative agenda on 13 May 2026, but that bill has not been introduced to Parliament, and the consultation behind it closed on 18 February 2026 without a published response. Two English cities charge guests a nightly fee already, through a completely different mechanism: Manchester charges £1 per room per night, and has done since 2023, and Liverpool charges £2 per room per night since 1 June 2025.

The tourist tax in England picture runs on two tracks that move at different speeds. One is the national proposal above, which would let mayors introduce a levy set as a percentage of the accommodation price. The other is the pair of local charges in Manchester and Liverpool, built on a legal tool that predates the national proposal by years and has nothing to do with it. Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole have no route to either kind of charge under the current design, more on that below.

Manchester and Liverpool charge through a business vote, not a tax law

An Accommodation BID is a local business vote, the same legal tool that funds retail and culture improvement districts in many English towns, applied here to hotels and serviced accommodation. Once enough businesses in the area vote yes, every qualifying property pays automatically, no separate law from Parliament involved.

Liverpool's £2 is not lifted from each individual booking the way a Scottish or Welsh levy would be. The council bills each property once a month, based on the number of rooms it has, the nights in that month, and an estimated occupancy rate for the city that a hotel data firm publishes. A property pays on its modelled occupancy rather than on the stays it actually sold that month. For pricing purposes, though, both charges still work out as a mandatory cost of the stay, so under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 they belong inside the total price a guest sees before booking, the same rule our post on the CMA's pricing rules for travel: what has to be in the total price covers for local taxes generally.

The national bill: named, not introduced

The government's consultation, Visitor levy in England, ran from 26 November 2025 to 18 February 2026. It proposed letting mayors of England's biggest city regions, London, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region and others, introduce a levy on overnight stays set as a percentage of the accommodation price, closer to Scotland's model than to Wales's flat rate. Each mayor would set their own rate and exemptions.

London is the largest single market in the proposal, and the fight over its money has already started before any rate exists. London Councils, representing the boroughs, asked the government in February 2026 to guarantee boroughs at least half of whatever a London levy raises, so the money does not flow through the Mayor alone. No rate has been set for London or anywhere else, but one illustrative figure often quoted is a BBC estimate that a £1 per night charge in London could raise around £91 million a year.

The government has not published a response, and no Overnight Visitor Levy Bill has reached Parliament, even though the government named it among its legislative plans on 13 May 2026. A separate bill, the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, finished its own passage without carrying that power, so dedicated legislation is still needed before any mayor can act. That puts a realistic first levy no earlier than the 2027/28 or 2028/29 financial year.

Geography decides who can charge it, not visitor numbers

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole draws more than 10 million visitors a year, by its own count, but it does not fall under any of the mayors the proposal would empower. Under the proposal as written, that alone rules it out. The council wrote to the Secretary of State in December 2025 asking to be allowed to apply a levy locally, with the money kept and spent in the area, rather than waiting on a devolution settlement it does not yet have. Whether that request succeeds says nothing about how many tourists a place gets and everything about which map it happens to sit on.

What to watch next

The government's response to the consultation is the next fixed marker, still unpublished as of this post. After that, the test is whether an Overnight Visitor Levy Bill is actually introduced this session, and whether areas without a mayor, like Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, get folded into the power or stay outside it. In the meantime, other English cities can still choose the Manchester and Liverpool route and vote in an Accommodation BID of their own, without waiting for Westminster at all.

Where to find the current position

England's tourist tax situation moves on two separate tracks and both can shift without much notice, so this post describes the position on 1 September 2026. The tourist tax in England guide and the wider tourist tax guides are updated as soon as a city or the government changes something, which makes them the better reference for anyone pricing English stays.

See how Trippz keeps England's tourist tax rates current