Scotland's visitor levy: where every council stands in September 2026

Where the Scottish visitor levy stands on 1 September 2026

Scotland's visitor levy is decided council by council, and five councils have now agreed a scheme of their own. Edinburgh is already collecting, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire have each fixed a rate and a start date, and Highland opens a consultation on a sixth scheme this month. They all act under the Visitor Levy (Scotland) Act 2024, passed by the Scottish Parliament in May 2024, which leaves the council to decide whether to charge at all, what the rate is, and which guests are exempt. There is no national figure, which makes tourist tax in Scotland a set of separate local schemes that share a legal basis and little else.

The next date on the calendar is 1 October 2026. From that day a booking for a stay in West Dunbartonshire falls under the levy, nine months ahead of the first liable night on 1 July 2027. That gap is what makes this the autumn the Scottish levy turns into practical work for anyone selling Scottish stays.

Status on 1 September 2026: five councils have an agreed scheme, and Highland has none yet.

The five agreed schemes

Edinburgh charges 5% of the accommodation price and is the only Scottish levy currently collecting money. Glasgow has agreed the same 5%. Aberdeen has agreed 7% from April 2027, the highest rate in Scotland so far. All five agreed schemes work as a percentage of the accommodation price, so what a guest pays moves with the room rate instead of sitting at a flat figure per night.

Stirling agreed the lowest, 3% year round, on 11 December 2025. Stays from 14 June 2027 are liable and bookings from 1 January 2027 are in scope. That 3% came down from the 5% in the draft scheme after two rounds of consultation and an independent economic analysis, which is worth remembering before treating any draft rate as final. Stirling also wrote three exemptions of its own, for residents of the council area, guests receiving carers' allowance, and stays longer than seven nights, all settled by reimbursement after the stay.

West Dunbartonshire published its final scheme on 21 November 2025 at 5% year round across the whole council area. Stays from 1 July 2027 are liable, and the levy attaches to bookings made and paid for in whole or in part on or after 1 October 2026. It covers every paid overnight stay in the area, including providers below the VAT threshold, which brings small operators into scope alongside hotels. Providers carry the liability and report quarterly through a national online portal. Exempt guests pay first and claim the money back from the council, so the exemption logic stays out of the booking flow.

Highland is consulting on a different model

Highland Council agreed on 25 August 2026 to put a draft scheme out to public consultation, and no levy has been approved. The statutory consultation runs for 12 weeks from early September 2026, the findings return to Full Council in December 2026, and a scheme agreed there triggers a statutory 18 month implementation period, which puts the earliest realistic start in mid 2028.

What Highland proposes is a tiered fixed amount per room or area per night. The draft sets £5 a night for hotels, guest houses, B&Bs, rooms in houses and short-term lets, and £2 a night for hostels, campsites and caravan parks, across the whole council area for nine months of the year, skipping December, January and February. The model became possible because the Scottish legislation was amended, at Highland's own request, to let a council charge a fixed amount per night as well as a percentage. The proposal took that shape after the tourism industry argued against a percentage during earlier consultations.

Why the booking date matters more than the start date

For a platform, the work begins on the day bookings come into scope. West Dunbartonshire makes that concrete. A booking taken on 2 October 2026 for a stay in August 2027 carries the levy, so the rate has to be in the pricing engine nine months before any guest arrives. Stirling has the same shape with different dates, bookings from 1 January 2027 against stays from 14 June 2027. For the guest, the effect is that a stay booked this year shows the levy in the price even when the trip is a year away.

Both schemes turn on two dates at once, the day the booking was made and the day of the stay, so a system that reads only the stay date cannot tell whether a booking is in scope.

There is a pricing rule underneath this. Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, a charge the guest cannot decline belongs inside the total price shown upfront, and our post on the CMA's pricing rules for travel: what has to be in the total price covers why local taxes count as calculable in advance. A levy that can be calculated has to sit inside the figure at the moment the price is generated, which makes the booking date the operational deadline.

What is still going to move

December 2026 is the next fixed decision point, when Highland's Full Council takes the consultation findings. Several other councils are preparing proposals with no published rates or dates yet. The amendment that let Highland propose a fixed nightly amount is open to all of them, so schemes agreed from here may be built differently from the five that exist today. Anyone whose Scottish handling assumes a percentage has a reason to check whether a per room per night amount runs through the same code.

Where to find the current position

Scottish rates and dates shift and councils decide at different moments, so this post describes the position on 1 September 2026. The council pages under tourist tax in Scotland and the wider tourist tax guides are updated as soon as a council changes something, which makes them the better reference for anyone pricing Scottish stays.

See how Trippz keeps Scottish levy rates current