Germany's bed tax, city by city.

Germany is the most local of the big European systems. There is no federal accommodation tax at all, and no state-level one either. Instead each municipality decides whether to levy a bed tax, what to call it and how to calculate it, which is why you will see the same charge described as a Bettensteuer, a City Tax, a Kulturforderabgabe, an Ubernachtungsteuer or a Beherbergungsabgabe depending on where you are standing. More than 40 cities now charge one, and most German towns still charge nothing.

Two structures are in use, and which one applies decides who pays more. A percentage of the net room price scales with how good a hotel you book and ignores how many of you are in the room. A flat amount per person, per night ignores the room price and scales with the size of your party. Either way your accommodation collects it and remits it, usually adding it at checkout rather than folding it into the rate you were quoted. For the wider money picture see the Germany money guide.

This is the correction worth carrying, because a great many pages get it wrong. Munich charges no bed tax, and neither does anywhere else in Bavaria. The state outlawed the municipal hotel tax, Munich's attempt at a 5% City Tax was struck down, and the ban was upheld in 2025. So Munich, Nuremberg and Augsburg add nothing to your room. Any table listing Munich at 5% is describing a tax that was proposed and then killed, not one you will be charged.

The one Bavarian exception is a different animal. Officially designated spa and resort towns across Germany levy a Kurtaxe, a separate flat charge of roughly 1.50 to 4 euros per person, per night, and around 350 towns run one. It is not a city bed tax and it does not follow the same rules: the Kurtaxe applies to everyone, including business stays. If you are booking a spa town in the Alps or the Black Forest, that is the charge to expect, and it exists in Bavaria even though the bed tax does not.

Berlin is the one to budget for: 7.5% of the net room price, excluding breakfast, the minibar and other extras. Two things about Berlin are commonly out of date online. The old 21-night cap is gone, replaced from 1 January 2025 by a six-month threshold, so a normal trip is taxable start to finish. And business stays have been taxable since 1 April 2024, so the old leisure-only rule no longer holds there. Cologne charges a 5% Kulturforderabgabe, and Dresden about 6%.

Frankfurt is the flat-fee city people most often get wrong. It charges a flat 2 euros per person, per night, not 2% of anything, and one quirk is worth knowing: your arrival and departure days count together as a single day. Dusseldorf charges 3 euros, and Stuttgart joined at 3 euros from 1 July 2026. Hamburg does something different again, sliding with the room price: about 60 cents where the net price per person is just over 10 euros, up to about 4.80 euros on a 200 euro room, then 1.20 euros more for every further 50 euros, so about 6 euros on a 250 euro room. Nothing at all is due where the net price per person is 10 euros or less. In practice that is a euro or two for a modest room and five or six for an expensive one.

Children under 18 pay nothing in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Cologne, and that is the common rule, although some cities draw the line at under 12 instead. Because every exemption is written into a city statute rather than national law, the age is a local question. Where a family stays together, an exemption removes that person's share rather than cancelling the charge on the room, so on a percentage tax in Berlin a family and a couple in the same room land on the same number.

The business-travel rule is the one that has moved. After a 2012 court ruling most cities limited the bed tax to leisure stays, and a business traveler avoids it by showing an employer letter, an Arbeitgeberbestatigung, at check-in. That is still how it works in most of the country. But several cities now charge business travelers as well, including Berlin since 1 April 2024, Cologne since 1 July 2024 and Frankfurt since 1 October 2024. So the honest position is that leisure travelers pay, business travelers can often claim exemption with a letter, and in a handful of the biggest cities they cannot. Ask the hotel rather than assuming either way.

Common questions

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