Tourist tax nets councils €54 million

Revenues from the tourist tax brought in €54 million to the coffers of 11 municipal councils in 2022.

The tax levied on hotel and guest house accommodation bills rose 209% on 2021, but was still 4% below revenues in 2019.
According to calculations by DN/Dinheiro Vivo, municipal councils through this tax bagged revenues up 209% on 2021.
Nevertheless, the return of tourists were still not sufficient to equal the €56 million registered in 2019, and the balance for 2022 was down 4% on the pre-pandemic year.
This small difference is justified also by the slower growth in the number of overnight stays in Portugal.
According to the Portugal’s national statistics institute (INE) by November overnight stays fell 1.3% compared to 2019.
If 2022 was a record year in terms of overall tourism revenues for Portugal, on the other hand, the number of tourists staying overnight in accommodation shrank, in other words there were less tourists saying less nights which had a direct impact on the revenues of municipal councils from the tourist tax charged.
Another factor that explains the lower post-pandemic results is that some municipal councils continued to suspend the tax for part of the year as they had done during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In all, 11 municipal councils taxed overnight stays in tourist accommodation in 2022: Braga, Cascais, Faro, Lisbon, Mafra, Óbidos, Porto, Santa Cruz (Madeira), Sintra, Vila Nova de Gaia, and Vila Real de Santo António.