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City Tax in Austria

Hello.
I have just booked an AirBnB in Salzburg and received a request from the host to complete an online form for City Tax purposes. The form includes all personal details, including name, birth date, address, place of birth, passport or drivers license numbers. I have no issue paying city/tourist tax, but am hoping someone can explain to me why they need all these details and if there is any legislation or even a website that can explain what personal details must be given for the purposes of tax. I have not received this request from any other Air BnB host and have made bookings in France, Italy, Croatia and Austria.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Posted by
17638 posts

Cant speak to Vienna in particular, but in Budapest there is a similar requirement (and I know with no doubt that it is true) so I suspect it is legitimate. Hotels do the same and have for years....

Posted by
3943 posts

brittsny, I have often - but it varies by country. I have been asked for a photo of my passport ahead of time (to save time); for it to be provided at check in; or just for numbers to be provided ahead. I have provided it in Germany (this week), in Croatia every single time in Sept., 2021, in Poland in Sept 2022, in Hungary in October, and I recall providing it in Switzerland and Italy as long ago as 2012 - that I can recall right off the bat. The UK doesn’t require it. Some apartment managers wanted the copy ahead, some filled it out onsite, some took a photo of it themselves on site, and some had me send info or photo (if I was doing self-check). I have not done AirBnB in Austria so can’t speak to that.

Posted by
4137 posts

I never use Airbnb or any other sites that loosely observe regulatory requirements, but having recently returned from nearly three months in Europe , all my hotels ( three in France , three in Switzerland , two in Germany and two in Austria - Salzburg and Vienna ) asked for my passport at check in . Whether this is city tax or governmental requirement , I'm not sure , but I wouldn't be paranoid about it

Posted by
17638 posts

I never use Airbnb or any other sites that loosely observe regulatory
requirements.

I would suspect that the request indicates that the AirBnb owner isn't doing anything loosely. Actually a good sign in your case.

Posted by
4137 posts

James , perhaps I should change " loosely " to " inconsistently " . My point being that hotels tend to observe regulatory requirements predictably. Dealing with a loose agglomeration of operators will invariably result in different operators following different routes .

Posted by
8377 posts

If you read a lot of suspense novels set in Italy and other European countries, you know the police need hotels to record and report this info in case they need to identify bodies found in the river, and track the movements of sex traffickers. 😟

Posted by
14481 posts

There is definitely a City Tax in Berlin. I don't if that applies to restaurants but certainly in hotels and Pensionen.

I saw once this Finnish woman question the itemized charges on the bill at check-out in my Pension...why? What's this? She didn't know German, barely any English, which was useless anyway since the proprietor only spoke Polish and German, and kept saying to her "City Tax" with the rest of the sentence in German, which seemed to me was making no headway with the Finnish woman. You could see both these women were getting annoyed with each other.

Posted by
7451 posts

The information they are asking for is all available on your passport (Name, date of birth, place of birth, passport #) except for your current address. Nearly every hotel or lodging in Europe should want your passport info, either ahead of time, or at check in. If places you have booked, they have not asked to see a passport at any time, in France, Italy, Croatia, and Austria...then you are dealing with people who are cheating the system, not unheard of in the AirBnB system.