France & Germany (Room& Hotel Taxes)

It is include in the price quoted. No addition charges as in the US.

Yes, it is a beautiful thing. : )

I think that in Germany, the Value Added Tax (VAT) is always included in the price. I think that that is by law. However, in some places (resorts) they seem to be able to add on a "Kur tax" and not show it in the advertised room price. It is usually less than €2.

We paid alittle tax on hotels in France and in Germany this summer.It was so negelible that I do not remember exactly how much ie on 49 euro it was about 2 euros.

Yep, it is. Food products at the grocery store are less than 19%, but it is late right now and my brain has turned off to the extent that I cant remember how much it is. darn.

Payng taxes makes me think of another possible "extra:" breakfast. Paris and other places quote a room rate, plus (typically) 11 Euro per person breakfast. Is breakfast and the charge optional or required? It can make considerable difference to your actual cost.

Many hotels offer 2 room prices, one includes breakfast and the other one doesn't. The price can vary anywhere between 8 and 32 euros per person depending on the hotel, if it is a buffet, etc. Lots of hotels stopped offering breakfast free of charge a few years back. Sales tax is always included in the price of anything you buy, though it is often separated out at the bottom of your bill so you can see how much it was. In Germany it is 19%. I am not sure what other charges would be on your bill, except for that Kur charge, which I am not really familiar with other than hearing of it. I always freak out when I go back to Ohio and have correct change and then they tell me its more! They look at me like I am from the moon or something cause I didn't know this. Just not used to having it added on at the register.

Jo, is the sales tax in Germany really 19% and already included in the prices? I thought our 8.34% was terrible.

ok, now that it is morning and I am fully awake, the tax on food products from the grocery store is 7%.

Jo, many big hotels, those that appear on booking websites, don't include breakfast in the price so they can show a lower price, but that's not true of traditional German hotels. I stayed in 10 different hotels in Bavaria last October (and looked at a lot of others). All included breakfast.

Also, FYI, on the Best Western website, every BW hotel in the Frankfurt area showed "complimentary breakfast" with the rate. (Also on HRS and hotels.com). Some traditional hotels might take something off the rate if you're not having breakfast, but I, personally, would never stay at a hotel that didn't include breakfast with the room rate.

OTOH, I HAVE seen a lot of hotels on the booking website that do show room rates without breakfast, and then add breakfast as a very high extra. It's kind of like the airline industry charging a very high rate for even the first checked bag, which they know most people will want, so they can advertise an artificially low fare.

Having worked as a hotel manager for 3 years here in Frankfurt, I am fairly familiar with the hospitality business. Mainly because I did extensive research on just this theme, cold breakfast, hot breakfast, buffet, how much to charge, if people don't want breakfast do they get some money back, and so on and so on. This is of course not something that you knew about me. Ha, the secret is out! Anyway, there is a wide variety of hotels and pensions for every taste and some hotels have decided to make the breakfast an extra charge. You were always paying for it somehow anyway, it just wasn't on your bill. A lot of people also have early flights or they do breakfast meetings someplace else, so having this option isn't bad. I do know when we were in Berlin, we were glad that we did not have to pay 8.50 € for the breakfast buffet and could instead run out and get Dunkin Donuts which were everywhere in that city! Yumm!

You might be thinking of the city tax which is sometimes excluded from the rate and charged separately. It always seems to be a very small amount (less than 2 euros/day).