Taxes Voyage Tips and guide

Contents

Taxes and surcharges are an often unavoidable part of travel. As this topic can be very broad, this page will focus on taxes and surcharges that will be most relevant to short-term travellers.

Airports, and aviation authorities will collect these taxes when you purchase your airline ticket. Nowadays, these are almost always included in the advertised ticket price. One exception is the Philippines where the advertised prices are usually base fare only, and taxes and other surcharges are going to be mentioned in the fine print (though when you go straight to the choosing you flights, the prices you see include these taxes and you can see a breakdown after choosing your flights. In some cases, taxes are collected directly at a designated airport desk for that.

Bus and train ticket prices also include taxes if they have to be collected at the time of booking.

For some countries, a credit card surcharge may be collected at the point of booking your flight or train. This is usually a percentage of the price you see. This might not be applicable for debit card purchases.

Taxes are usually included in the per unit prices of petrol so there is no need to do further maths other than the unit price multiplied by the number of units of petrol you purchased.

Taxes are charged on hotel stays. Most hotels, especially outside Europe, will also levy a mandatory 10% service charge. Often this is a percentage of the base rate and in some cases, a fixed amount (usually by the city government) is charged.

When you are booking a hotel using a European Union-facing website, national taxes and surcharges are always included in the advertised price. City taxes are added later and usually collected separately from the main hotel rate if you choose to pay for most of your hotel rate at the time of booking.

However in places such as most of Southeast Asia, these service charges (often 10%) and taxes (usually 7-12%) are excluded from the advertised price and you will be have to mentally add approximately 20% to the price you see until the check-out page. Even if you are booking an EU-based hotel from a Southeast Asian website, the advertised price might not yet even include you the taxes you have to pay. So if you are from Southeast Asia and book stays in countries that charge 25% taxes (e.g. Denmark), beware.

Many countries will levy value added tax, goods and services tax, or sales tax. Outside North America, these kinds of taxes are usually in the price of goods that you buy in stores. In some countries like Thailand, there are no fixed rules as to when VAT is to be included or not although you can assume a price includes VAT unless stated otherwise.

When purchasing services that require humans performing a service in front of you, practices about including taxes and surcharges are mixed. In most European countries, listed prices include mandatory taxes and surcharges. However in much of Asia, taxes and surcharges (especially service charge) will only be added at the point of payment collection. In North America, taxes will also be added only at the point of payment collection but "unspoken" tips are expected from customers.