Scotland Visitor Levy 2026: What the Law Changes

If ‘visitor levy’ sounds like the kind of phrase that makes most people switch off, this Act is a reminder that dry law can still change real life. The Visitor Levy (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 2026 was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 24 March 2026 and received Royal Assent on 21 May 2026. According to the text published on legislation.gov.uk, it does not create Scotland’s visitor levy from scratch. Instead, it rewrites parts of the Visitor Levy (Scotland) Act 2024 so councils have clearer options and more detailed rules for how local schemes work. In plain English, this is the law that tidies up who gets charged, how councils can set the charge, how businesses report it and how future changes must be announced. If you are trying to work out whether Scotland is moving towards a percentage-style tourist tax, a flat nightly charge, or different local models in different places, the answer is now much clearer.

The biggest change is the charging basis. Under the amended law, a local authority that wants to introduce or change a visitor levy scheme must decide whether the levy will be charged as a percentage rate or as a fixed amount. A fixed amount must be set for each night and then multiplied by the number of rooms or areas covered by the stay, rather than simply following the room price. **What this means:** a council could choose a flat fee per room per night instead of taking a share of the accommodation bill. The Act also says fixed amounts can vary by purpose, by area within a council boundary, or by category of overnight accommodation, and they can even be set at nil in some cases. Scottish Ministers are given power to set national maximum amounts later through regulations, but only after consulting councils, communities, tourism businesses and tourist organisations.

The law also tries to sort out one of the messier parts of modern travel: bookings that pass through a third party before the guest arrives. If a room is first bought from the accommodation provider by another business and then sold on to the person who actually stays there, the chargeable transaction is treated as the initial transaction, not the later resale. The guest is still treated as taking entry under that original deal for levy purposes. That sounds technical, but the aim is easy enough to see. Without a rule like this, councils and businesses could end up arguing over which booking in the chain actually triggers the levy. The amended Act also makes clear that only one levy can be imposed for the same right to stay in a particular room or area on a particular night, which helps guard against double charging.

For accommodation providers and booking businesses, another important change is the new idea of a permitted deduction. A council may allow the person liable for the levy - in practice, the business or person responsible for accounting for it - to deduct and keep part of the levy before paying the rest over. The reason written into the Act is simple: to recognise administrative costs that may come with running a local levy scheme. If you run accommodation or handle bookings, this is the part to watch. The deduction can be a fixed amount or a percentage, and a council must set a maximum. Returns must then show the total levy due, any allowed deduction and the net amount still payable to the local authority. **What this means:** if a council thinks collecting the levy creates real paperwork costs for businesses, it can build in a limited allowance. But that allowance is not guaranteed forever. The Act also allows rules for disallowing deductions, including in cases where penalties have been imposed.

The timing rules matter just as much as the money. The 2026 Act changes how much notice councils must give when they make significant changes to a visitor levy scheme. If a scheme is already running, some bigger changes must still wait at least 18 months before taking effect, while changes such as increasing a percentage rate, increasing a fixed amount, or switching from a percentage model to a fixed-charge model - or the other way round - need at least 6 months’ notice after the council publishes its decision report. If a scheme is not yet in force, the rule is stricter: significant changes must be at least 18 months away. That will matter to businesses planning prices, contracts and booking systems. It also matters to communities, because it means a visitor levy should not keep changing without warning.

There are also transitional rules for councils that were already part-way through designing a scheme when this amendment Act arrived. In certain cases, if a council has already publicised a proposed scheme or already carried out consultation, it does not have to start the whole process again just because the law now requires extra information, such as the charging basis or any permitted deduction. That is a practical change, and it is meant to stop councils from being sent back to square one by a mid-process legal update. At the same time, the Act gives some breathing space to liable persons dealing with older transactions. If a business fails to meet certain return, record or payment duties for a transaction entered into before the new provisions came into force, and the local authority thinks the failure may be linked to these amendments, the law says that counts as a reasonable excuse for penalty purposes. In other words, the Act recognises that rule changes can cause genuine confusion.

Paperwork is a big part of this law, even if it rarely makes the headlines. The amended Act updates return rules so they work whether a levy is charged as a percentage or as a fixed amount. It also allows Scottish Ministers to create a formal process for amending returns later, including who can ask for a correction, how a council decides the request and what happens to penalties or interest if a return is changed. Record-keeping has been tightened too. The focus is on details of overnight stays and the chargeable transactions linked to them, which should make checks easier if disputes arise. Billing rules are also widened so invoices and published information can reflect later sales in a booking chain, not only the first transaction. For readers learning how public policy works, this is a useful example of how a short amendment Act can quietly reshape the everyday admin behind a headline political idea.

Stepping back, the wider message is that Scotland is still writing the operating manual for local visitor levies rather than closing the argument. Councils reviewing a scheme will now have to ask not only how it is working, but whether it should be modified or revoked. The Scottish Ministers’ own reporting duty is widened as well, with a specific requirement to look at the effect of visitor levy schemes on businesses, communities and tourism in rural areas. Ministers also keep powers to make further rules about how the system works in particular cases, again after consultation. Some parts of the Act came into force the day after Royal Assent on 21 May 2026. Others are due two months later, and some will begin on dates still to be appointed by Scottish Ministers. **What this means:** the argument about who should pay for tourism’s local pressures is not finished. But the rules are now clearer on a few key points: councils can choose a percentage or a flat nightly charge, businesses may get limited help with admin costs, and major changes are supposed to come with notice rather than surprise.