The Transient Visitor Levy (TVL) for Edinburgh is inching towards being here. There is just one more consultation to go before councillors will approve – we hope! – the scheme for the city, and it will be implemented in July 2026.
We’d encourage everyone to fill in this final consultation (even if you feel like you have said the same thing several times before) as it will help get the right scheme for Edinburgh. This blog has some ideas for things you might want to include in your response, although of course you should only say them if you agree!
We don’t think the consultation should take too long to fill out, and you don’t have to answer every question. It’s also really good to get responses from people who are visitors to Edinburgh, so please do pass it on to any family and friends who like to come and stay.
Fill out the consultation by 15th December here: Visitor Levy for Edinburgh – Your details – City of Edinburgh Council – Citizen Space.
Why do we need a visitor levy?
After you have answered a few introductory questions about you, you will be asked for your views on the objectives of the visitor levy, and how important you think each of these things are:
- To sustain, support and develop public services, programmes and infrastructure.
- To sustain, support and develop Edinburgh’s culture, heritage and festival provision.
- To sustain, support and develop the visitor economy and to promote sustainable tourism.
Green Councillors have been arguing that the first of these objectives is the most important – Edinburgh is a vibrant tourist destination and that brings lots of great things to the city, but it also takes its toll. A visitor levy is important to help redress some of the negative impacts that tourism has, and make sure the city works for everyone, all year round. The other objectives are also important, so our recommended answers would be:
5:
- To sustain, support and develop public services, programmes and infrastructure: Strongly Agree
- To sustain, support and develop Edinburgh’s culture, heritage and festival provision.: Agree
- To sustain, support and develop the visitor economy and to promote sustainable tourism: Agree
Although there are specific questions about it later, you might want to leave comments in the additional text box about how infrastructure should include affordable housing, accessible transport and other things that benefit residents of Edinburgh as well as visitors.
How much should the levy be?
The next page asks about the rate of the levy, currently proposed to be 5% the amount of the stay. Green Councillors proposed that the rate should actually be 8% which is in-line with other major cities like Paris, Rome and Porto. We haven’t been given a particularly compelling reason why 5% is the recommended level, and we don’t think that an increased percentage would be off-putting or difficult for visitors to pay.
We would recommend answering:
7: Disagree
8: The levy should be higher than 5%
There is a comment box at the end of the questions on the next page where you can leave a comment about why you support the higher rate, for example that it wouldn’t put you off visiting a city like Edinburgh, or that the increased money it would bring in would be very beneficial.
The next questions are about when and where the levy applies – Green Councillors agree with the proposals that it should only apply for the first seven days of your stay, and that it should apply everywhere except campsites (because they are a low-impact form of tourism, and also are particularly used by Gypsy/Traveller/Roma groups and Showpeople who we don’t want to discriminate against).
We recommend answering:
10, 11, 12, 13: Strongly Agree to all
(Side note: there is no question 9 in the consultation, don’t panic!)
Who needs to pay the levy?
We believe there should not be any exemptions in people who pay the levy. That is because the cost of administering exemptions is generally prohibitive, but also because if you begin offering exemptions it can become a ‘slippery slope’ with lots of different groups requesting special treatment. We therefore recommend answering:
15: Strongly Agree
One area we have been concerned about is disabled people who may be eligible for a refund for TVL, and this is covered in part on the next page. We have also been asking questions about healthcare settings, and people who have experienced domestic violence and are encouraging consideration of these circumstances. We agree with the rationale of the officers set out on this page that it is better for privacy and respect to operate in this way, but we would encourage you to fill out the comment box if you have any other views or want to talk about specific scenarios.
What should we spend it on?
This is the really juicy bit of the consultation, as it asks what the money should be used for. As you might know, Green councillors have been instrumental in ensuring that affordable housing is considered as an area for investment, in fighting for more participatory budgeting, and in arguing against too much of the money raised being used for PR and marketing (read more here). So, we are really pleased in general with the recommendations set out here, and the percentages in question 18 reflect the amendment that Greens brought to the Policy & Sustainability meeting in August.
But, of course, we always want to go further! So we recommend answering:
17:
More money should be spent on participatory budgeting
More money should be spent on housing
You can use the comment box on this page to say why you support these things – some things you might want to include might be:
- Because people should have a greater say over how public money is spent.
- Participatory budgeting works best when it is allocating core budgets, not just administering specific funds or small pots of money.
- Edinburgh is experiencing a housing emergency – this money should be used for social housing not more homes for private landlords.
- Tourism relies on workers and they need to be able to access affordable homes.
- Big infrastructure projects like housing should be funded by income like this as it is relatively stable and predictable, and not rely on political budgets each year.
- Living Rent have also produced a guide to filling out the consultation, so you might want to look at their response to see some more arguments for housing spending.
You might also want to use this box to talk about other things you’d like to see the money used on, for example:
- public toilets
- better accessibility measures
- sustainable transport like a bike hire scheme or free public transport
- supporting diverse artists
- adapting the city to deal with climate change
- alternative tourist activities
- green space improvements
- supporting visitors in other parts of the city than the centre of town
Finally, the last page asks for any other comments – feel free to say anything you like, but it’s always helpful to get positive comments about the scheme in general!