Hotel Taxes Down, Airline Taxes Up

Posted by Editor | April 2, 2009 | Categories: Government and Politics, Tourism | Comments Off

Costa Rica has eliminated the 3% ICT tax from hotel stays. ICT is the agency charged with promoting tourism in Costa Rica and the tax funded their operations.  The tax has been replaced by a $15 tax on airline tickets into Costa Rica.

With this change, the nightly room tax for a room in Costa Rica will now be 13% instead of 16.39% so for most visitors the savings from the hotel tax should offset the $15 additional paid for their tickets.

The government is also hoping that the new airline tax will be easier to collect and less subject to evasion as well.

The airline ticket tax took effect on April 1st. The hotel tax change was effective as of Friday March 27 but many hotels are just now hearing about the change and making it effective. For those hotels which include taxes in their rates, it will be up to them whether to decrease their rates accordingly or just take a little extra profit.

More: La Nación: Aerolíneas advierten que cobro de $15 más en boletos afectará turismo

Update Apr 4: The new tax rate in this article was initially erroneously reported as 13.39%. It should be 13.00%. The old tax was 16.39% since the 13% sales tax was also applied to the 3% ICT tax.


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