Taxes and city fees: set once, added automatically

Why	Set taxes up once, so the system handles them for every booking after that — no manual marks, no recalculating by hand.
Who	Owners, managers, and administrators setting up the property; front desk staff who need to know where the calculation lives.
What you’ll get	Two VAT rates — one for accommodation, one for meals; city fee rules that charge themselves, and a clear picture of where the guest sees these amounts.
Limitations	This article does not quote specific rates — every property has its own; check the tax requirements that apply in your country, and confirm with your accountant.

Taxes are the part of property setup you do once. HotelsCalendar has two kinds of charges: VAT with its own rates, and city fees that work as rules. Set them up, and the system adds them to bookings on its own — the amounts appear on the booking card, in the day-by-day breakdown, and in the guest’s documents without any manual work.

Two VAT rates

The system has two VAT rates, set independently: a separate rate for accommodation and a separate one for meals.

The rates live in the property settings — the “Settings → Taxes” section:

1. Open “Settings → Taxes”.
2. Set the VAT rate for accommodation.
3. Set the VAT rate for meals.
4. If your prices already include tax, turn on the “included in the price” flag — the rate then applies to prices where VAT is already baked in.

Result: VAT is calculated automatically, night by night — for every night of a booking the system stores the rate and the tax amount, and nothing needs recalculating by hand.

Everything is stored per night, so the tax makeup is right there on the booking: which night, which rate, how much — more on that below, in the day-by-day breakdown section.

There is also a per-room setting. On the booking card, the “Change price” button on a room block opens the price drawer: next to the accommodation total there is a “VAT” switch. It turns VAT on or off for that room’s price — handy when different rooms on one booking follow different rules.

City fees as rules

City fees work differently: they are not one-off marks on a booking but rules the system applies itself. The canonical name is City Tax; the catalog also has a “Resort fee” subtype, so different kinds of fees never have to melt into one.

A rule describes when to charge and how much:

• charge type — a fixed amount or a percentage;
• conditions — room types, rate plans, dates, days of the week;
• subtype — “Resort fee” and others.

Setting it up is a one-time job:

1. Create a rule: choose the charge type — a fixed amount or a percentage.
2. Set the conditions: room types, rate plans, dates, days of the week.
3. Save the rule.

Result: the rule runs on its own — every booking that matches the conditions gets the fee automatically.

VAT and city fees do not replace each other: VAT is calculated from the rates in settings, fees from the rules. Automatic charging covers both — once set up, taxes appear on bookings without the front desk lifting a finger.

Where taxes show up in a booking

Two places on the booking card let you check the charges:

• The “City tax” tab — the city tax calculation for this booking. Until the tax has been calculated, the tab warns you: “City tax not calculated”.
• The “Rate” tab → day-by-day breakdown — a per-night table: Date · Room type · Rate · Accommodation · Meals · Taxes · Extras · Discount · Total. The “Taxes” column shows the tax for each night — you can see what the room price is made of.

What the guest sees

Guests see taxes where they see everything else about their booking:

• in the voucher, the fees are listed separately from the accommodation — the room price and the charges on top never merge into one number;
• in the Guest Portal, the booking is visible in full: prices by day, services, and taxes. The city tax in the portal is labeled “City Tax”.

So there is no need to explain where the final figure came from — the price breakdown is right in front of the guest.

See also

• Inside the booking card — where the rate plan, taxes, and money live on a booking.
• The booking voucher: preview, print, language — what the guest sees in the voucher and how to send it.