Paris Tourist Tax For Hotels And Hostels Explained

The advertised price of a bed in Paris is almost never the price you pay at checkout. Stacked on top of the room rate is the taxe de séjour, the city's tourist tax, and since 2025 it carries a regional levy worth 200 percent of the base amount, a change most price comparison tools still do not reflect. The official rate card is published by the French administration and confirmed by a Ville de Paris council deliberation, and the 2026 grid is unambiguous once you read the columns. This guide sets out every figure, who pays, who does not, and what the tax adds to three nights for two adults across the budget categories.

The short version for budget travellers: a hostel bed attracts EUR 2.60 per adult per night, a 2-star hotel room EUR 3.25, and a 3-star hotel room EUR 5.53, all totals including every levy. Minors pay nothing. The property collects the tax during your stay, not at the moment of booking, which is why your confirmation email may show a lower figure than your final invoice.

How Much Is The Paris Tourist Tax In 2026?

In 2026 the all-in Paris tourist tax runs from EUR 0.65 per adult per night at a 1 or 2-star campsite up to EUR 15.93 at a Palace, with hostels and 1-star hotels at EUR 2.60, 2-star hotels at EUR 3.25 and 3-star hotels at EUR 5.53. Every figure already includes all three levies. The rate depends on the property's official classification, not on the price you paid. To see how these nightly charges fit into a full budget, our guide to what a Paris trip really costs breaks down every major expense.

Those totals come straight from the official grid on the service-public.gouv.fr rate announcement, which lists the base taxe de séjour and then adds three levies: a 10 percent departmental surcharge, a 15 percent regional surcharge, and the 200 percent Île-de-France Mobilités levy that has applied since 2025. The full grid looks like this:

The table is worth reading line by line if you are choosing between star classes, because the jump from 2-star to 3-star nearly doubles the tax, from EUR 3.25 to EUR 5.53 per adult per night.

A single point matters most for anyone booking cheap: the star class drives the tax, not the rate. Two rooms in the same building category pay the same per-adult amount per night however different their prices. That makes the tax a fixed, predictable line in your budget, and it makes classification a genuine cost factor when you weigh a 2-star against a 3-star.

What Is The Tax Made Of: Base, Levies And The All-In Total?

The published tax is built from a small base amount plus three stacked levies: 10 percent for the department, 15 percent for the region, and, since 2025, 200 percent for Île-de-France Mobilités, the regional transport authority. That transport levy is why budget totals tripled relative to the old base-only figures. The all-in column is the only number you need when budgeting a stay.

The structure explains a lot of confusion online. Older guides quote base rates like EUR 0.80 or EUR 1.00, which look absurdly cheap, because they were written before the transport levy existed. Since 2025 the levy applies across Paris and the wider Île-de-France region, and the city's own tourist tax site confirms the combined totals now in force. When a hostel quotes "city tax" at EUR 2.60, that is not the hostel rounding up, it is the full statutory stack.

For someone comparing stays, the practical takeaway is simple. The tax is charged per adult, per night, so a couple pays double a solo traveller, and a family with two children pays only for the two adults. It is a flat amount per category, so it weighs heaviest on the cheapest beds: EUR 2.60 on a budget hostel bed is a meaningful share of the nightly price, while EUR 5.53 on a mid-range hotel room is a rounding error.

If you are still deciding which type of property suits your budget, the comparison in our guide to the best cheap accommodation options in Paris prices out hostels, budget hotels and apartments side by side, tax aside. Run that comparison first, then add the correct grid line for each property's star class.

These two properties sit in the budget range where the tax is easiest to predict, and each publishes its live nightly rate on its own listing, with the city tax added at the property in line with the grid above.

Who Pays The Tourist Tax And Who Is Exempt?

Only adults pay: the tax applies to any major staying for payment who is not a Paris resident, so children and minors are exempt outright. Also exempt, with proof, are seasonal workers, people domiciled in Paris, and anyone in emergency rehousing. There is no child rate, no student discount and no waiving for long stays, the charge is simply per adult per night for the category of the property.

The exemption list is short and strictly checked at the desk. The rules are set out on the service-public page covering the fiche individuelle de police for foreign guests, and on the city's tourist tax pages: adults pay, minors do not, and proof of exemption falls to the guest. A family of four with two teenagers therefore pays exactly the same tax as a couple in the same room category, which quietly benefits families booking family rooms in budget properties.

Foreign visitors should also expect a short form at check-in, separate from the tax. Any host renting to a foreign-national guest must have them fill in an individual police form with name, date and place of birth, nationality, address, contact details and travel dates. The host keeps it six months and passes it to the police only on request. This is routine paperwork, not a red flag about the property.

Before locking a budget stay, it is worth checking whether the live rate you are quoted already includes the tax, since display practices vary from listing to listing and the difference across a three-night couple's stay is real money.

How Are Hostels Taxed: The 1-Star Row Explained?

Hostels in Paris fall into the same grid row as 1-star hotels, guesthouses and holiday villages, so every adult guest pays EUR 2.60 per night regardless of whether they hold a dorm bed or a private room. Collective hostels, auberges collectives, are named explicitly in that row by both the national and the Paris deliberation texts. The bed price is irrelevant, the category fixes the tax.

This is the line that surprises most hostel bookers. A dorm bed and a private room in the same hostel both attract EUR 2.60 per adult per night, because the property's classification, not the room type, sets the rate. Newer hybrid openings muddy the picture slightly: Glint, inaugurated in September 2026 at 66 boulevard Barbès in the 18th, mixes 42 dorm-bed rooms with private doubles from EUR 40 under one roof, and press reports on the opening give no separate classification for the two halves, so the property's official category is the number that matters.

The women-only Hostelle, which the City of Paris bills as the first of its kind in the capital and which opened in June 2026 near the Canal de l'Ourcq in the 19th, advertises beds starting at EUR 18 per night depending on room size. Add EUR 2.60 for the tax and the true nightly floor for an adult sits a little above the headline bed price, which is the honest way to plan. Our piece on how much hostels cost in Paris breaks the full bed-price picture down by property.

St Christopher's Gare du Nord, the hostel brand's property at the Gare du Nord transport hub, is another where the tax is a fixed, known quantity once you know the category: EUR 2.60 per adult per night on top of whatever the live bed rate shows. Its current nightly price and rating are on the live listing rather than printed here.

What About Unclassified Accommodation And Rentals?

Stays with no official star classification, or awaiting one, are taxed at 5 percent of the pre-tax nightly cost per person, with the additional levies on top, capped at EUR 15.93 per adult per night. That cap equals the Palace rate. For cheap unclassified rooms the percentage usually lands below the 1-star flat rate, but the charge rises with the room price until it reaches the cap.

The percentage rule catches many furnished rentals and small independent properties that never applied for stars. The official text puts it plainly: the tariff for unclassified or pending-classification accommodation equals 5 percent of the cost per person per night excluding tax, plus the additional taxes, with a ceiling of EUR 15.93. Whether the ceiling includes the extra levies is not spelled out on the page, so treat EUR 15.93 as the outer limit rather than promising precision at the top end.

For a cheap unclassified room, 5 percent of a low per-person price is a small amount, often below the 1-star flat rate of EUR 2.60, so the couple in an inexpensive unclassified studio can pay less than they would in a classified 2-star at EUR 3.25 each. That is a genuine, if modest, saving, and it is one reason unclassified studio rentals can undercut hotels at the same headline price. The rental side carries its own rules: primary residences in Paris may only be let as furnished tourist accommodation up to 90 days per year, with fines for exceeding it, as set out on the Ville de Paris short-term rental page.

The deliberation makes clear that classified tourist residences and furnished rentals pay the same flat rate as a hotel of the equivalent star class, so a classified 2-star aparthotel charges EUR 3.25 per adult per night, exactly like a 2-star hotel. If you are weighing that option, our guide to Paris aparthotels with fair nightly rates covers the category in detail.

A Worked Example: Two Adults, Three Nights

Two adults staying three nights pay the nightly tax six times: six multiplied by EUR 2.60 in a hostel, six multiplied by EUR 3.25 in a 2-star hotel, and six multiplied by EUR 5.53 in a 3-star hotel, using grid figures only. The 3-star total exceeds the hostel total because its nightly rate is higher, never because the stay runs longer.

Those are the only numbers you need for an accurate budget line, and they hold regardless of season or room price, because the grid is flat within each category. Here is the same arithmetic laid out:

To make it concrete with real properties: Hotel Madrigal, near the Pasteur metro in the 15th, is a budget hotel whose live nightly rate is shown on its listing, and whichever grid row its classification falls into, the tax arithmetic above applies unchanged once you know it. The same goes for Hotel de la Place des Alpes in the 13th near the Place d'Italie side of the arrondissement: the room rate moves with demand, the tax does not. Checking the star class on the property page before booking takes seconds and fixes your tax line exactly.

Hotel de la Place des Alpes sits in a residential pocket of the 13th that keeps nightly rates below the central arrondissements, and its live rates and rating are on the operator's listing. For the wider price picture by arrondissement, see the cheapest areas to stay in Paris, which ranks districts by real nightly cost.

Will The 2027 Grid Change?

The Paris tourist tax grid for 2027 is set to be identical to 2026, per the city's tourist tax site, subject to later legislative change. So the EUR 2.60 hostel, EUR 3.25 2-star and EUR 5.53 3-star totals can be used for trips booked into next year. The 200 percent transport levy that reshaped the totals has been in place since 2025 and no further increase is announced.

That stability is worth knowing because the grid changed sharply when the transport levy arrived, and travellers who read older guides assume another jump is coming. Nothing announced suggests one.

How And When The Tax Is Collected

The tax is collected at the property during your stay, not at the moment of booking, so a prepaid rate may still leave the taxe de séjour to settle at checkout. Properties charge it per adult per night and issue it as a separate line on the bill. If your confirmation shows no tax, that normally means it will be added on arrival, not that it does not apply.

This collection timing catches out travellers who assume a fully prepaid booking is fully paid. In practice the front desk collects the tax in cash or by card at check-in or checkout, alongside the police form for foreign guests described earlier. Some listings display a "tax included" rate, others add it at the desk, and the only way to be sure is to read the rate details on the listing before you book.

Budget for it as a fixed per-person amount using the grid, and the collection method stops mattering. For hostels specifically, note that dorm guests pay individually at reception, so a group of four adults in a dorm owes the per-night amount four times over, not one room charge. The same per-adult logic applies everywhere on the grid.

For anyone pairing a budget stay with sightseeing, the tax is one of several fixed costs worth totalling in advance; our breakdown of how much a trip to Paris costs puts lodging, tax and daily spending side by side, and Cheap Hotels In Paris keeps the property prices behind it current.

Hotel de la Place des Alpes, St Christopher's Gare du Nord and Hotel Madrigal each appear in the trio below because they span the budget range this guide's tax arithmetic applies to: a hostel bed at the transport hub, a budget hotel near Pasteur, and a well-priced double in the 13th. Whichever you lean toward, the grid above gives you the exact tax line before you commit.

Common Questions About The Paris Tourist Tax