The Edinburgh Visitor Levy, a 5% charge on overnight accommodation, came into force on 24 July 2026. While the rate itself is straightforward, the calculation involves several rules that can catch hosts out: a 5-night cap on chargeable stays, VAT sequencing that differs for VAT-registered and non-registered businesses, and an exemption for bookings made before 1 October 2025. With Fringe pricing often three to five times higher than a property’s usual rate, errors on August bookings can be proportionally much larger too.
Visitor Levy App was built by an Edinburgh-based short-term let host who found the calculation genuinely difficult to get right by hand. The tool takes a host’s actual bookings imported directly from Airbnb, Booking.com, a property management system or entered manually, and generates a complete, council-ready quarterly return with every calculation shown in plain English.
The tool is free for any operator with a single property, with paid tiers available for hotels, hostels, and letting agents managing multiple properties on behalf of owners. Guest booking data is processed entirely in the user’s browser and never stored on the company’s servers.
“I built this because I needed it myself, not because I thought there was a gap in the market,” said Steven Stewart, the founder of Visitor Levy App.
“The rules are genuinely fair once you understand them, but getting the maths right by hand, especially during a month like August when nightly rates and levy amounts both spike, is exactly the kind of thing that’s easy to get quietly wrong.”
The site also includes a free public calculator and a series of plain-English guides covering the levy’s rules, aimed at any Edinburgh accommodation provider who wants to check their own figures, whether or not they use the full tool.
Visitor Levy App is available now at visitorlevyapp.com
ENDS