UPDATE: |Spanish holiday hotspot issues update on tourist tax hike for this summer News

There were plans to increase the tax on a seasonal basis

Plans to increase tourist taxes in the Balearic Islands this summer have been temporarily scrapped, according to local news reports.

The Government had proposed increasing tourist taxes on a seasonal basis, with visitors paying higher rates during the summer season with it potentially removed completely during the winter low season.

The proposed hike came after a series of anti-mass tourism protests were held across the islands last year, with locals raising concerns about the impact of visitors on local infrastructure, the environment and housing.

One of the measures announced as a result of the protests was increasing tourist taxes. But this “will now not be implemented” this summer, Majorca Daily Bulletin reports.

It’s due to the fact that President Marga Prohens does not have a “parliamentary majority”, with only the right-wing party Vox willing to support it.

Ms Prohens said: “I said from the outset that this would have to be negotiated because I don’t have a parliamentary majority.”

She highlighted that Vox were the only party willing to discuss it but requested that there would be no financial measures – such as a tourist tax increase.

The plans to increase tourist taxes had been slammed by hotel bosses, with the Mallorca Hoteliers Federation calling for the measure to be delayed until 2026.

The current maximum amount of tourists taxed is four euros per night per person at five-star and four-star “superior” accommodation, with those under 16 being exempt.

Guests at four-star and three-star superior hotels are charged three euros during the summer. Outside of these categories there is a two-euro charge.

The news of the plans to scrap the tourist tax hike comes as the Balearic Government is set to approve a tourism decree this Friday which will lift the current moratorium on tourist accommodation places (beds), by creating a temporary pool of places until the island councils agree on the maximum number of accommodation places per island.

President Prohens said on Wednesday that the government “advocates containment, not decrease”. Around 90,000 holiday rental accommodation places will be placed in the exchange pool, which can be acquired by standalone properties to create new holiday rental properties – which hasn’t been possible since 2022 when the moratorium was introduced, blocking the issue of new licences.

But this hasn’t gone down well with the Mallorca Hoterliers Federation which slammed it as “scandalous and incomprehensible”. They argue that removing holiday rental properties would help to improve the housing crisis.

President Prohens said the decree would incorporate strong measures to tackle illegal holiday rentals.

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