From January 1, 2022, payment of occupancy tax will be mandatory when renting out accommodation on the Mexican Caribbean coast through the electronic platform AirBnB and other similar sites. At the same time, high fines will be imposed for non-payment of taxes. Rodrigo Díaz Robledo, head of the tax office in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, said fines could affect nearly half of the state's AirBnB properties.
The occupancy tax (Impuesto al Hospedaje) is a local tax and is administered based on the criteria of the legislation of each state of Mexico. It applies to services provided by hotels, motels, houses and apartments that provide accommodation services, excluding ancillary services. Payers are both legal entities and individuals. The rate ranges from 2% to 5% of the rental price, depending on the state. In Quintana Roo the tax rate is 3%. The tax is similar to VAT, it is also passed on to the consumer. Accrued to the base without VAT.
Tax obligations arise when the guest checks out of the property and when final payment occurs. Payment of the tax is made monthly, at the municipal administration of the state government, via the Internet, by wire transfer or, if the housing is rented through a digital platform, the latter itself collects the tax amount and transfers it to the budget.
The state of Quintana Roo began collecting an accommodation tax on users of digital accommodation platforms in 2020. However, due to the coronavirus epidemic, it was decided to defer the mandatory calculation and payment of this tax until 2022, offering hotels and landlords a «transitional» period and payment are voluntary. As of January 1, 2022, payment of the tax will become mandatory, requiring AirBnB users to register with the State Tax Administration as payers of this tax. The digital platforms themselves already collect this tax and transfer it to the budget, but so far only from users registered with the tax office. Let us remind you that they are also obliged to administer and transmit to the tax administration data on income tax payers when renting out housing through their websites.
Quintana Roo Tax Commissioner Rodrigo Diaz said that currently about 24,000 Airbnb properties in the state are already registered as occupancy tax payers. According to hotel associations that see Airbnb as their competitor, there are more than 50 thousand such properties in the state. In 2020, INEGI (Ministry of Statistics) counted 45 thousand of them.
Rodrigo Diaz cited data that in the current period, each property that is rented out in the state through Airbnb, on average, pays MXN 625 in occupancy tax per month, while hotels — 1870 MXN. At the same time, in Quintana Roo there are 120 thousand «traditional» hotel rooms, which bring MXN 205 million to the budget from this tax alone.
The head of the tax service noted that in the last quarter of 2021, tax revenues for housing rented through Airbnb were up 400% compared to the same period last year. At the end of last year, Quintana Roo's housing and hotel market was still negatively affected by the coronavirus epidemic.