A boutique general manager's guide to EU hotel VAT in 2026
France, Italy, Germany, Spain — the four countries where Hotelminder-advised boutique properties most commonly issue invoices. A short field guide the general manager can read on a Sunday and hand to their accountant on Monday.
Hotelminder advises boutique hotels across France, Italy, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria and Portugal. Of those, the four that produce the most invoicing questions on our scoping calls are France, Italy, Germany and Spain. This is not a substitute for the property's own accountant; it is the working understanding a general manager should carry, so that when the accountant asks a question or a guest queries a line on a folio, the answer is not a mystery.
France — 10% and 20%, and the taxe de séjour
Accommodation (nuitée) is taxed at 10%. Breakfast included in the tariff or served in the room is also 10%. Everything else — spa, boutique products, corkage, minibar consumption, room service beyond breakfast — is 20%. The taxe de séjour is not VAT and does not enter the VAT calculation; it is collected on behalf of the commune and remitted separately.
Every French invoice must carry the mentions obligatoires under Code général des impôts: legal form, SIREN, SIRET, RCS, TVA intracommunautaire, buyer identity, itemised description, VAT rate, total excluding tax, total including tax, and payment terms including the late-payment penalty language. The archival format that satisfies the ten-year retention requirement is PDF/A-3. If you are running EU Fiscal Composer through Hotelminder on your SiteMinder subscription, this is handled automatically; if you are not, your accountant will confirm the template.
Italy — fattura elettronica through SdI
Every Italian invoice, B2B and B2C, must be issued in the fattura elettronica XML format and routed through the Sistema di Interscambio (SdI). Paper and PDF-only invoices are not compliant. Accommodation and short-stay (up to thirty nights) is at 10% IVA; ancillaries (bar, minibar, laundry, spa) at 22%. The imposta di soggiorno is separate, collected per comune, remitted separately.
The property's Codice Univoco (CU) is the identifier SdI uses to route the invoice. Register it once and every invoice flows through. The SdI response — accepted, rejected with a reason code, or accepted with a warning — is what tells the accountant the invoice is fiscally live. Do not treat the invoice as complete until SdI confirms; if SdI rejects, the invoice must be corrected and resubmitted within five working days.
Germany — 7% and 19%, and Beherbergungssteuer
Accommodation is at 7% Umsatzsteuer. Ancillaries and breakfast are at 19%. Breakfast is the trap: a package rate that includes breakfast must break out the breakfast portion at 19% on the invoice, even if the guest paid a single package price. Most PMS-native invoice templates handle this correctly if the rate plan is tagged as a package inside SiteMinder; check yours does.
Beherbergungssteuer (accommodation tax) is charged by many Länder and cities — Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Cologne, Bremen among them. The rate varies (Berlin at 5% of the net accommodation charge, others structured differently). Business travellers are typically exempt with an employer declaration; leisure travellers are not. The exemption paperwork should be captured at check-in for corporate bookings, not chased after the guest has left.
Spain — 10% IVA reducido and the autonomous levies
Accommodation, breakfast, half-board and full-board are at 10% IVA reducido. Ancillaries at 21% IVA general. Two autonomous communities levy a separate accommodation tax: Catalonia (impuesto sobre estancias turísticas, IEAT) and the Balearic Islands (impuesto sobre estancias turísticas sostenibles). Rates vary by property star rating and by season. The levy is separate from IVA and remitted separately.
Spanish invoicing does not currently require a national e-invoicing clearing house for hotel B2C, though a mandate is expected to phase in during 2027. If you are on Fiscal Composer today, the module already stores invoices in a structured format that will be compatible.
What a general manager should be able to answer without the accountant on the phone
Four things. First, the VAT rate applied to each line on a folio (accommodation vs. ancillary). Second, whether the accommodation tax on the folio is VAT-inclusive or separate. Third, where the archival copy of the invoice lives (PDF/A-3 for France, XML for Italy, PDF for Germany and Spain today). Fourth, how to reissue a corrected invoice inside the same fiscal month if the guest asks. If any of those four are murky, the two-hour Fiscal Composer walkthrough on the Hotelminder onboarding is where they get straightened out.