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Reader question: How will Venice’s tourist tax affect second-home owners?

Those who live in Venice are exempt from paying a new charge for tourists - but how do the rules apply to other frequent visitors who aren't resident?

Published: 25 July 2022 11:14 CEST
Updated: 31 July 2022 08:32 CEST
View of Venice's Grand Canal
Day-trippers looking to access Venice’s city centre and its smaller islands will be charged an entry fee starting from January 16th 2023. Photo by Laurent EMMANUEL / AFP

Question: I own a property in Venice, but I’m not registered as a resident as I don’t live there permanently. Will the new ‘tourist tax’ apply to me?

Many people who own homes in Italy are not registered as residents, even if they spend significant amounts of time in the country.

But in certain parts of the country, second-home owners and other frequent visitors are becoming concerned that they may now be hit by additional charges and rules aimed at controlling tourist crowds.

Venice will introduce a new entry fee in January 2023. While residents will no doubt be exempt from the tax, what are the rules for others who spend a lot of time in the area – but aren’t officially resident?

READ ALSO: How will the tourist-control system work in Venice?

Commonly known as the ‘tourist tax’, the new charge or contributo di accesso will apply to daytrippers looking to visit the city centre or any of Venice’s smaller islands.

It will cost between three and ten euros and will be in place from January 16th, 2023, city mayor Luigi Brugnaro confirmed earlier this month.

The goal of the measure, said Brugnaro, is to encourage visitors to stay in the city overnight, and to better regulate seasonal crowds as Venice’s pre-pandemic overtourism problems begin to resurface. 

While it was clear as far back as last April that those residing within the Comune di Venezia – which includes Mestre and all minor islands – would be exempt from paying the entry fee, uncertainty still lingers over others who are not registered as residents in Venice.

The local authority’s website states that those who own “property located within Venice’s municipality and their close family members” will be exempt from the fee, as long as they’ve paid their taxes: second-home owners are required to pay a tax known as IMU (Imposta Municipale Unica, or Unified Municipal Tax) on the property in question. 

It’s worth noting that IMU must be paid by all second-home owners, regardless of their nationality. It’s generally paid in two instalments: one in summer and the other in the last months of the year (this year’s second payment is due on December 16th).

READ ALSO: Can second-home owners get an Italian residence permit?

So, are we certain that those who own a second home in Venice and regularly pay their IMU are exempt from the entry fee? Well, they should be.

But Venice’s city council hasn’t yet approved the final text of the decree setting out the rules for applying the charge. So for now, this exemption is not confirmed.

Additionally, should the exemption for second-home owners be confirmed, it isn’t yet clear what type of documents they would be asked to produce in order to confirm their ‘exempt’ status. 

Alongside residents and second-home owners, those working or studying in Venice’s city centre or any of its smaller islands should also be exempt from the contributo, as will be visitors spending the night in one of the city’s hospitality structures (hotels, B&Bs, hostels and so on). 

Exceptions are also expected to apply to children under six years of age, anyone born within the Comune di Venezia, people with disabilities and their carers, public officials, and people visiting family members. A full list is available here. 

The local authority in Venice is expected to confirm the rules and exemptions in the coming weeks.

Find more information about how the new charges will apply in a separate article here.

Do you have a burning question about life in Italy that you’d like the The Local’s writers to answer? Email us here.

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VENICE

INTERVIEW: ‘Tourist rentals are the first thing to deal with after Venice’s entry fee failure’

Venice councillor Giovanni Andrea Martini tells The Local why curbing tourist lets and “repopulating” the city with long-term residents should be the top priority after the entry fee scheme’s “resounding failure”.

Published: 19 July 2024 11:46 CEST
Updated: 22 July 2024 08:09 CEST
INTERVIEW: ‘Tourist rentals are the first thing to deal with after Venice’s entry fee failure’

Venice’s trial of a contested five-euro entry fee intended to reduce crowds and lessen the impact of mass tourism came to an end on Sunday, July 14th.

But while city officials hailed the scheme as “a success” and vowed to bring it back in 2025 with a higher fee, opposition councillor Giovanni Andrea Martini, with the Tutta la Città Insieme (All the City Together) group, told The Local he viewed it as a “resounding failure”.

“It was introduced as an instrument designed to manage tourist crowds, but it’s managed nothing, as we expected,” he said.

READ ALSO: Venice says entry fee could double in 2025 with visitor numbers to soar

Tourist figures on key trial dates viewed by Martini’s city council group “show an average increase of between 5,000 and 10,000 visitors per day on peak days compared to last year, which makes it evident that [the scheme] has failed to meet its goal,” he said.

But the entry fee’s failure went far beyond managing tourist numbers according to Martini as “Venice was transformed into a theme park” with residents being “forced to demonstrate that they lived here” to claim their entry fee exemption and becoming “prisoners of their own city”. 

Fundamental privacy rights were also “violated” as the system required visitors to share the personal data of relatives or friends living in the city in order to get an exemption, he said.

A calendar of Venice's entry fee scheme outside the city's Santa Lucia railway station

A calendar of Venice’s entry fee scheme outside the city’s Santa Lucia railway station. Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP

But if the entry fee scheme is to be viewed as a failure, how do those opposing it think Venice officials should approach the city’s chronic overcrowding issues?

Martini said the top priority should be “repopulating Venice” after “tourism essentially emptied out the city,” with the local resident population going from around 174,000 people in 1951 to just over 49,000 in late 2023.

“We need to re-establish a balance between residents and tourists by turning short-term tourist lets into lets for residents. This will result in a far lower number of tourists staying overnight and will also increase the quality of life for residents”.

“Dividing the city into different areas and introducing a cap on tourist lets for each one” could be a viable option to that end, he said. 

The cap on short-term lets “could be set at around ten percent of the total number of houses available for rent” as this would be “compatible with an appropriate number of long-term residents,” he added.

Venice authorities were reportedly considering limiting tourist rentals in March 2023 under wider plans to free up housing for residents and push rents down in the midst of a full-blown cost of living crisis. 

In April, following weeks of pressure from local opposition, budget councillor Michele Zuin said that a draft bill aimed at curbing Airbnb-style lets was “ready”, but there has since been no further development on the subject.

Protesters hold a banner reading 'No to the ticket, yes to houses and services for all' during a demonstration against Venice's entry fee scheme

Protesters hold a banner reading ‘No to the ticket, yes to houses and services for all’ during a demonstration against Venice’s entry fee scheme. Photo by MARCO BERTORELLO / AFP

Besides a cap on short lets, Martini also stressed the importance of reducing the number of day-trippers, but rejected the current administration’s idea of opening the city’s gates “upon payment”.

READ ALSO: How well is Venice’s ‘tourist tax’ working?

He said that “making deals with transport operators to regulate the influx of large boats taking tourists to Venice” would be an effective and relatively easy solution.

“Setting up a free-of-charge booking system for visitors” to track prospective arrivals and “deter tourists from visiting on a particularly busy day” could also be an option, though that shouldn’t involve any request for personal data, he added.

Barring plans to curb tourist lets, none of the measures suggested by local opposition so far seem to be under consideration by city officials, which is why frustration is growing among locals, according to Martini. 

After protests marked both the start and end of the entry fee trial, “there will soon be further mobilisation” in the form of citizen demonstrations at a grassroots level, he said.

“Venice residents are exasperated, and they’ve been led to this situation by policies that are ill-suited to tackling overtourism. 

“The problem is that there’s no real tourism management in this city.”

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