EDINBURGH, UK, August 3, 2026 – As Edinburgh gears up for its busiest tourism period of the year, a newly launched free online tool is helping accommodation providers navigate the city’s Visitor Levy. Designed for hosts, hotels and letting agents, the platform makes it easier to calculate, track and report the new charge accurately before visitor numbers and room rates peak during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Introduced on 24 July 2026, Edinburgh’s Visitor Levy applies a 5% charge to overnight accommodation. Although the rate is simple, the rules behind it are more complex. Operators must account for a five-night limit on chargeable stays, different VAT treatment depending on whether a business is VAT registered, and an exemption for bookings made before 1 October 2025. With accommodation prices during the Fringe often increasing by three to five times compared with the rest of the year, even small calculation mistakes can become costly.
Visitor Levy App was created by an Edinburgh short-term let host who experienced first-hand how difficult it was to calculate the levy manually. The platform allows users to import bookings directly from Airbnb, Booking.com, a property management system, or enter them manually, before producing a council-ready quarterly return with every calculation clearly explained.
The software is free for hosts managing a single property, while paid plans are available for hotels, hostels and letting agents responsible for multiple properties. All booking information is processed locally within the user’s browser and is 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, 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.”
Alongside the reporting tool, the website offers a free public levy calculator and a collection of straightforward guides explaining how the Visitor Levy works. The resources are intended to help any Edinburgh accommodation provider verify their calculations, regardless of whether they use the full software platform.
Visitor Levy App is available now at visitorlevyapp.com
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