How to solve VAT with Airbnb and Booking

Briefly: what is important to know

Platform commission is a service

The fees charged by Airbnb or Booking are not just a technical detail. From the point of view of VAT, this is a service received from a foreign person.

The defaulter often ends up as an identified person

If you are not a VAT payer and receive such a service, you will very often be required to register as an identified person.

The VAT payer can deal with the deduction

If you are already a VAT payer, you also declare VAT on the service received, but you can claim a deduction if you meet the legal conditions.

What to clarify at the beginning

• if you provide accommodation service, or you are dealing with another income regime
• if you are today VAT non-payer, identified person, or VAT payer
• through which platform you accept bookings and what fees it invoices you
• if you already receive tax documents or overviews of commissions from Airbnb or Booking
• if your turnover does not lead to full registration as a VAT payer

How it works practically

Consider that you are dealing with two different tax layers

You typically deal with short-term accommodation income tax and besides that too VAT. These are two different areas and it is not good to mix them together.

Income tax deals with income from accommodation. VAT, on the other hand, often deals with the commission or fee charged by Airbnb or Booking as a foreign platform.

If you are in default, you often deal with an identified person

If you are not a VAT payer and receive a service with a place of performance in the country from a person not established in the country, the Czech VAT rules typically move you to the identified persons.

This is usually where the commission or other fee invoiced by the foreign platform falls.

The identified person is not the same as the VAT payer

This is important. Identified person admits VAT on services received from a foreign person, but is not a regular VAT payer.

• you do not charge VAT by default on all domestic transactions just because of this registration
• you submit a VAT return for the services in question
• you are not automatically entitled to input VAT deduction

The VAT payer has a different regime

If you are already VAT payer, you also acknowledge the service received from Airbnb or Booking. The difference is that you can solve the problem if you meet the legal conditions claim for deduction.

That's why it's important not to just say in general "I have to deal with VAT", but to first correctly determine which regime you're in.

Do not postpone registration until after the first inspection

The official interpretations of the Financial Administration directly point out that a taxable person who is not a payer becomes an identified person upon receiving such a service and is required to register.

In practice, therefore, it is not a good idea to wait for "something to be heard". It is better to solve the registration in time, ideally before the platforms start charging you commissions repeatedly.

Records of fees from platforms must be kept up to date

In order to handle VAT correctly, you need to have control over what fees and commissions the platform charges you. Without it, you will not have the right basis for a tax solution.

This is also the reason why it makes sense for us to follow up iCal with automation and work with emails and reservations.

The most common host situation

What to watch out for

• don't get confused identified person with full payment of VAT
• don't just deal with the stay fee and forget about VAT from platform commissions
• do not assume that if you are "not a payer", VAT does not apply to you at all
• do not count automatically with the deduction if you are only an identified person
• don't forget that in addition to VAT, you are still dealing with income tax

What does this mean for Superhost

This topic practically follows on from setting up the property, registering reservations and working with data from the platforms. If you want to be clear about the traffic, it is worthwhile to deal with it together with other related duties of the host.

Don't you want to deal with all this? We are here for you and we will solve it for you.

Don't want to deal with it? We'll sort it out for you. We will help with the initial installation, setup, advice and consultation as part of the onboarding service.

• Residence fee
• Email forwarding
• Property settings

Verification and sources

This article is a practical orientation overview. This is not tax advice. The terminology and logic of the article are verified against the official sources of the Financial Administration.

• GFR: Information on the tax assessment of the obligations of service providers via platforms
• Financial administration: Identified persons and cross-border VAT
• GFR: VAT rates from 1 January 2024