Key takeaways
- No public body has published a national tourist-tax total for 2025; the €1.15bn in circulation is a private estimate by JFC's Osservatorio, with Rome estimated, which JFC calls final but may revise slightly (JFC dossier, April 2026).
- Official-system figures for 2024 show €702m in cash receipts on BDAP from 1,105 comuni and €733m on SIOPE, both excluding most of Rome and both called underestimates by Luciano Benedetti (IRPET, Federalismo in Toscana 4/2025).
- The gap between official and private totals is mostly Rome, whose contributo the official tourist-tax line does not capture and which JFC estimates at €286.7m for 2024 and €288.1m for 2025 (IRPET, Federalismo in Toscana 4/2025; JFC dossier).
- There is no official list of the comuni that charge the tax, and counts for 2024 range from 1,105 (BDAP receipts) to 1,622 (Casavecchia, in IRPET's journal) (Ministry of Tourism statistics office, 2022; IRPET).
- National law lists tourism, accommodation support, local heritage, related public services and, since 2024, waste collection costs as permitted uses, and requires no comune to report how the money was spent (D.Lgs. 23/2011 art. 4; Law 213/2023 per Il Sole 24 Ore).
- Rome's contributo di soggiorno rests on a separate law, is not subject to the earmark and, by the city's 2021 statement to Altreconomia, flows into the general budget (Ministry of Tourism, 2022).
- Florence is the only city we found whose allocations appear in euros, through the press, and about half goes to public transport running costs (La Nazione, June 2026, allocations with no budget document named; JFC 48.4% for 2024).
- For 2026 the law reserves for the State 30% of the extra revenue from the Jubilee add-on and 50% from the Olympic add-on; we found no evidence that the implementing decrees have been issued (ANCI-IFEL; Chamber of Deputies dossier, November 2025).
Italy's comuni collected €1.15bn in tourist tax in 2025, according to the Osservatorio Nazionale sulla Tassa di Soggiorno run by the Faenza consultancy JFC. No public body has published a 2025 total. The latest official-system figures are for 2024: €702m in cash receipts recorded in the Treasury's BDAP database and €733m on the SIOPE payments system, as reported in the December 2025 issue of the Tuscan research institute IRPET's journal Federalismo in Toscana. Both largely miss Rome, which books its levy elsewhere.
The gap comes from the way the tax is built. The imposta di soggiorno is a municipal tax. Each comune decides whether to charge it, sets its own rates and books the receipts in its own accounts. Rome levies a separate contributo di soggiorno under its own legislation and records it under a different budget line. No central list of the comuni that charge the tax exists, as the Ministry of Tourism's statistics office stated in October 2022. Every national total is therefore assembled after the fact, from systems that capture different things. What each city charges per night is covered in our guide to Italy's 2026 tourist tax rates; this article follows the money.
The law says what the money may fund. Article 4 of Legislative Decree 23/2011 lists tourism, support for accommodation businesses, local cultural and environmental heritage and the related local public services, and since 2024 waste collection costs. No national rule requires a comune to publish how it spent the revenue. Florence's allocations appear in euros only through the press. A private dossier classifies 2024 spending for six comuni in percentages. For 2026 the law reserves for the State 30% of the extra revenue from one optional increase and 50% from another, and we found no evidence that the decrees setting out how those shares are collected have been issued.
Five totals for one tax
Three accounting bases sit behind the numbers in circulation, and they should never be mixed. Cash figures (riscossioni) count money actually received in the year, including arrears from earlier years. Accrual figures (accertamenti) count what the comune has established it is owed for the year. Private estimates combine both kinds of data with monitoring and modelling, and fill gaps such as Rome.
On cash, Luciano Benedetti, a local-finance expert and former finance director of the comune of Siena, gives two official-system figures for 2024 in IRPET's journal. The BDAP database, which holds the comuni's approved annual accounts, shows €702m received by 1,105 comuni. The SIOPE system, which records public payments and receipts, shows €733m. Benedetti calls both underestimates. Some comuni do not transmit their data, and Rome and others book the levy under "other tax revenue not otherwise classified", outside the tourist-tax line.
A third 2024 figure comes from Mauro Casavecchia of the Umbrian research agency AUR, writing in the same issue. He puts total receipts at €761.2m excluding Rome, and says the total passes €1bn once Rome's contributo is added. Casavecchia counts 1,622 comuni applying the tax in 2024, 20.5% of all Italian municipalities. His article does not label the €761.2m as cash or accrual, and the chart it comes from combines SIOPE data with JFC's estimate for Rome. It is best cited as Casavecchia's figure for 2024 excluding Rome, published in IRPET's journal.
On accruals, Claudia Ferretti and Patrizia Lattarulo of IRPET report €617m for 2023 across 1,259 entities, from the comuni's certified annual accounts. Their article does not say whether Rome is inside that total. For an earlier comparison on the same payments system, the Ministry of Tourism's statistics office put 2021 receipts at about €277m on SIOPE, excluding Rome, from about 1,200 comuni. On our arithmetic the 2024 SIOPE figure is about 2.6 times the 2021 one, but 2021 was a pandemic year, so the ratio says more about the recovery than about any trend in the tax.
JFC's private series is the one most often quoted. Its April 2026 dossier puts 2024 receipts at €1,019,956,000 from 1,314 comuni and 2025 at €1,150,012,000 from 1,389 comuni, a rise of about 12.8%. JFC calls the 2025 figure final (consuntivo) but notes it may change slightly as data come in, and does not say whether it is cash or accrual. Rome's figure is estimated "on a historical basis, presences and incremental values". JFC says 98.6% of the 2025 total is ordinary collection and 1.4%, about €15.67m, comes from checks and enforcement. Its method is a list of inputs: daily monitoring of comuni, 15 territorial monitors, freedom-of-information requests, Interior Ministry and SIOPE data, municipal accounts and direct contact.
The gap between the official and private series is mostly Rome, which the official tourist-tax line does not capture. JFC's estimates for Rome are large and have moved: €292.1m for 2024 as cited in IRPET's journal, restated to €286.7m for 2024 in JFC's April 2026 dossier, and €288.1m for 2025. Casavecchia's chart, which combines SIOPE data with JFC's Rome estimate, passes €1bn only once Rome is added. Neither approach produces a single official figure that includes the capital.
The comuni count is unsettled too. Depending on the source, between 1,105 and 1,622 comuni charged the tax in 2024. JFC's figure of 1,411 is a forecast for the end of 2026; L'Agenzia di Viaggi Mag reported it on 24 August 2026 as the number of comuni that have adopted the tax.
| Series | Publisher | Year | Basis | € million | Comuni counted | Rome included |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SIOPE payments system | Ministry of Tourism statistics office | 2021 | Cash | 277 | About 1,200 | No |
| Certified annual accounts | IRPET (Ferretti, Lattarulo) | 2023 | Accrual | 617 | 1,259 | Not stated |
| BDAP annual accounts | Benedetti, in IRPET's journal, from MEF data | 2024 | Cash | 702 | 1,105 with receipts | No |
| SIOPE payments system | Benedetti, in IRPET's journal | 2024 | Cash | 733 | Not stated | No |
| Casavecchia total | Casavecchia (AUR), in IRPET's journal | 2024 | Not labelled | 761.2 | 1,622 applying | No |
| Osservatorio JFC | JFC (private) | 2024 | Not stated; Rome estimated | 1,020.0 | 1,314 | Yes, estimated |
| Osservatorio JFC | JFC (private) | 2025 | Not stated; called final, may be revised slightly | 1,150.0 | 1,389 | Yes, estimated |
The cities that collect most
Five cities lead the receipts in every series that gives city figures. IRPET's city table for 2023, from BDAP data with the basis not stated, puts Rome first at €165.0m, followed by Florence at €71.6m, Milan at €64.0m, Venice at €38.2m and Naples at €18.2m. Dividing by each city's tourist presences in the same table gives revenue per presence, on our arithmetic: €7.8 in Florence, €5.1 in Milan and Naples, €4.4 in Rome and €3.0 in Venice. Presences include guests who are exempt, so the figure measures yield per presence and should not be read as the rate a guest pays.
JFC's 2025 figures, all private and Rome's estimated, put Rome at €288.1m (up 0.5%), Milan at €109.3m (up 42.9%), Florence at €82.7m (up 8%), Venice at €38.6m (down 3.1%) and Naples at €23.5m (up 24.3%). The changes are JFC's. For Naples, IRPET's €18.2m for 2023 is the latest figure from municipal accounts we found, a gap also recorded in our Naples tourism statistics.
Florence is the only one of the five with a 2024 figure from official accounts in the sources we found. The BDAP data give €76,907,179 in cash, 17.4% of the city's own tax revenue of €442,075,423 (IRPET). That share is large enough to explain why the city is the best documented on what the money pays for.
Rome's figures are the weakest. IRPET's table shows €165.0m for 2023. Casavecchia's chart in the same issue plots JFC's estimates for Rome, about €181m in what appears to be 2023. Codacons, the consumer association, put Rome's 2023 receipts at about €120m, as reported by La Nazione in August 2024, without naming a source. We found no figure published by Roma Capitale itself.
Venice runs two charges that should not be confused. The imposta di soggiorno applies to overnight guests. The access fee applies to day visitors on set days and, according to the city's own report, was applied as an alternative to the overnight tax. The city's provisional report puts 2025 access-fee receipts at €5,421,425 from 723,497 payments, against €2,249,505 in 2024. That money, net of management costs, goes to measures for residents and businesses, starting with a cut in the waste tariff that used at least €1.5m in 2025. The fee's three years are analysed in our Venice access fee results.
| City | 2023, € million (IRPET, BDAP; basis not stated) | Tourist presences 2023, million | € per presence 2023 (derived) | 2025, € million (JFC, private) | Change 2025 (JFC) | Use breakdown published? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rome | 165.0 | 37.3 | 4.4 | 288.1 | +0.5% | None found; revenue goes to the general budget (2021 statement) |
| Florence | 71.6 | 9.2 | 7.8 | 82.7 | +8.0% | Euro lines in the press (2024, 2025); JFC percentages |
| Milan | 64.0 | 12.5 | 5.1 | 109.3 | +42.9% | Annual budget annex required by regulation, not located; JFC percentages |
| Venice | 38.2 | 12.6 | 3.0 | 38.6 | −3.1% | JFC percentages; officials named uses without amounts |
| Naples | 18.2 | 3.6 | 5.1 | 23.5 | +24.3% | None found |
What the law says the money must fund
Article 4 of Legislative Decree 23/2011, in the version we read, says the revenue is destined to finance "interventi in materia di turismo", including support for accommodation businesses, and the maintenance, use and recovery of local cultural and environmental heritage and the related local public services. That covers a wide range of spending. Museums, festivals, park maintenance, tourist offices and public transport can all be argued into it.
The 2024 Budget Law (Law 213/2023, article 1, paragraph 493) added "the costs relating to waste collection and disposal" from 1 January 2024, according to Il Sole 24 Ore's tax service. We could not open the consolidated text. Municipal rules have followed. Perugia's regulation now lists waste costs among the permitted uses. In Florence, a council motion in October 2024 proposed moving part of the revenue to the waste service under the new wording; the committee suspended it without a decision, and we did not find whether it returned.
The Corte dei conti, Italy's public audit court, has narrowed what counts in advisory opinions. Its Veneto control section, answering the comune of Cassola in February 2023 (deliberation 52/2023/PAR), held that the tax can fund the specific functional areas inherent to tourism and not those linked to tourism only indirectly and incidentally. It read the legal categories strictly and ruled out extending them by analogy. A 2019 opinion of the same section for Jesolo (71/2019/PAR), which we read only in reposted form, held that the revenue could not be used to fund waste collection or to offset a cut in the waste tariff. The 2024 amendment now lists waste costs, which overtakes that part of the 2019 opinion.
These opinions answer questions a comune puts to the court. They are not audits. We found no Corte dei conti report that measures how much tourist-tax revenue is spent outside tourism, at national level or in any city.
Nor does national law require comuni to report what they spent. Article 4 contains no such duty. The reporting obligation added in 2020 runs the other way. Decree-Law 34/2020 made the accommodation operator liable for paying the tax to the comune and required an annual operator declaration, with penalties of 100% to 200% for a missing or untrue one. A bill in the previous parliament would have required the revenue to go "exclusively" into dedicated budget chapters; we did not check its fate, and current law contains no such requirement.
Rome sits outside this framework. Its contributo di soggiorno rests on Decree-Law 78/2010 (article 14, paragraph 16, letter e), a separate rule for the capital. The Ministry of Tourism's statistics office excluded Rome from its 2022 analysis because the contributo "is not subject to the earmarking rule". In 2021 the magazine Altreconomia reported Roma Capitale's statement that the revenue flows into the city's general budget without distinction. The only quantified commitment we found is in Rome's 2021 and 2022 regulation: at least 5% a year for city promotion, identified with trade associations. Rome's current regulation, adopted in 2024, could not be opened, so we cannot say whether that floor survives.
Any public disclosure therefore depends on local rules, and they vary. Venice's regulation, in its current text last amended in 2023, adds city promotion to the statutory list and sets no split and no duty to report use. Florence's regulation ties the money to interventions in the annual budget. Milan's regulation, in a copy published by the business association Assolombarda, says the destination is fixed each year in an annex to the budget with a percentage split by use; we could not locate the annex. Genoa's regulation requires an annual report on funded interventions to the city council, which we did not find. Verona's sets an annual quota for projects proposed by accommodation associations.
What the cities say they fund
Florence documents the most. Its regulation, in force from May 2023, says the revenue funds the interventions in the city budget for tourism, heritage and local public services. In January 2024 the city's finance director, Francesca Cassandrini, told a council committee that about €77m was expected that year. According to the committee minutes, she listed cultural events, the library system and evening openings, tourist information and congress promotion, museums, historic and artistic assets, tree maintenance in public gardens, ordinary upkeep of buildings such as Palazzo Vecchio and Palagio di Parte Guelfa, and the running costs of local bus and rail transport. She gave no amounts.
The amounts have come through the press. Panorama reported in March 2024 that the 2024 plan set €35m for public transport, €15m for access to heritage, €8.4m for trees and €1m for events. Those four lines add up to €59.4m of the expected €77m, so they are not a full allocation. In June 2026 La Nazione reported that Florence collected over €82m in 2025 and that €41,596,344, "about half", would cover the operating costs of the city's mobility system. La Nazione did not name the budget document behind its figures, wrote the uses in the future tense and listed lines that add up to about €81.4m on our arithmetic.
JFC's dossier gives a third reading. Its analysis of Florence's 2024 accounts assigns €37.3m of the €76.6m used that year to local public transport operating costs, which JFC gives as 48.4% (48.7% on its own euro figures). On three different sources, public transport takes between about 45% and about half of Florence's tourist-tax revenue. Mayor Sara Funaro has said that every intervention is set out in the budget, in response to Codacons, as reported by La Nazione in August 2024.
The JFC dossier extends the same exercise to five more comuni, using JFC's own classification of their 2024 accounts. Milan assigns 79.5% to cultural activities, 18.6% to local public transport and 1.9% to tourism development, shares JFC calculates on €80.6m accrued rather than the €76.5m it says was used. Venice assigns 47.8% to tourism interventions, 27.4% to environmental assets and 24.8% to cultural assets. Verona puts 84.6% under cultural activities and other interventions and 15.4% under tourism development. Rimini's largest line, 39.3%, is roads and public transport. Cortina d'Ampezzo, preparing for the Olympics, put 47.8% into events directly, 15.1% more into events through its council company Se.Am, and 31.2% into sports associations.
These categories follow each comune's budget headings, so "culture" in Milan and "tourism" in Venice are not the same thing, and the shares cannot be compared across cities. JFC did not publish the documents behind each split, and we have not checked them against the comuni's accounts. JFC is a consultancy, and its dossier describes the earmarking rule as a "legge tappabuchi", a gap-filling law. It lists items it found in some municipal accounts: interest on loans, heat pumps for council offices, sterilisation of feral cat colonies and agricultural development. It does not say, in the version we read, which comuni or how much.
| Comune | Base, € million | Largest category | Share, % | Other categories |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Florence | 76.6 | Local public transport operating costs | 48.4 | €37.3m to transport; other lines not itemised here |
| Milan | 80.6 | Cultural activities and interventions | 79.5 | Local public transport 18.6%; tourism development 1.9% |
| Venice | 34.3 | Tourism interventions | 47.8 | Environmental assets 27.4%; cultural assets 24.8% |
| Rimini | 12.4 | Roads and local public transport | 39.3 | €1.8m recorded as restricted |
| Verona | 7.6 | Cultural activities and other interventions | 84.6 | Tourism development 15.4% |
| Cortina d'Ampezzo | 2.4 | Events, direct | 47.8 | Events through Se.Am (council company) 15.1%; sports associations 31.2%; other associations 5.9% |
The other big cities say less. In Venice, city officials named policing of the historic centre, contributions to the Carnival, the Redentore and the Regata Storica, events and temporary acqua alta walkways, without amounts, according to Panorama in March 2024. In Naples, the mayor said in March 2026 that the extra revenue from the new rates would go to urban upkeep and services, and that 30% of the increase would go to the national funds described below (Fanpage). Rome has published no breakdown we could find.
What nobody publishes
The list of what is missing is longer than the list of what is known. There is no official 2025 national total. There is no official register of which comuni charge the tax. There is no national duty to report use, no national breakdown of spending by category, and no audit that measures how much goes outside tourism. Rome's contributo is outside the earmark and outside the official tourist-tax line. The State's new shares have no published collection figure.
Advocacy groups on both sides make the same complaint. JFC's Massimo Feruzzi has said that most local authorities do not clearly account for the funds, as quoted by QuiFinanza in April 2025. ABBAC, an association of bed-and-breakfast operators, said in August 2026 that before any further increase it is necessary to know how much is collected. Benedetti, in IRPET's journal, lists the limited transparency in the use of the revenue among the tax's problems. None of them is an audit body. Their complaint matches what we found in the documents.
What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts
Travellers pay the tax at their accommodation, and the amount depends on the comune, the hotel category and the season. The rates guide linked above covers what each city charges. What the money funds depends on the city. In Florence, about half of the revenue is allocated to running public transport, which visitors also use, according to La Nazione and JFC's analysis. In Rome the contributo joins the general budget. In Venice a day visitor's access fee and an overnight guest's tax go to different uses. A visitor who wants to see what a city does with the money will find the most in Florence, and our Florence travel guide covers the practical side of a stay.
Tourism businesses and investors should read the tax as a growing municipal revenue line with weak accountability. On the private estimate, receipts rose about 12.8% in 2025, and JFC's 2026 scenarios range from €1,047m to €1,278m depending on when the conflict involving Iran ends. Some regulations already give business a say in allocation: Verona sets a yearly quota for projects proposed by accommodation associations, Genoa agrees its split with the Chamber of Commerce, and Rome's 2021-22 regulation set promotion spending with trade associations. Anyone modelling a city's tourist-tax take should use accrual or cash figures from its own accounts rather than JFC's estimates, and should treat the State's 2026 shares as a deduction from the increase only. The assessment would change if the Ministry of Economy published the decrees and collection data, or if a city such as Milan published its annual budget annex in full.
Journalists and analysts will find the figures to cite, each with its series, year and basis, in the box under the first section. Three errors recur: calling €1.15bn an official total, applying the State's 30% to all receipts when it covers only the extra revenue from the Jubilee add-on, and describing the Corte dei conti's advisory opinions on what the law permits as findings of misuse. The finding this article adds to the series is that Italy counts what the tourist tax raises in at least five different ways and has no official national measure of how it is spent.
Data & sources
Period covered: Revenue 2021 to 2025 (official cash and accrual series to 2024; private estimate for 2025); laws, rulings and city documents to November 2026
- IRPET, Federalismo in Toscana 4/2025 · BDAP and SIOPE cash totals for 2024, Casavecchia's total excluding Rome, 2023 national accruals and city figures, comuni counts, the 30% State share Accessed 7 Nov 2026.
- JFC, Osservatorio Nazionale sulla Tassa di Soggiorno, dossier April 2026 (Confesercenti copy) · Private national estimates for 2024 and 2025, city figures, 2026 scenarios, classified use of revenue for six comuni Accessed 7 Nov 2026.
- Chamber of Deputies, research dossier D25156 on Decree-Law 156/2025 · Article 4 Olympic add-on of up to €5 in 2026, 50/50 split of the extra revenue, decree deadline Accessed 7 Nov 2026.
- ANCI-IFEL note on the 2026 Budget Law (Law 199/2025) · Paragraphs 683-684: Jubilee add-on extended to 2026, 30% of the extra revenue to State funds, decree deadline Accessed 7 Nov 2026.
- Corte dei conti, Veneto control section, deliberation 52/2023/PAR · Advisory opinion for the comune of Cassola on what tourist-tax revenue may fund Accessed 7 Nov 2026.
- Legislative Decree 23/2011, article 4 (Normattiva print, Comune di Arezzo copy) · Legal earmark of the imposta di soggiorno (2017 version; later waste-cost amendment reported by Il Sole 24 Ore) Accessed 7 Nov 2026.
- Ministry of Tourism statistics office, Imposta di soggiorno e flussi turistici (October 2022) · SIOPE receipts for 2021, Rome's exclusion from the earmark, no central list of comuni Accessed 7 Nov 2026.
- La Nazione, Florence tourist tax 2025 allocations (2 June 2026) · Press report of Florence's 2025 receipts and euro allocations by use Accessed 7 Nov 2026.
Methodology
Sources: IRPET's Federalismo in Toscana 4/2025 (articles by Benedetti, Casavecchia, and Ferretti and Lattarulo) for the BDAP, SIOPE and accrual series and city figures; the Ministry of Tourism statistics office's 2022 analysis for 2021 SIOPE receipts and Rome's status; the JFC Osservatorio dossier of April 2026 for private totals, city figures, scenarios and use classifications; the Chamber of Deputies dossier D25156 on Decree-Law 156/2025 and the ANCI-IFEL note on Law 199/2025 for the State shares; Legislative Decree 23/2011 article 4 (2017 Normattiva print), Il Sole 24 Ore's tax service on the 2024 waste amendment, Decree-Law 34/2020 article 180 and a legislative monitoring report on the conversion of Decree-Law 156/2025; Corte dei conti Veneto opinions 52/2023/PAR and 71/2019/PAR; the tourist-tax regulations of Venice, Florence, Milan (Assolombarda copy), Rome (2021-22 version), Genoa, Verona and Perugia; Florence council committee minutes of 17 January and 8 October 2024; Venice's access-fee report for 2025; and press reports from La Nazione, Panorama, Fanpage, Altreconomia, QuiFinanza, lavoce.info and trade titles. All documents were read online between 30 October and 8 November 2026, and quotations were kept short and checked against more than one document where possible.
Limitations: (1) BDAP, SIOPE and the Gazzetta Ufficiale texts of Laws 199/2025, 213/2023 and 191/2025 were not opened directly; official figures are as reported in IRPET's journal and by the Ministry of Tourism. (2) The consolidated current text of article 4 and of Decree-Law 78/2010 article 14 was not opened; the waste amendment rests on Il Sole 24 Ore and a municipal regulation. (3) Rome's current regulation and budget, Milan's budget annex, Genoa's annual report and Naples's regulation were not obtained. (4) JFC's method is described only as a list of inputs, its use classification was not checked against municipal accounts and mixes bases between comuni, and its 2025 figure, which JFC calls final, may be revised slightly. (5) Florence's euro allocations come from press reports that do not name the budget document. (6) The Veneto 71/2019 opinion was read only in reposted form. (7) Whether the Ministry of Economy decrees on the State shares were issued could not be established.
Handling: figures on different bases are never added, subtracted or compared as a series, and each is named with its publisher, year and basis; where sources disagree both values are reported and the one from municipal accounts is preferred; derived figures are marked as ours; claims that failed verification are named in the text, the claims box and this disclaimer; statements by interested parties are reported as statements; no causal claim is made about why receipts rose or how spending changed.
Notes on the data
(1) What does not exist: no public body has published a national tourist-tax total for 2025, an official list of the comuni that charge the tax, a national breakdown of how the revenue is spent or an audit of non-tourism use; national law sets no duty on comuni to report use; Rome's contributo is outside the official tourist-tax line and the earmark, and no Roma Capitale figure was found; no figure exists for what the State has collected under its 2026 shares, and we found no evidence either way that the implementing decrees were issued. We used official cash and accrual series as reported in IRPET's journal Federalismo in Toscana, the Ministry of Tourism's 2021 SIOPE figure, the private JFC series, municipal regulations and council minutes, and press reports, each labelled. (2) Contested figures: the 2024 national total is €702m (BDAP, cash), €733m (SIOPE, cash), €761.2m (Casavecchia, in IRPET's journal, excluding Rome, basis not labelled) or €1.02bn (JFC, private, Rome estimated); these are different bases and none is preferred as a single total. Rome's 2023 receipts appear as €165.0m in IRPET's table (from BDAP data, basis not stated) and as about €120m from Codacons; a chart in the same IRPET issue plots JFC's Rome estimate at about €181m for what appears to be 2023. JFC's Rome figure for 2024 is €292.1m as cited by IRPET and €286.7m as restated in JFC's 2026 dossier. The comuni count for 2024 ranges from 1,105 to 1,622. JFC's Venice 2024 amount in its use analysis (€34.3m, amounts used) differs from the total implied by its own 2025 change; its Florence transport share is given as 48.4% while its euro figures give 48.7%; its Milan shares are calculated on €80.6m accrued rather than the €76.5m used. (3) Claims that failed verification: 1,411 comuni as a current count (L'Agenzia di Viaggi Mag, August 2026; a JFC forecast for end-2026); Rome's 2023 receipts of about €120m (Codacons); a Corte dei conti exception for spending where tourism is the main purpose (not in the opinion); and our own rates article's statement that only Florence publishes a breakdown. (4) Derived figures, all ours: the 2.6 ratio between SIOPE receipts in 2021 and 2024; revenue per presence by city for 2023; Florence's transport share of about 45% in the 2024 plan; the sums of the Panorama (€59.4m) and La Nazione (about €81.4m) lines; JFC's Florence share recomputed from its euro figures (48.7%). (5) Self-reported figures: JFC's estimates and use classification are a private consultancy's work, not checked against municipal accounts; Florence's allocations are press-relayed from the city's budget without a named document; statements by mayors, officials, JFC, ABBAC and Codacons are reported as statements.
Frequently asked questions
What is the tassa di soggiorno?
It is the common name for the imposta di soggiorno, a municipal tax charged per person per night on guests in comuni that choose to apply it. National law (Legislative Decree 23/2011, article 4) sets the framework and a default ceiling, and each comune sets its own rates, exemptions and rules. Rome charges a separate contributo di soggiorno under its own law. Current rates by city are in our guide to Italy's 2026 tourist tax rates.
How much does Italy's tourist tax raise?
It depends on the source and the basis. Official-system cash figures for 2024 are €702m (BDAP, 1,105 comuni) and €733m (SIOPE), both excluding most of Rome, as reported in IRPET's journal Federalismo in Toscana. Mauro Casavecchia's total for 2024 in the same journal is €761.2m excluding Rome. The private JFC Osservatorio puts 2024 at €1.02bn and 2025 at €1.15bn including an estimate for Rome. No official 2025 total has been published.
Why do the totals differ so much?
Three reasons. The official systems count cash received, while other series count amounts owed or combine sources. Some comuni do not send data to the central systems. Rome books its contributo outside the tourist-tax line, so it is missing from the official figures, and JFC adds it as an estimate.
What must the tourist tax be spent on?
The law says the revenue finances tourism interventions, including support for accommodation businesses, the maintenance, use and recovery of local cultural and environmental heritage, the related local public services and, since 1 January 2024, waste collection and disposal costs. Advisory opinions of the Corte dei conti, such as Veneto 52/2023, read these categories strictly and exclude spending linked to tourism only indirectly.
Do Italian cities publish how they spend it?
National law does not require it, so disclosure depends on local rules. Florence's allocations have been reported in euros by the press, and Milan's regulation provides for an annual budget annex with a percentage split. A private dossier by JFC classifies 2024 spending in percentages for six comuni. Rome has published no breakdown we could find.
Does Rome's tourist tax follow the same rules?
No. Rome's contributo di soggiorno rests on Decree-Law 78/2010, a separate law for the capital. The Ministry of Tourism's statistics office says it is not subject to the earmarking rule, and in 2021 the city told Altreconomia that the revenue flows into its general budget.
Does part of the tourist tax go to the Italian State?
Under the law, only part of two optional 2026 increases does. The law reserves for the State 30% of the extra revenue from the Jubilee add-on of up to €2, for national disability and child-protection funds, and 50% of the extra revenue from the Olympic add-on of up to €5 in Lombardy and Veneto, for Games-related spending. The rest of the tax stays with the comuni. No figure for what the State has collected has been published. We found no evidence that the implementing decrees have been issued.
Who pays the tourist tax in Italy?
Guests staying overnight in a comune that applies it, at hotels, rentals and other accommodation. Each comune sets its own exemptions and any limit on the number of nights charged; our rates guide covers the main cities. The accommodation operator collects the tax and has been legally responsible for paying it to the comune since 2020.
What happens if you don't pay the tourist tax in Italy?
The operator is liable for paying the tax to the comune and must file an annual declaration, with penalties of 100% to 200% of the amount for a missing or untrue declaration, under Decree-Law 34/2020. What a guest who refuses to pay faces is set by each comune's regulation, which this article does not cover.