Amsterdam raises the tourist tax.
But what problem does that actually solve?
Amsterdam’s new coalition wants to raise the tourist tax in 2027 from 12.5 to 16 percent. After that, one percentage point will be added each year, reaching 20 percent in 2031. The city council still needs to formally adopt these rates. It is a substantial increase, but the most interesting question is not whether 20 percent is high. The real question is: what tourist behaviour does Amsterdam actually want to change?
The coalition says visitors should contribute more to a clean, safe and liveable city. At the same time, the measure is meant to help reduce tourism pressure. Both are defensible goals, but generating revenue and managing visitor flows are not the same thing. That is precisely where the coalition’s reasoning comes under strain.
The revenue is already calculated
The coalition agreement states exactly how much the tax increase should generate: 60 million euros extra in 2027, rising to 75 million in 2030. Over four years, the coalition is counting on 270 million euros. The financial table has been filled in. What behaviour precisely needs to change is not.
The agreement does not state how many visitors or overnight stays should disappear as a result of the tax. Nor does it specify which visitor segments are expected to change their booking behaviour, which parts of the city should become less crowded, or when the measure will be considered successful. This makes the increase primarily a significant revenue measure. Amsterdam does not need to shy away from that: visitors use public space and municipal services, and it is reasonable to ask them to contribute.
But a tax that generates a lot of money is not automatically effective tourism policy. If the number of taxed overnight stays drops sharply, that could also affect projected revenues. And when hotels absorb part of the levy through lower room rates, it is mainly their margin that takes the hit, while the guest does not feel the full price signal.
International research offers no simple answer
Anyone claiming that tourists will stay away en masse because of such a tax is getting ahead of the evidence. The same goes for those who say the levy will have no effect whatsoever. A recent study on Manchester found no statistically significant effect on rooms sold, room rates, occupancy or room revenues in the first eighteen months after a levy of one pound per room per night was introduced.
That research is relevant, but only partially comparable to Amsterdam. One pound per room is very different from a levy of 16 to ultimately 20 percent. Moreover, the Manchester contribution was organised by the hotel sector itself and used to support the visitor economy.
Amsterdam also had this investigated for its own market. According to municipal research shared with the city council in 2023, an increase of one percentage point is expected to lead to a reduction of 125,000 overnight stays per year. Effective deterrence, according to that same research, would require a tripling of the current rate. Meanwhile, overnight stays in 2024 reached a new record of 22.9 million, even though Amsterdam already had the highest tourist tax in Europe. The coalition is aware of this and has deliberately chosen a combination of measures, of which the tax is just one. The question remains how that combination will be evaluated after implementation.
International literature reviews also fail to reach a simple conclusion. Solid causal effect evaluations are scarce, and outcomes depend on the level and structure of the tax, the attractiveness of the destination, competition from nearby locations, and the type of visitor. A city tripper, a conference organiser, a hostel guest and a five-star hotel guest do not necessarily respond to a price increase in the same way. Before the pandemic, the share of business hotel overnight stays was considerably higher; in 2025 it was still just over 16 percent. While international business travel has fully recovered globally, Amsterdam is stagnating in that segment. A trend that started before this tax increase and that is likely to come under further pressure from the cumulative tax burden.
Including the VAT increase to 21 percent, the total tax burden on an Amsterdam overnight stay will rise to approximately 41 percent by 2031, a level without precedent among comparable European urban destinations.
Fewer Amsterdam overnight stays do not automatically mean fewer visitors
One likely response to the higher tax is that visitors choose to sleep outside Amsterdam and visit the city during the day. That flow already exists. In a survey by Research and Statistics Amsterdam in 2024, conducted at six busy locations, 22 percent of the tourist day visitors surveyed were foreign guests who were staying overnight elsewhere in the Netherlands. This figure is not a city-wide count. It does show that where someone sleeps is not necessarily where they cause crowding or spend money.
Foreign spending is also heavily concentrated in the centre. In 2023, 59 percent of transactions made with foreign bank cards took place in the city centre district, while only 35 percent of Amsterdam’s hotel beds were located there. Hotels in Haarlemmermeer, Zaanstad, Amstelveen or Almere may therefore gain overnight stays while Amsterdam retains the visitors and the crowding. Anyone who only tracks Amsterdam hotel overnight stays may easily mistake a regional shift for a reduction in tourism.
The visitor growth was already anticipated
The Amsterdam forecast from May 2025 expected between 23.9 and 27.9 million tourist overnight stays in 2027. The latest forecast, published on 29 May 2026, puts the figure for 2028 at between 25.0 and 29.4 million. The coalition agreement was not presented until 3 June and was therefore not factored in. The forecast says nothing about the effect of the tax, but it does show that the expected growth is substantial.
The agreement contains more than a tax
The coalition also wants to ban sea cruises from Amsterdam, potentially broaden the entertainment levy, acquire and repurpose properties in the city centre, buy out certain functions, and expand the permit requirement. Unlike a tax, these measures directly intervene in what is possible in the city: not on price, but on supply itself.
At the same time, Amsterdam is investing in arts, culture, festivals, clubs, nightlife, Artis Zoo and better regional connectivity. That need not be contradictory. A city can want to reduce harmful crowding while still welcoming cultural and business visitors. But it must then make clear which visitor economy it is pursuing.
Stopping promotion does not stop demand
Tourism promotion is being halted and the contribution to Amsterdam&Partners is being reduced. That sounds logical for a world-famous city with no awareness problem. But Amsterdam is also promoted by airlines, travel platforms, influencers, events and visitors themselves. International demand does not disappear when the municipality stops advertising.
The bigger problem lies elsewhere. Amsterdam&Partners does more than attract tourists. The organisation connects stakeholders, residents, businesses and government, helps steer visitor flows and behaviour, organises research and destination development, and is set up to ensure that tax revenues are spent transparently and purposefully. Not as a marketing agency, but as a destination management organisation.
The agreement says it wants more collaboration with residents, entrepreneurs and knowledge institutions. But who organises that collaboration, collects the data and maintains coherence? By reducing the contribution to Amsterdam&Partners, the coalition is removing precisely the instrument that could help realise its own policy goals.
Amsterdam needs data and an evaluation framework
Amsterdam already has a great deal of tourism data. The municipality tracks guests, overnight stays, length of stay, day visits, holiday rentals, employment, spending and the tourist carrying capacity of neighbourhoods. What is missing from the coalition agreement is a publicly defined, pre-determined evaluation framework.
That framework should look beyond tax revenues and Amsterdam overnight stays, to hotel prices, occupancy rates, length of stay, business bookings, overnight stays in surrounding municipalities and transport movements. It should also specify in advance what the tax increase is expected to contribute to reducing crowding, nuisance and pressure on residents in the most affected areas. The measurements exist. But nobody has specified in advance what this particular tax increase should deliver.
A tax is not a strategy
Amsterdam does not need to apologise for a tax that generates revenue. But the city must not confuse revenue policy with destination management. A tourism strategy defines which visitor flows need to change, which instruments will be used and what results are expected. It looks not only at hotel overnight stays within the city boundary, but also at regional accommodation, day visits, behaviour and spatial concentration.
The instruments are known: capacity management, segment-targeted programming, regional distribution of supply and demand, and transparent use of tax revenues linked to measurable goals. The question is not what needs to happen, but who organises it and with whom. A think tank drawing on different perspectives, residents, industry, academia, government and visitors, is not a luxury but a prerequisite. Without that, policy remains a sum of competing interests.
For now, one outcome is certain: the coalition is counting on hundreds of millions of euros in extra revenue. Whether Amsterdam will actually become quieter and more liveable as a result is not yet a conclusion. It is a hypothesis. The municipality will be better off financially. The question is whether the city will be too.
This article is based on the Amsterdam Coalition Agreement 2026-2030, publications by Research and Statistics Amsterdam (O&S), municipal research on price elasticity (2023), international research on tourist taxes, and the Amsterdam Visitor Forecast 2026-2028 (O&S, May 2026).
