If you book via one of the major booking portals then the tax is listed as a separate item and therefore the renter will pay not the owner, this applies when renting properties in countries all over the world and not just France.
Why not try it?, as long as they know about it beforehand .
Barbara… you carry on with whatever makes you happy…
best of luck 
nothing but doom and gloom
Europe is now saying that europeans can not travel from UK to europe
This is bad news
Not just for me
Paying for gites, holiday rentals and boatyards etc comes out of customers’ taxed income. In my experience owning and running a ‘gite for boats’ is that customers are very sensitive to the bottom line.
Show it how you like on the bill, a tax like VAT or this TdS goes onto the bottom line and, explain till you are blue in the face that you are an unpaid tax collector for the gov, the customer is still well miffed that there’s a tax on the money already taxed when earned as income.
Many of my customers used to ask if I could … ummmm … deduct the VAT and accept a brown envelope. I sympathised, of course, but pointed out that I was actually an employee of RBS, Lloyds, The Woolwich Building Soc, The Duchy of Cornwall, The Edgcumbe Estate, Tavistock Borough Council, Biffa Waste management - even before I’d turned over a single squid!
I also used to joke that The Duchy of Cornwall money was to pay for ‘that woman’s colonic irrigations’. But not after the Alma tunnel…
I tried an experiment with service bundled versus inconvenient moorings. I had a block of moorings 400-500m downstream of the moorings off the yard. A mooring on one of these was no mare than that - a place to park a boat.
The package for a mooring off the yard included autumn haul-out, pressure wash, yard storage for the winter, engine winterisation, engine re-commissioning and relaunch.
The take-up for the cheapo deal v the Full Monty was 15 - 85.
And my customers didn’t come for a fortnight. They came for 12 months, rolling. It proved to me that customers do check the value for money aspect but in the end, the bottom line can either be afforded or not.
As my customers were there, not for a couple of weeks, but 12 months and rolling, I was able to offer quarterly or monthly instalments. Not possible in the gite biz. My sympathies.
I think how one prices one’s gite depends very much on what part of the market is being targeted. There are those gite owners who start off with the bare minimum and then everything else is on top - so there’s an additional charge for providing linen, swimming towels, welcome pack, etc etc.
Then there are those - and this is my position in the market - who take the view that they are offering an all-inclusive service, who want to make it easy for their guests (especially those coming from the UK who are not used to a “stay tax”) and they are given one single figure. If that figure is in euros there is already an element of uncertainty for guests and so we price in sterling on our UK platform and on our website. So, not only are we covering their TdS, their heating costs, or more likely air conditioning costs (!) etc but we are also taking the exchange rate risk. So, we price accordingly. And yes, Sheila our prices go up steadily every year. But, we have so much repeat business that so far (touch wood) this has not been a problem for us. We “ease” the price increases for our returning guests by charging them the previous year’s rate - so they are always getting a better deal than someone new.
So, this coming year, whatever happens to our TdS I will be paying it. However, this discussion has given me pause for thought and those who come in 2021 (if any!) I’ll be asking them what is THEIR view of paying TdS. Certainly, as Tim says, the big platforms these days add it onto their fees and act as a tax collector.
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Agreed!!
We know pretty much to the euro how much it costs us to run the gîte in different seasons (an advantage of declaring “réel” as we have to itemise everything). Even the welcome gift is factored in. So we know precisely how small a profit we make from low season rentals, in winter we basically cover our costs plus 50€- 75€ for our time according to how much hot water they use. So feeling that we won’t be able to increase our price because the clients will already see a significant increase in the bottom line makes me cross. Clients really do not care that this extra has nothing to do with us and we are just tax collectors.
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We are not classified, so we pay a flat 4%, which converts, in high season, to 1.43 euros per person per night.
I’m trying to work out the costs if we decided to ditch our classification and just go the non-classified route. What I can’t quite get from the vague information provided is whether the rate varies according to number of people.
As example, if nightly rent for gite for 5 people is 100€, then if 5 adults stay they each pay 4% of 20€, ie 0.80 centimes. But if you only have 2 adults staying do they pay the same, or 4% of 50€, ie 2€? ??
Hi, Jane,
Ours is a flat rate for non-classified gites, but per person if you are classified. And I think it depends on the commune in which the gite exists. So basically, no substitute for finding out your rates for your commune, and doing the calculations, I’m afraid.
Peter
Oh I have all the stuff from our commune!! It’s just not hugely clear as the non-classified rate is 5%, but seems to make a big difference if some of the occupants are exonerated ones (ie kids). Which seems illogical but I guess is true. How strange to have a system that makes it beneficial to the client to rent a non-classified gîte than a classified one!
Good for you tho’ if that’s how rates have been set in your commune too.
Yes, I quite agree. Except in our commune, the rates for classified gites are lower than for unclassified ones. I did work it out once, and (depending on your classification), the rates worked out about 40 - 60% lower. Presumably to encourage one to get classified.