Gran Canaria’s Mogán resort introduces Spain’s first tourist council tax

A Canarian tourist resort has become the first local council in Spain to impose a tourist tax.

The upmarket Gran Canarian resort of Mogán will charge each tourist a rate of 15 cents a day during their stay, payable to the council by the owners of the accommodation they are staying in.

While tourist taxes exist in Catalonia and the Balearics, these have been imposed by regional governments instead of local councils.  As local councils do not have the power to tax overnight stays, the tax in Mogán will be imposed as a charge for local services.

Mayor Onalia Bueno, of the Together For Mogán party, said that the tax will be “destined in its entirety to the financing of activities, services or infrastructures in the tourist areas, as well as promotion of the destination” and claimed that the council “was sick of having to bear these costs”.

Bueno pointed out that council taxes were exclusively paid by local residents, even though an average of 44.75% of people in the resort at any given time were tourists.   

She added that she wanted “the tourists who stay in the municipality to contribute proportionally to the costs that correspond to them for the services and activities that they enjoy during their stay.”