Hong Kong’s Hotel Accommodation Tax was never abolished. It was 3% up to 30 June 2008, was set to 0% with effect from 1 July 2008, and on 1 January 2025 it was adjusted back to 3%. For sixteen and a half years it existed and charged nothing.
Three per cent is small enough that most people will not check it. The rules on what it applies to are more involved, and one of them removes it entirely.
What the 3% is calculated on
The 3% applies to the accommodation charge, which the Ordinance defines as the sum payable by or on behalf of guests for accommodation received.
The Inland Revenue Department reads that more widely than a room rate in one direction and more narrowly in another.
- Counts as accommodation: extra beds, cribs, holiday or themed decorations, and late check-out.
- Not included in the calculation: in-house dining, hotel facilities such as spa treatments and chauffeur-drive, business centre services such as printing and conference room rental, concierge services such as ticket booking and car rental, and extra consumable items such as additional toiletries.
The item most likely to matter on a bill is the service charge. It is normally 10% of the accommodation charge and is not required to be included in the figure the 3% is worked out on. The tax is 3% of the room, not 3% of the room plus service.
Twenty-eight nights, and the tax is gone
An occupant staying in the same hotel for not less than 28 consecutive nights is in long-term accommodation, and the IRD states that accommodation charges for long-term accommodation are not subject to the tax. On a long stay the rate does not fall. It stops applying.
Three details make the rule easier to use:
- You may change rooms. The IRD confirms the 28 nights need not be in the same room, only the same hotel.
- Extending into it works retrospectively. A guest who books ten nights and then extends past 28 has the whole stay treated as long-term. The department’s answer on tax already paid during the initial stay is that it “can be handled by the hotel itself”.
- A forced move does not break it. If force majeure makes the hotel move you to another hotel for the rest of an agreed long stay, you are treated as if you had never changed hotel.
The arithmetic at the margin is worth a look. At HKD 1,200 a night, a 27-night stay carries about HKD 972 in tax and a 28-night stay carries none, so the twenty-eighth night pays for roughly four fifths of itself. Two nights short of the line, the saving covers about two fifths of the gap, and the trade is a genuine question. A booking page shows neither.
Booking through an agent does not change it
If you book through a travel agent or an online travel agent, the tax is calculated solely on the room rate the hotel provided to the agent, not on what the agent charged you.
The IRD’s own example: a hotel gave an OTA a rate of HKD 1,000 and actually received HKD 1,100 from the OTA including service charge before the OTA’s commission. The tax is calculated on the HKD 1,000. Intraday changes in the OTA’s own displayed price do not affect it either.
The channel you book through is not a lever on this tax in either direction.
Two exemptions that reach real guests
The Ordinance exempts accommodation provided by a hotel containing fewer than 10 rooms normally available for lodging guests, and accommodation provided by a society not established or conducted for profit.
The first is the one a traveller can use, because Hong Kong has a great many small licensed guesthouses. The IRD publishes a list of hotels and guesthouses exempted from the tax. Check it for a specific property rather than inferring from its size.
Your bill has to tell you
However the room was booked, the bill issued to the guest must either state the amount of tax collected or state that the total charged is inclusive of it. Where a bill does not break out individual items, the IRD requires a note saying the total includes the tax. You can check the tax yourself from paperwork you already hold.
What the FAQ does not settle
Packages. For a package sold at one inclusive price, the tax is calculated on the accommodation charge the hotel disclosed when marketing it. Where none was disclosed, it is calculated by reference to the price of the same grade of room on those dates, with an average accepted. The department does not publish the figure any particular hotel used, so a package bill is the one case where you cannot reconstruct the calculation from your own receipt.
Refunds. The FAQ sets out how a hotel adjusts its own quarterly return when a stay changes length, and says the tax already paid on a stay that becomes long-term is for the hotel to handle. It does not say the guest is owed it. Ask at the desk, and treat a yes as good practice rather than an entitlement.
Hong Kong rates, where 28 nights and 27 are priced differently (affiliate link)