The Edinburgh visitor levy went live on 24 July 2026, the first statutory overnight charge of its kind anywhere in the UK. Most of the coverage has been about hotel rooms and festival prices, which has left a lot of campsite and caravan park owners assuming it has nothing to do with them. It has. The scheme covers all paid accommodation on caravan sites and campsites in the council area, and it says so in as many words, including temporary tent and campervan pitches.

If you take money for a night on a pitch anywhere inside the City of Edinburgh Council boundary, this is now part of your job. Here is exactly what you charge, who you do not charge, and what you have to send the council every quarter.

What the Edinburgh visitor levy actually is

The Visitor Levy (Scotland) Act 2024 gave each Scottish council the power to charge a percentage levy on paid overnight accommodation in its area, after a consultation of at least 12 weeks and at least 18 months' notice. Edinburgh was first out of the gate.

The Edinburgh scheme is:

That last point trips people up. A guest who booked their August 2026 pitch in the summer of 2025 pays nothing, because the booking predates the cut off. A guest who booked the same pitch in November 2025 pays the levy. For another year or so you will be running two rules side by side, which is precisely the kind of thing a booking record handles better than a memory.

What you charge, in pounds and pence

The levy is 5% of the accommodation part of the bill only. Anything you charge separately and itemise sits outside the calculation: meals, firewood, laundry tokens, awning charges, extra dogs, a shop tab. If you bundle those into a single pitch price, they go into the sum with everything else, which is a decent argument for itemising.

Worked examples on a £30 touring pitch:

The cap is per stay. Two separate five night bookings a fortnight apart are two stays, each with its own five night cap. One ten night booking is one stay with one cap. If you take a lot of long stays, that distinction is worth understanding properly before someone challenges it at the desk.

And unlike Wales, this is not a per person charge. A solo camper and a family of five on identically priced pitches pay the same levy, because it is driven by the money, not the heads.

Who does not pay

Edinburgh's scheme exempts a guest who:

Charities can also apply to the council for a discretionary exemption. There is no exemption for children in Scotland, and none for business travellers, so do not carry assumptions over from what you have read about the Welsh scheme.

Two situations sit outside the levy altogether rather than being exempt from it. Seasonal pitches and holiday home owners who pay an annual site fee are not charged, because there is no per night accommodation charge for a percentage to attach to. If your site runs both seasonal and touring pitches, keeping those two types clearly separated in your diary is now a compliance matter and not just tidiness. There is more detail in our guide to visitor levy exemptions.

Collecting it without an argument at the gate

You can collect the levy at the point of booking, when the balance is paid, or on arrival. Whichever you pick, be consistent, and tell people before they turn up.

The sites handling this well are doing three simple things:

If a guest simply refuses to pay, you are entitled to treat it as a refusal to pay part of the bill. In practice, almost nobody refuses a charge they were told about in advance. Nearly every argument about the levy is really an argument about surprise.

The quarterly return

Every quarter you submit a return through the national online visitor levy portal showing your total accommodation charges and the total levy collected, and pay at the same time. Keep the underlying records: chargeable stays, nights, accommodation charges, levy charged, and the reason behind any exemption. If the council ever queries a return, that record is your answer.

One piece of good news. Providers keep 2% of the levy they collect as a contribution towards administration costs. On a small site that will not fund a new toilet block, but it is an acknowledgement that the work lands on you rather than the council.

Cancellations need care. If you cancel a booking and refund the stay, the levy goes back too, even if the rest of your terms are non refundable. The levy is not yours to keep.

The VAT twist

At the time of writing, HMRC's position is that the levy carries the same VAT liability as the accommodation it sits on, and counts towards your taxable turnover. If you are hovering near the £90,000 registration threshold, collecting a council tax on top of your pitch fees could be the thing that pushes you over. Professional bodies including ICAS have pushed back on that treatment, so it may change. We have written it up properly in the visitor levy and VAT, and it is worth a five minute conversation with your accountant.

What this means for the rest of Scotland

Edinburgh is the template, not the exception. Glasgow starts at 5% on 25 January 2027, Aberdeen at 7% on 1 April 2027, Stirling at 3% on 14 June 2027 and West Dunbartonshire at 5% on 1 July 2027. Argyll and Bute and East Lothian are consulting. The Visitor Levy (Amendment) (Scotland) Act, which received Royal Assent on 21 May 2026, also lets councils use a flat rate charge per person or per room instead of a percentage, which may suit rural areas with low nightly rates better.

The whole picture, council by council, is in our Scottish visitor levy guide for campsites.

The practical takeaway

The money itself is not the problem. Five percent of a pitch fee is a couple of pounds, paid by the guest, and Europe has been doing this for decades without anyone cancelling a holiday over it. The problem is the admin: two sets of rules running side by side, a five night cap to apply, exemptions to evidence, refunds to reverse and a return every quarter.

All of which is why we built the levy into CampSuite™ rather than leaving you to it. You enter 5% and a five night cap once. After that the levy is worked out on every booking, whether it came through your website, the phone or the gate, it appears as its own line on the confirmation and the invoice, it reverses itself on refunds, and at the end of the quarter the levy report gives you the total accommodation charges and total levy collected that the portal asks for.

That is the difference between a mild irritation and a lost weekend. Try CampSuite free and set your levy up in a couple of minutes. It takes about 15 minutes to get your whole site going, and it is free for up to 100 pitches, so CLs, CSs and most touring parks pay nothing at all. Full detail on the visitor levy software page.

This article is general information for campsite owners, not tax or legal advice. Check the City of Edinburgh Council's published scheme and speak to your accountant before setting prices or filing a return. Last updated 27 July 2026.