Short answer: the meeting is not taxed, the overnight stay is. Türkiye's accommodation tax sits in Article 34 of Law No. 6802 on Expenditure Taxes and took effect on 1 January 2023. It covers the overnight accommodation service supplied at accommodation facilities, together with the other services sold alongside that stay and delivered inside the facility. The Revenue Administration's official guide states it plainly: circumcision ceremonies, weddings, cocktails, meetings, congresses, symposiums and similar organisation services supplied independently of the overnight stay fall outside the tax. When the package does include rooms, the rule is mechanical. If the invoice shows the nature and the amount of the organisation service clearly, or a separate invoice is issued for it, no accommodation tax is calculated on that portion and the tax applies to the accommodation only. The rate makes 2026 an unusual year. Presidential Decree No. 11263, published in Official Gazette issue 33240 on 1 May 2026, applies the statutory 2 percent rate as 1 percent until 31 December 2026, that date included. Unless the reduction is extended, a dealer meeting that slips into January 2027 carries double the accommodation tax at the same hotel and the same price. Below: what the tax covers, how to split the invoice, the market value floor on the tax base, when the taxable event occurs, and whose invoice carries the tax when you book through an agency.
What exactly does the accommodation tax cover?
The scope is narrow and specific. It applies to the overnight service provided at hotels, motels, holiday villages, guesthouses, apart hotels, staff lodges, campsites, mountain houses and highland houses, plus all other services sold together with that stay and delivered within the facility. The second group is broad: food, drink, activities, entertainment, and the use of pools, sports areas, thermal facilities and similar spaces. The Revenue Administration's guide notes that there is no limitation on the facility side, so every property offering overnight stays is covered regardless of whether it holds a tourism operating licence or a workplace opening permit. Two categories tend to surprise corporate buyers. Guesthouses, company lodges, recreation facilities and camps held by public bodies or private companies for staff use are inside the scope, and so are staff training facilities, with residential housing the only carve out. The guide defines the overnight service as daily lodging and stay provided by allocating a room or a space, and the service starts the moment the room is placed at the guest's disposal. Day use services sold to people who do not stay overnight are outside the tax. The revenue involved is not marginal: according to budget realisation figures from the Directorate General of Public Accounts, accommodation tax collection reached 6.834 billion lira in 2023, 11.735 billion in 2024 and 16.131 billion in 2025.
Are meetings, congresses and gala dinners inside the tax?
The meeting itself sits outside. The Revenue Administration's guide puts it in one sentence: circumcision ceremonies, weddings, cocktails, meetings, congresses, symposiums and similar organisation services supplied at accommodation facilities independently of the overnight stay are not within the scope of the accommodation tax. Room hire, stage, sound, lighting, LED walls, registration desks and the organisation crew can all live inside that definition. What decides the outcome is how the package is sold. When the organisation service is supplied in a way that includes accommodation, no accommodation tax is calculated on those services provided the invoice clearly shows the nature and the amount of the organisation service, or a separate invoice is issued for it, and the tax is then charged on the accommodation alone. The reverse holds too. A single line reading conference package, with no visible split between rooms and meeting space, leaves nothing to separate. The gala dinner sits right on the boundary, and the contract decides it. If the dinner is sold as part of the accommodation concept, inside a full board package for instance, it is taxed; the guide is explicit that food and drink services marketed as a concept alongside the overnight stay remain taxable even if they are shown separately on the accommodation invoice or invoiced apart. Structure the same dinner as a line of the organisation service, shown separately, and it stays on the organisation side.
Does splitting the invoice cancel the tax?
No, the split has a floor. The implementing communiqué requires that where meeting, congress, symposium and similar organisation services are supplied in a way that includes accommodation, the accommodation tax base must be determined by setting the organisation and accommodation prices through an objective method, and it cannot fall below the market equivalent value of the accommodation service. Writing the room night far under market and pushing the difference onto the meeting line therefore does not work. The general rule points the same way: where the taxpayer's sale price is clearly below market value and that gap cannot be justified, market value becomes the tax base. Take a worked example. A dealer meeting for 200 people over two nights at 4,000 lira per person per night excluding VAT puts the accommodation at 1,600,000 lira, with room hire, technical production and organisation lines at 900,000 lira. With the invoice split, the base is 1,600,000 lira and the accommodation tax at the 2026 rate is 16,000 lira. Bundle everything into one package line and the base rises to 2,500,000 lira, taking the tax to 25,000 lira. At the 2 percent rate the same comparison widens to 32,000 against 50,000 lira. That is the value of one invoice line.
What is the rate in 2026, and what changes in 2027?
The statutory rate is 2 percent, but the rate in force for 2026 is 1 percent. Presidential Decree No. 11263, published in Official Gazette issue 33240 on 1 May 2026, provides that the accommodation tax rate set out in the fifth paragraph of Article 34 of Law No. 6802 shall be applied as 1 percent until 31 December 2026, that date included, and it entered into force on its publication date. Absent a new decree, the rate returns to its statutory level on 1 January 2027. For event calendars, the deciding date is not when the contract was signed or the deposit paid. Because the taxable event arises when the service is supplied, what matters is the night the guest actually stays. A year end programme that starts in late December and runs into January needs the nights mapped out in advance. By the same logic, budgeting the accommodation line of a spring 2027 dealer meeting at today's 1 percent would understate it.
When does the tax arise, and what about deposits and early checkout?
The taxable event is the supply of the service. Collecting part of the fee, all of it, or none of it, before or after the stay, has no bearing on when the tax arises. Where agencies or facilities sell the service ahead of the stay, the tax arises when the service is delivered to the guest. That has a visible consequence on deposit invoices: if an invoice or similar document is issued before the service is supplied, the taxable event has not occurred and accommodation tax is not shown on that document. An accommodation tax line on a deposit invoice is worth questioning. Duration follows actual use as well. Where a stay expected to run several nights is not completed, the days actually served are taken into account, so a delegate who checks in on a seven night booking and leaves on the third day is taxed on three nights. Complimentary stays are not a gap either. The guide states that where accommodation is provided free of charge to third parties under names such as promotion, giveaway, gift or publicity, the taxable event is deemed to have occurred, and the tax base becomes market value. A room the hotel comps for your keynote speaker or performing artist is not a tax free transaction.
What should the invoice show, and how does VAT interact?
The accommodation tax has to appear as its own line. The guide requires it to be shown separately on invoices and similar documents issued by accommodation facilities, and no deduction of any kind may be made from it. The base is clean too: VAT is not included in the accommodation tax base, so the tax is calculated on the VAT exclusive amount, and the accommodation tax in turn stays out of the VAT base. The invoice split also moves the VAT picture, because the rates differ. Overnight accommodation is a reduced rate service, and since Presidential Decree No. 7346 took effect on 10 July 2023 the reduced rate is 10 percent and the standard rate is 20 percent, which is where room hire and production lines sit. For a VAT registered company that rate gap is not a final cost, since VAT runs through the deduction mechanism. Accommodation tax does not. It cannot be treated as deductible input VAT, and what you pay stays inside the event cost. Discounts in line with commercial custom that are shown separately on the invoice can be deducted from the accommodation tax base, so how a negotiated reduction reaches the invoice matters. The filing duty is not yours: the taxpayer is whoever actually operates the facility, the tax period is each calendar month, and the tax is declared and paid by the evening of the 26th day of the following month.
If you book through an agency, whose invoice shows the tax?
It depends on who issues the invoice in the chain. Where an agency sells the accommodation service to the customer with the accommodation tax included, and proves that to the facility, the tax is shown on the invoice the facility issues to the agency, and it is not shown separately on the invoice the agency issues to the customer. So the absence of an accommodation tax line on the paper in front of you does not mean the tax never arose. The question to ask when comparing quotes is whether the accommodation line was built inclusive of VAT and accommodation tax or exclusive of both. Services outside the facility follow a parallel rule. In concept sales that also cover transport, transfers, tours, guiding or museum entries supplied outside the facility, no accommodation tax is calculated on those services if a separate invoice is issued showing the nature and amount of each one, or if the amounts appear separately on the accommodation invoice. The exemption list is short: services provided to students in student dormitories, boarding houses and camps, and, on a reciprocal basis, services provided to foreign states' diplomatic missions and consulates in Türkiye, their members holding diplomatic rights, and international organisations granted tax exemption under international agreements. There is no general exemption for corporate events. The tourism share levy under Law No. 7183 is a separate item often confused with this tax; it is the facility's own filing obligation and does not appear as a line on your invoice.
How do you build the event budget around these rules?
Four steps settle it. Ask the hotel for a line by line quote so that accommodation, meeting space, technical production, catering and off site services each sit on their own row, and make the contract carry the same split. Keep the room night at market level, because the tax base cannot go below market value and an artificial allocation invites a dispute later. Read the calendar against the rate: budget 1 percent for nights falling on or before 31 December 2026, and 2 percent for anything after that unless the reduction is extended. Expect no accommodation tax line on the deposit invoice and a visible one on the final invoice. This line item gets more attention as Istanbul's congress calendar fills up. According to ICCA's GlobeWatch 2025 rankings, Istanbul rose to 18th in the world and 13th in Europe with 95 international congresses, while Türkiye ranked 33rd worldwide with 142. Tales Event is based in Istanbul and runs dealer meetings, launches, congresses and gala nights across Türkiye, handling venue selection through stage, sound, lighting and LED screen installation with a single production team. Send the date, the headcount and the accommodation requirement, and we will build the hotel package with accommodation and organisation lines separated and the tax effect visible in the budget.
Let's talk about your event
Tell us your idea and we will prepare the concept and quote.