Get Ready to Pay Even Higher Tourist Taxes in Barcelona

Barcelona’s tourism sector is constantly in the news for its overtourism, tourist taxes, and protests and attacks against visitors. Adding another feather to this controversial cap, the mayor of Barcelona Jaume Collboni, has announced the government’s plan to raise the tourist tax for cruise passengers.

Higher Tourist Tax for Cruise Passengers

Barcelona has been implementing various measures to deal with overtourism and its aftermaths in the city, and the most recent one seems to be the increased tourist tax for cruise passengers. In order to “tackle the consequences of mass tourism,” the government will ask cruise tourists who are visiting the city for less than 12 hours to pay a higher tax than before. Short-term-staying cruise passengers are currently paying €7 a day for their visit to Barcelona, and now they will be asked to pay a higher amount. The new increased amount of the tax has not been announced yet.

Further, Collboni had earlier announced that his government would stop apartment rentals to tourists by 2028 by scrapping the license of more than 10,100 apartments. “Barcelona is a city that is open to visitors and tourism is an important sector of its economy. That said, I am determined to tackle the consequences that mass tourism is having for the city. That means going all the way with the ban on tourist flats in 2028. But we’re also going to substantially raise the tax for people on cruise stopovers. When it comes to a choice between tourists using housing and the right to housing, we have decided to put the right to housing in Barcelona first. When it comes to stopover cruise passengers – less than 12 hours – you get an intensive use of public space without any benefits to the city and you get a feeling of occupation and saturation. We want a tourism that respects its destination” he said.