England Moves to Let Mayors Set Uncapped Visitor Levy

England is preparing to hand its regional mayors the power to charge an overnight visitor levy on hotels, holiday rentals and Airbnb-style stays, with no cap on how high that charge can go. The legislation is expected to reach Parliament within months, according to government plans reported this week. For hosts and property managers operating anywhere near a combined authority, that means a new per-night cost could arrive on a timetable set locally, not nationally, and with no ceiling written into law to limit it.

What the power would actually let mayors do

The proposal would extend levy-setting authority to metro mayors covering areas such as Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire, letting each set its own nightly charge on paid overnight stays. Unlike the flat, low-value visitor charges already running informally in cities like Manchester and Liverpool - typically £1 or so a night, collected through business-led schemes rather than statutory tax powers - this would be a formal levy with a rate each mayor decides for their own region. Nothing in the plan sets a floor or a ceiling, so the amount charged in Manchester could diverge sharply from a charge set in Birmingham or Leeds.

Why the missing cap matters more than the levy itself

Every tourist tax introduced in the UK so far has come with some built-in limit, even if a loose one. Scotland's visitor levy framework left the rate to individual councils but within a process requiring public consultation and business impact assessment before a figure was set. Wales has followed a similar path. An uncapped power removes that implicit ceiling and puts the decision squarely in the hands of whichever mayor is in office, with the rate subject to change as local budgets shift rather than fixed by national legislation.

For operators, the practical risk isn't the principle of a nightly charge - most short-term rental markets in Europe already run some version of one - it's the unpredictability. A cap, even a generous one, lets a manager model the worst case for a portfolio spanning multiple cities. Without one, pricing and compliance teams have to track each mayoral authority separately and assume rates could move upward once a levy exists, since there is no legal ceiling forcing restraint.

What operators should track before the bill lands

Nothing has been voted on yet. The government's own timeline puts introduction in Parliament months away, and any levy would still need each combined authority to actually adopt it once the power exists - adoption is not automatic just because Westminster grants the option. Hosts and managers with properties in devolved mayoral areas should watch for consultation notices from their local combined authority, since that is likely to be the first concrete signal of a rate being considered, well before national legislation is finalized.

Collection mechanics also remain undefined. Existing UK visitor charges are collected in different ways - added at check-in, folded into a booking fee, or handled through local business improvement districts - and nothing in the current proposal specifies whether platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo would be expected to remit the levy on hosts' behalf or leave collection to individual operators. That detail will matter as much as the rate itself once a mayor actually sets one.