In the budget of local communities, over the first half of 2023, more than 85 million hryvnias of tourist tax were collected.
The State Tourism Development Agency has calculated how much the budgets of regions have been replenished due to the tourist tax for the first two quarters of this year. Tourism tax in Ukraine for the first six months of the current year increased by almost a quarter compared to the same period in the COVID-19 year of 2021 – 85,471,000 hryvnias compared to 69,453,000 hryvnias. Last year, the total amount of tourist tax by regions for the first half of the year amounted to almost 89 million hryvnias.
The top five leaders in tourist tax payments include the city of Kyiv and four regions. The largest tourist tax was received by the budget of Lviv region – 20,365,000 hryvnias compared to 19,774,000 hryvnias for the same period in 2022. The budget of the capital increased by 14,171,000 hryvnias. This amount is almost one-third less than in the first six months of the previous year – 20,043,000 hryvnias. Zakarpattia region earned 9,053,000 hryvnias, slightly more than in the same period last year (8,872,000 hryvnias). In Ivano-Frankivsk region, the tourist tax amount was lower than last year – 8,755,000 hryvnias in 2023 compared to 9,047,000 hryvnias in 2022. Dnipropetrovsk region, which received 5,279,000 hryvnias in its communities' budget, closes the top five leaders. This is one-third more than in the first half of the previous year (almost 4 million hryvnias).
Significant increases in the tourist tax amount were recorded in three regions of Western Ukraine: Chernivtsi region (1,419,000 hryvnias this year compared to 733,000 hryvnias last year), Rivne region (1,111,000 hryvnias compared to 657,000 hryvnias), and Volyn region (1,253,000 hryvnias compared to 821,000 hryvnias).
A decrease in tourist tax was recorded in 15 regions of Ukraine. The largest decrease occurred in Luhansk region, where the decline was 100%, in Kherson region – 98%, in Donetsk region – 91%, and in Mykolaiv region – 72%. Significant reductions also occurred in Zaporizhia (40%), Cherkasy (35%), Odesa (33%), Kyiv (29%), Kharkiv (23.5%), Kyiv (20.3%), Ternopil (20%), Kirovohrad (18.5%), Chernihiv (11.5%), Khmelnytskyi (6%), and Ivano-Frankivsk (3%) regions.
It is worth noting that the tax rate is set by the decisions of local councils for each day of temporary accommodation at a rate of up to 0.5% for domestic tourism and up to 5% for inbound tourism. As of 2023, the amounts ranged from 30 hryvnias for domestic tourism to 300 hryvnias for inbound tourism.
