What is the short-stay accommodation levy in Victoria?

Victoria applies a specific state-based levy to short-stay accommodation bookings — stays arranged through a booking platform or directly with a host for a period shorter than a standard residential tenancy, rather than under an ordinary lease. It’s a charge separate from land tax and separate from Vacant Residential Land Tax (VRLT), the two other Victorian property charges covered elsewhere on this site.

As at July 2026, the levy is set at 7.5% of the total booking fee for a short stay (a stay of less than 28 consecutive days in the same property). It has applied since 1 January 2025, under the Short Stay Levy Act 2024 (Vic) (Act No. 40/2024), and is administered by the State Revenue Office (SRO) Victoria. The rest of this article sets out how the charge works in practice — what it targets, how it’s likely to interact with the other costs of holding Victorian property, and exactly what to check before you rely on a figure in your own budgeting.

Who does the levy apply to?

The levy targets short-stay accommodation bookings specifically — not residential letting generally. A property let under a standard residential tenancy agreement sits in a different category from one booked night by night through a platform.

Who is liable to remit the levy depends on how the booking was made. If a booking platform (Airbnb, Stayz and Booking.com are the examples SRO Victoria names) takes the booking, the platform is liable and must register, lodge and pay. If an owner or tenant accepts a booking directly, without a platform involved, they’re liable instead. There’s no minimum number of nights let per year that has to be reached before the levy applies to a booking — it’s a per-booking charge from the first short stay. A separate $75,000-a-year total-booking-fee figure exists, but it only sets how often you lodge and pay (quarterly above that figure, annually below it), not whether you’re liable at all. Don’t assume a specific arrangement is caught, or exempt, without checking directly.

How is the levy calculated?

Victoria’s levy is a percentage of the total booking fee: 7.5% of the total amount paid for the stay, including the nightly rate, cleaning fees, GST payable on any part of the booking, and any late checkout fee. It excludes credit card or other payment-method surcharges and any charge for property damage. Where the invoice is itemised, the levy is calculated on the sum of the itemised amounts (including the levy line itself); where one all-inclusive fee is charged, it’s calculated on that fee. The amount payable is rounded down to the nearest 5 cents. Treat any dollar figure you calculate as something to confirm against SRO Victoria’s own examples before you rely on it in your own budgeting.

Are there any exemptions?

Yes, on two levels. First, some stays simply aren’t “short-stay accommodation” for levy purposes at all — common exclusions include a stay in the host’s own principal place of residence, a room or area that can’t be occupied separately from the main residence (for example, sharing a kitchen or bathroom), commercial residential premises such as a hotel, motel or hostel, and a houseboat the guest can move during the stay. Second, specific categories of accommodation are exempt outright, including staff housing at workplaces such as schools or healthcare facilities, rooming houses, retirement villages, residential care facilities and supported residential services, student accommodation tied to an educational institution, and non-profit crisis accommodation funded through the Victorian Government’s homelessness support programs. If a property is excluded, the owner or tenant can lodge a declaration telling booking platforms not to apply the levy. If you’re weighing up short-stay letting on a specific property, confirm which category it falls into directly with the State Revenue Office (SRO) Victoria rather than infer from a general pattern.

How does this levy sit alongside Victoria’s other property charges?

This is useful context because Victoria already layers more than one charge onto residential property, and it helps to see where the newest one sits.

Charge	What it applies to	Rate / threshold (as at July 2026)
Ordinary land tax	General Victorian land holdings above the threshold	Individuals: nil below $50,000 total taxable value, a $500 minimum assessment at exactly $50,000; land held on trust has its own $25,000 threshold. A COVID debt surcharge adds a flat $500–$975 (plus a small rate loading at higher holdings) on top, for the 2024–2033 land tax years.
Vacant Residential Land Tax (VRLT)	Residential land that sits vacant — not genuinely lived in or under a genuine lease — for more than six months of the preceding calendar year	No tax-free threshold; 1% of Capital Improved Value in the first year liable, 2% in the second consecutive year, 3% in the third and subsequent consecutive years
Short-stay accommodation levy	Short-stay accommodation bookings	7.5% of the total booking fee, from 1 January 2025, under the Short Stay Levy Act 2024

Land tax and VRLT are calculated differently from each other, and the short-stay levy is its own separate mechanism again — a per-booking percentage charge, rather than an annual assessment on land value. None of the three should be assumed to substitute for, or offset, one of the others.

One interaction worth flagging: SRO Victoria’s own VRLT guidance treats a property as “lived in” for VRLT’s 6-month test if it’s occupied, for 6 months or more of the previous calendar year, by the owner or their permitted occupant as their home, or by “a person under a genuine lease or short-term letting arrangement.” In other words, genuinely letting a property short-stay for enough of the year is one of the things that can keep it out of VRLT’s vacant category — the two charges aren’t simply additive. Whether a specific letting pattern adds up to enough occupied time, though, is still a question to put to SRO Victoria rather than assume.

What does this mean for my cash flow as an investor?

Whether or not a levy applies to a particular letting arrangement is one more line item to weigh alongside the other costs of holding an investment property — land tax, council rates, insurance, and property management fees among them. None of those costs disappear or reduce each other; they layer on top of the rental income a property generates, which is exactly the kind of trade-off our guide to cash flow positive versus negatively geared property works through in more general terms.

Whether a levy like this is deductible against rental income — and how it should be treated for tax purposes generally — is a tax question, not something this article can answer for your situation. The ATO’s rental property deductions guidance does not name this levy specifically — check the ATO rental expenses guidance or speak with a registered tax agent to confirm the treatment that applies to your circumstances. Tax outcomes depend on your circumstances — speak with a registered tax agent before acting.

Where can I check the current settings?

For the current-day rate, exclusions and exemptions, the State Revenue Office Victoria is the relevant authority to check directly, alongside the Victorian legislation register for the Short Stay Levy Act 2024 itself. For how a charge like this is treated for tax purposes, the ATO’s guidance on rental property deductions sets out the general framework for rental outgoings — though it doesn’t name this levy specifically, so its exact treatment is still one for a registered tax agent to confirm. Settings like this move with state budgets, so treat anything you find as current only as at the date you check it — not as a fixed rule for planning years ahead.

The bottom line

Victoria’s short-stay accommodation levy — 7.5% of the total booking fee, in place since 1 January 2025 under the Short Stay Levy Act 2024 — sits alongside, not instead of, the land tax and VRLT regimes that can already apply to Victorian residential property. Liability, exclusions and exemptions all turn on the specifics of how and where a property is let, so it’s still worth checking your own situation directly with SRO Victoria before you factor a number into your planning — and its deductibility for tax purposes is a separate question for a registered tax agent. For property investors more broadly, our guide to property investment in Australia walks through how costs like this fit into the wider picture of holding an investment property.

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