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Imagine person A is staying in a hotel in Paris for a month. During this month, a friend, person B, comes to visit person A for 10 days and stays in the room A is staying in. The hotel is fully aware of this fact and has even requested the ID of B when he arrived and granted him a key for his ease. Person A is paranoid and explicitely asked if B staying over would change the amount she is being charged for the room. The hotel said that no, that this fact is not relevant for them and that the price stays the same as if B had never come.

When the 10 days are finished B leaves the hotel. The question is, does B have to pay the city tax before leaving, even though the room is reserved for just one person (in this case A)?

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    On theory yes. The person stayed in the city. In practice I guess it depends on the hotel but also from the city policy about what is staying, in which circumstances, and who pays what. – nsn Aug 7 '18 at 21:03
  • "Person A is paranoid and explicitely asked if B staying over would change the amount she is being charged for the room. The hotel said that no, that this fact is not relevant for them and that the price stays the same as if B had never come." - Is this a real situation? It strikes me that since the tax is per person, not per room then the hotel would tell person A that yes, they will need to pay more to cover the tax for person B. Though I guess they might just not declare it but if they have asked for ID for person B then they have presumably correctly registered things... – Chris Aug 8 '18 at 9:08
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Unless the hotel fails to collect the tax, which they are obliged to collect, B will also have to pay. The Paris tourist tax is subject per person per night with different rates depending on the standard of the accomodation.

Further information about the Paris tourist tax can be found here.

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  • I think you've slightly missed part of OP's focus: is city tax therefore collected from a the person who incurred the tax, or from the person who pays the hotel bill? In reality, I've always seen it collected as part of the hotel bill, not as a separate personal fee; but your answer seems to suggest the opposite. – Flater Aug 8 '18 at 7:57
  • @Flater Didn't this answer cover that with "unless the hotel fails to collect the tax"? – JBentley Aug 8 '18 at 9:08
  • @JBentley: It doesn't mention who is required to pay the tax. Let's say both A and B refuse to pay the additional tax. Which person is going to get sued by the hotel? It can't be both of them at the same time. Either the law stipulates whose end responsibility it is to pay (if A => then B can leave the hotel without paying. if B => then A's hotel bill should not increase), or it's at the hotel's discretion (at which point it's important for A to know if it's possible that the hotel ends up charging them for B's tax). – Flater Aug 8 '18 at 9:11
  • @Flater: I think the idea is that if person A is refusing to pay the extra that person B will receive a hotel bill for their stay that will include the tax. – Chris Aug 8 '18 at 9:11
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    @Flater: The fact the OP started with "imagine" suggests to me that this is a purely hypothetical question with conditions that have been made up so I personally am doubting the realism of the original question premise. If the OP says this is an actual situation that they are in or have been then I would accept it but otherwise it feels a bit like "If 1=2 then is X true?". – Chris Aug 8 '18 at 9:19

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