How to Collect the Accommodation Tax from Guests in Advance, Without Chasing

Why it matters

The guest is the taxpayer, but the tax is collected from the guest and remitted to the municipality by the accommodation provider as the payer (§ 38 of the Local Taxes Act). You remit it according to the number of overnight stays, regardless of whether you actually collected it from the guest. Without a completed form you also lack the data for your records and the guest register (kniha ubytovaných) and, for foreign guests, for the stay report.

One common misunderstanding: synchronising reservations via iCal shows you that a stay exists, but it does not fill in guest data. An Airbnb or Booking.com calendar contains neither a name, nor an ID document, nor the number of people. Guests have to fill in the forms themselves.

Why guests do not pay

From practice we see four reasons, and none of them is unwillingness:

• They do not know about it. Someone who learns about the tax only at the door takes it as an unexpected surcharge, not as part of the price.
• They have no way to pay. Foreign guests have no euro cash, do not want to enter a transfer to a Slovak account, and with self check-in there is nobody to pay.
• The request comes too late. A request for payment that arrives the evening before arrival or after it is easily postponed and then forgotten.
• They have no reason to hurry. Once they have the door code, the form and the payment can wait. Often until departure.

Each point has a simple fix. The last one is the strongest: when the guest receives the arrival instructions only after filling in the forms and paying the tax, they have a clear reason to do it right away.

What works: five steps

1. Tell guests about the tax before they book

A guest who knows about the tax in advance takes it as part of the price, not as your extra charge. State it everywhere the guest makes a decision:

• Booking.com: set the accommodation tax as a mandatory fee per person per night. Under EU consumer protection rules, Booking.com includes all mandatory fees in the total price the guest sees with an offer, even when they are set as not included in the price. You can check the setting in the Extranet under Property → VAT/tax/charges. Hotels ask Booking.com for a change via messages in the Extranet; other properties edit fees under Property → Policies → Additional fees and charges.
• Airbnb: outside Bratislava, Airbnb does not collect the accommodation tax itself (Bratislava is covered below). Its rules allow you to collect it from the guest outside Airbnb, but only when it is stated in the listing description or house rules if it is not in the price breakdown. Write it there together with the rate. Airbnb also warns guests that a request for a bank transfer can be a sign of fraud. In your message, therefore, explain which tax it is and also offer payment by card.
• Your own website and e-mail offers: state the rate in the price list or next to the stay price, for example “price excludes accommodation tax of €2.00 per person per night”, and add who your municipality exempts.

In Slovakia, apart from odídenci (persons granted temporary refuge), the law exempts no one (§ 38a). The rate and exemptions, for example for children, are set by your municipality’s VZN (municipal ordinance) (§ 43). Verified rates are in the overview of accommodation tax rates, exemptions in the guide Who does not pay accommodation tax.

2. Send one message with a link and an explanation

Airbnb, Booking.com and most channel managers can send a message automatically after a booking. Set it up once and it reaches every later reservation. Put the Best Guest registration link in the message and explain in two sentences why you need the forms and the tax. Guests are far more willing to do something the law requires than something “the host wants”.

A sample message for foreign guests (adjust the rate, exemptions, payment methods and link):

Hello [guest name],

before your arrival, please complete the online registration for all guests.
We are required by law to keep a record of every guest and to collect the
local accommodation tax for the municipality.

Registration link: [your Best Guest link]

Once your registration is confirmed, you will see the exact tax amount on the
same page and can pay it online in a few taps. The tax is €[rate] per person
per night. [Children under X do not pay it.]

As soon as we confirm your payment, you will receive the arrival instructions
and the door code.

Thank you, and see you soon!

And the Slovak version:

Dobrý deň, [meno hosťa],

pred príchodom prosím vyplňte online registráciu za všetkých hostí. Zo zákona
musíme viesť evidenciu hostí a vyberať pre obec daň za ubytovanie.

Odkaz na registráciu: [váš odkaz Best Guest]

Po potvrdení registrácie uvidíte na tej istej stránke presnú výšku dane
a zaplatíte ju online na pár ťuknutí. Daň je [sadzba] € za osobu a noc.
[Deti do X rokov ju neplatia.]

Hneď ako platbu potvrdíme, pošleme vám pokyny na príchod a kód k dverám.

Ďakujeme a tešíme sa na vás!

Feel free to add what guests need to know anyway: check-in and check-out times, luggage storage or the no-smoking rule. A message with useful information is read more carefully than a bare call to register.

When to send the message, where to find the registration link and how this looks on individual platforms is described in the guide Automated guest messages with a registration link. With message security switched on, Booking.com removes links that are not on the approved list, and the guest sees “[Link was removed]” instead. Add the bestguest.app domain in the Extranet under Property → Messaging preferences → Security settings. Airbnb may block a message with an external link. On both platforms, always test the link on a real reservation.

3. Arrival instructions only after the forms are filled in and the tax is paid

This is the most important step. In Best Guest you write the arrival instructions (address, door code, Wi-Fi, parking) once for each listing, and Best Guest sends them to the guest itself. It does so only at the moment the conditions you set are met:

• all guests in the reservation have filled in the form and the reservation is approved and locked,
• the accommodation tax is paid and you have confirmed the payment,
• and no more than the number of days you set remain until arrival.

The guest thus has a clear reason to sort everything out right away, and you do not have to remind anyone. How to set it up is described in the section Setup in Best Guest below.

4. Paying must take a few taps

The less the guest has to retype, the sooner they pay. When you lock the reservation, Best Guest sends the main guest an e-mail with the exactly calculated amount and a breakdown. The calculation follows the rate and exemptions under the VZN of your municipality. The e-mail contains:

• A QR code in a format the guest’s bank can read: Slovak PAY by square for Slovak guests, Czech QR Platba for Czech ones and European EPC for others, always in euros.
• An IBAN for a manual transfer, in case the guest’s bank cannot read the QR code.
• Links to Revolut, PayPal or Wise with the amount pre-filled, if you have them set up. Through the Revolut link the guest pays by card or Apple Pay, without a Revolut account. How to add it is described in the guide Revolut + Best Guest.

The guest finds the same payment card on their reservation page in Best Guest, so they can also pay later or for the whole group. The money goes straight to your account; Best Guest takes nothing from it.

Paying in advance has one more advantage in Slovakia. A transfer from the guest’s account to yours before arrival, away from the accommodation, is according to the Financial Administration not recorded in eKasa. A payment received on site, in cash or by a QR code scanned only at your property, has counted as a sale under Act No. 384/2025 Coll. since 2026 (§ 2(u) and (x)). Details are in the guide Do I need eKasa for Airbnb?

5. Confirm the payment and the rest happens by itself

Best Guest cannot see your account, so it cannot tell on its own that the money has arrived. After paying, the guest taps I’ve paid and you receive an e-mail. When you see the payment on your account, you click Mark as paid on the reservation and confirm the amount and date. Best Guest sends the guest a payment confirmation and right after it the arrival instructions and the door code (but no earlier than the day you set).

The guest’s “I’ve paid” alone releases nothing. A guest who just taps and does not pay does not get the door code.

Setup in Best Guest

1. Bank account. Under Account → Companies, open your company and fill in the account guests should pay to in the Your payment details section. Optionally add links to Revolut, PayPal or Wise.
2. Tax payment request. For the property, switch on Send QR payment request to guest when approved & locked (in the property settings or under Automations).
3. Arrival instructions. Under Automation → Automatic door lock codes / check-in instructions, switch on sending instructions for the property. At the bottom of the page you write the instructions for each listing and can add other language versions. You then change the instructions in one place and do not have to edit them separately on Airbnb, Booking.com and other channels.
4. Sending conditions. For the same property you will find four options:

When you let Best Guest or the main guest lock reservations, the data is recorded without your review. You remain responsible for its correctness, which is why Best Guest shows a warning when you switch on either of the two options. You continue to submit the stay report for foreigners yourself on the Ministry of the Interior portal; Best Guest prepares it for you.

The When the guest receives the instructions option is fixed for a reservation at the moment it is locked. If you change it later, it applies only to reservations locked after the change.

How the guest sees the whole procedure

1. After booking, they receive a message with a link via Airbnb, Booking.com or your channel manager.
2. They fill in the form for themselves and send an invitation or link to their travel companions, or fill in the forms for them.
3. When everyone is done, they lock the reservation (or you or Best Guest do). On the reservation page they see that the next step is payment and that the arrival instructions will be available after it is confirmed.
4. They receive an e-mail with the amount, a breakdown, a QR code and payment links.
5. They pay and tap I’ve paid. Until you confirm, they see that the instructions are ready and will be released once the payment is confirmed.
6. After your confirmation they receive a payment confirmation and the arrival instructions with the door code, by e-mail and on the reservation page.

Alternatives and their catches

• Tax included in the accommodation price. Possible; what matters is that you remit the correct amount to the municipality. But the price is the same for everyone, while the tax varies with the number of nights and exempt guests. You will collect more one time and less another. On Booking.com you also pay commission on the total reservation price. Booking.com does not charge commission on an accommodation tax set up separately, but tax hidden in the nightly price becomes part of the price the commission is calculated from. Records and remittance to the municipality work the same way.
• Cash on arrival. Works when you meet your guests. But you need change, an overview of who has paid, and a payment on site is a sale that you record in eKasa if you operate as a sole trader. With self check-in there is nobody to pay.
• Collection by the platform. The law allows a digital platform to collect the tax instead of you as the payer’s representative if it has an agreement with the municipality (§ 41c). This is how Airbnb does it in Bratislava. Outside Bratislava, Airbnb does not collect the tax. For reservations prepaid through Payments by Booking.com, Booking.com collects per-person fees only in some countries so far. Other properties, including those in Slovakia, can join an optional early-access programme in the Extranet on the VAT/tax/charges page. You still remit the tax to the municipality. When a platform collects it for you, do not request it from the guest again via Best Guest: Best Guest cannot yet tell on which reservations the platform has already collected it.

Bratislava and Airbnb: do not ask for the tax twice

Bratislava has an agreement with Airbnb under which Airbnb collects the accommodation tax itself on Airbnb reservations and remits it to the city (details for Bratislava). An Airbnb guest has therefore already paid it.

Best Guest cannot yet tell which reservations Airbnb has taxed. If the payment request is on for a Bratislava property, an Airbnb guest also receives it after the reservation is locked and could pay the tax a second time. For a Bratislava property where you also have Airbnb reservations, therefore, do not yet switch on the payment request (and with it the holding back of instructions until payment). Collect the tax from Booking.com and direct-booking guests another way, for example by stating it in the message before arrival together with the account number. If you do not rent through Airbnb in Bratislava, you can use the whole procedure in this guide.

What to keep in mind

• Leave the guest another way. Someone who cannot pay online can pay, for example, when handing over the keys. You then confirm the payment manually with the Mark as paid button and the instructions are released. With self check-in, however, a guest without a confirmed payment receives neither the instructions nor the door code, so agree on this with them in good time. For a payment on site, think of eKasa.
• Where there is nothing to pay, nothing is held back. The instructions are held back only when the reservation has received a payment request. When the tax comes to zero (all guests are exempt under the VZN), or no request is created because a bank account or a verified municipal rate is missing, the instructions go out as usual.
• Write the instructions in the languages your guests speak. A guest for whose language you have no version receives the one you set as the default.
• Check the mail on Booking.com. If for Booking.com reservations you enter the guest’s @guest.booking.com address as their e-mail, then with message security switched on Booking.com delivers only e-mails from approved senders to them. The payment request and the arrival instructions would then get lost. Add the address that Best Guest e-mails to guests come from (you will see it in the e-mail from a test reservation) to the approved senders, in the same place as the approved links.
• Watch for guests who have not started. A guest who never opens the form does not get the automatic Best Guest reminder. You can see which reservations still have no forms filled in in Reservation verification, and write to such guests directly through the platform.

The whole feature is described on the pages Guest instructions and door codes and Local fee payment; the tax calculation in the guide How Slovak accommodation tax is calculated.