They are two different taxes, and that is where the confusion starts
When a host sees Airbnb charging a tax, the natural conclusion is “so it is already paid”. It is a reasonable conclusion and it is wrong, because inside one booking there are two separate transactions:
| The transaction | Who charges its VAT | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Airbnb's service fee | Airbnb | A cross-border digital service. Airbnb has been registered in Costa Rica to collect that VAT since June 2023 |
| The stay itself | You | Lodging provided to a person in a property located in Costa Rica. A local transaction, and its VAT is yours |
Airbnb's own tax guide for Costa Rica says it without hedging:
Hosts are responsible for including the VAT in the lodging price and reporting those amounts to the Costa Rican authorities. […] Currently, Airbnb does not automatically add VAT to the lodging price.
Airbnb · Tax considerations for sharing your space in Costa Rica (November 2025)And it adds something worth reading twice, because it closes the door on the most common doubt: there are no exceptions to registration. The moment you start providing short-term lodging in a property located in Costa Rica, you have to register as a taxpayer. There is no minimum income, no “only a few weekends a year” threshold.
The price the guest sees already includes it
Since Airbnb does not add the tax on top, your published nightly rate has to contain it. That means the 13 % is not added to what the guest paid — it is taken out of it.
- What the guest pays
- ₡100,000.00
- Net price (÷ 1.13)
- ₡88,495.58
- VAT to declare
- ₡11,504.42
- What the shortcut would have given (− 13 %)
- ₡13,000.00 · ₡1,495.58 too much
The VAT Airbnb does charge you is yours to credit
The 13 % Airbnb charges on its service fee is not lost money. Because your rental activity is taxable, that tax is input VAT in your business: it reduces what you hand over each month. What supports it is the document Airbnb publishes for the fee, together with the purchase invoice you issue for the commission.
Booking works the other way round: it is not registered, its invoice carries no Costa Rican VAT, and there you do self-assess. The detail is in the Booking guide.
Filing it
- Every month, by the 15th, whether you had guests or not. The VAT return is filed even in months with nothing to declare.
- What goes in: the VAT you charged on your stays, minus the VAT you can credit — including the one on Airbnb's fee.
- What does not go in: the exchange rate of today. Each invoice carries the Central Bank rate of the day it was issued, and that is the one that counts.
Quick answers
My guest is a foreigner who paid from abroad. Do I still charge VAT?
Yes. The service is provided in Costa Rica, and that is what decides it. Where the guest lives and where the money came from are irrelevant.
I only rent a few weeks a year. Is there a minimum?
No. Airbnb's own guide is explicit: there are no exceptions to registration.
The guest did not ask for an invoice. Do I still issue one?
Yes. The obligation to issue does not depend on the guest asking. If they give no identification, it goes out as a simplified receipt, with the same VAT.
Can I add the 13 % on top instead of including it?
Not in practice on Airbnb, because the platform shows a single price to the guest. Include it in the rate and work it out backwards when you invoice.
The 13 % worked out right, every time
Each booking is invoiced with the tax taken out of the price correctly — divided, not subtracted — and the month's VAT comes out added up, with the credit for the platform's fee already in it.
See how it worksAbout this article. The quotations are from Airbnb's own tax guide for Costa Rica. That short-term lodging is taxable, and that the provider is the taxpayer, comes from the VAT Act; Airbnb's registration as a collector of digital services VAT, from its own announcement of 1 June 2023.
Verified as of 24 September 2026. Tax rules change. This is information, not tax advice.
Sources: Ministry of Finance Current legal texts (Sinalevi)