17% Only Sometimes

Turkey is about to cap what the booking platforms can take out of a stay. The cap that was adopted is not the cap that was tabled.

The bill as tabled in August capped the platform's take at 17% of the sale price, under whatever name, with no geographic limit. At the committee sitting on 6 October, Booking.com's representative asked for it to be confined to reservations made from Turkey to Turkey. The culture and tourism deputy minister made the same point about international competitiveness. The committee adopted exactly that, and its own stated reason is one phrase: in conformity with the scope of the regulation. The report was distributed on 13 October and the bill sits at item 124 of 124 on the floor agenda.

Cutting the other way: the deputy minister said 17% sits below the rates the platforms actually apply.

The tax base. The tabled text excluded value added tax; the adopted text excludes all taxes, in every case, and the reasoning names the accommodation tax too. But the committee moved that rule into a new paragraph 9 and left article 6 alone, and article 6 penalises only paragraph 8. The one change that helps on inbound bookings has nothing behind it.

The permit. Commencement is 1 January 2027, platforms then have three months to apply, and the fee is 5 million lira indexed each January, with a presidential power to halve or double it. One that does not apply faces a ministerial blocking order that goes to a criminal judge within 24 hours and lapses if the judge does not rule within 48.

Your liability. The platform must verify and display your permit number, and where it does not, the penalty imported is the existing host-side regime under law 7464. For a Turkish unit without a permit this is a delisting risk on top of what you already carry, not a commission saving. And you could not enforce the cap yourself; the ministry applies the sanctions.

The drafting. Two terms carry all of it and neither is defined, from within the country to within the country, and sale price. Article 7 hands both to the ministry.

Denmark's consultation on powers to order a platform to remove adverts or block bookings closes at noon tomorrow. And the Treasury said again on 19 October that VAT is charged on the full amount paid including an overnight visitor levy, having said the same on 17 September, with the Budget 8 days away.

Daily Message: the cap you read about and the cap that was adopted are not the same cap.