Bad Kreuznach charges a Gästebeitrag (visitor contribution), not a percentage-based hotel/city tax: EUR 3.50 per taxable person per overnight stay, effective from 1 January 2024. It applies citywide to guests staying in accommodation without a main residence in the city. Guests staying more than 40 nights in a year pay an annual flat contribution of EUR 140 per person; holders of a second or additional dwelling pay an annual flat contribution, also set at EUR 140. The contribution is collected from the guest by the accommodation provider and is included in the amount stated by the city as including VAT.
Children under 18 are exempt. Persons staying for documented education or vocational training, and persons visiting relatives temporarily without paying accommodation, are not liable. Exemptions also cover participants and supervisors of youth sports/leisure events organized by local clubs, bedridden or otherwise ill persons unable to leave their accommodation, and severely disabled persons with a degree of disability of at least 80% when documented; a necessary accompanying person is also exempt when the need for accompaniment is recorded in the disability documentation. The tourism page additionally states that documented professional training/continuing education is exempt.
The bylaw treats paid accommodation, campsites, motorhome pitches and mobile-home holiday facilities as Beherbergungsbetriebe, so short-term rentals fall within the collection system. Each taxable guest must complete and sign the city’s prescribed registration form on arrival. The host must provide the forms, ensure guests complete them, retain them for one year from arrival, protect them from unauthorized access, present them to the city on request, collect the visitor contribution, remit it to the city by the 15th of the following month, report non-payment within three days, and submit a monthly overnight-stay/contribution statement by the 10th of the following month, including a nil return. No registration-number, Wohnraumschutz or Zweckentfremdungsverbot requirement was stated in the official sources reviewed.