Edinburgh Visitor Levy to be spent through participatory budgeting
Edinburgh council has been moving forward with its plans to introduce a visitor levy, sometime known as a tourist tax. It hopes to raise over £50m through the levy, and there are reported plans that £2million of the money raised would be used to fund PB in Edinburgh over three years.
On July 4th 2025 the Edinburgh Reporter provided more details of how the levy might work, and back in January 2025 Edinburgh Council put forward some initial proposals for the scheme. Edinburgh Council has also recently published the results of its consultation on the visitor levy, based on those proposals. In relation to PB, its survey found:
“Most residents (70%) and businesses (51%) are happy with the proportion allocated to participatory budgeting (PB) or think more should be spent on this, whereas visitors support other priorities such as culture, heritage and events or destination and visitor management … Engagement responses on this point have been overall positive, but several respondents commented that it is crucial that the requirements of the legislation are still met, i.e. PB spend still needs to ‘sustain, support or develop things that are substantially for or used by visitors’. There have also been queries around why this is 2% and not a fixed amount as that would make the PB process easier and more transparent to manage, but other comments were received around how this should remain a percentage to ensure proportionality.”
A forum has been set up to advise on the future development of the visitor levy and recently met for the first time. As its currently uncertain how much the visitor levy may raise, its not confirmed exactly how the PB process will work, or if it will be based on a percentage or a fixed amount. However, either way, its going to be a significant amount and an innovative way to use a tourist tax.
Read the January 2025 proposal from Edinburgh City Council
Results of the consultation published on the 16th June 2025
Read the article from the Edinburgh Reporter