There is a levy in Sint Maarten that most accommodation operators know about, most villa owners have never heard of, and almost nobody accounts for correctly, because it is not a tax on the business at all. It is a tax on the guest, which the business is required to collect and hand over.
Room tax, logeergastenbelasting, is charged at 5% from guests who are not registered in the Sint Maarten civil registry, staying in hotels and other guesthouses, and that description extends to rentals of vacation villas and condos. Timeshare is dealt with differently, through a fixed charge of NAf 90, roughly USD 50, per week, assessed and paid in equal monthly instalments.
The reason this matters more than its size suggests is structural. Because the money was never yours, failing to collect it does not simply mean you owe a tax. It means you owe an amount you were supposed to have taken from somebody else and no longer can, and, as set out below, it also costs you a turnover tax exemption you would otherwise have had.
Room Tax and Turnover Tax Are Alternatives, Not a Stack
This is the point most operators get wrong, and the error runs in both directions. Room tax and turnover tax are not two charges that both land on the same room night. Article 8, paragraph 16 of the turnover tax legislation exempts the letting of hotel rooms and apartments from turnover tax if and to the extent that room tax applies to that revenue. The two levies are alternatives on the accommodation, a position the Tax Administration confirmed on 17 July 2026.
Read that carefully, because both of the tempting conclusions it invites are wrong:
- Charging the guest both levies on the same night is wrong. Where room tax applies, the turnover tax exemption applies to that revenue. An operator stacking 5% room tax and 5% turnover tax on the same accommodation is overcharging the guest.
- Staying outside the room tax does not save 5%. The exemption exists only to the extent room tax applies. Revenue on which room tax goes uncollected and unremitted loses the turnover tax exemption too, so the operator who skips room tax has not avoided a levy, they have swapped a charge the guest bears for one that comes out of their own margin, and on review they can face both.
The flip side is just as practical. Revenue from guests who are registered in the civil registry falls outside room tax, and therefore outside the exemption, so the operator owes turnover tax out of their own margin on precisely the stays the room tax rules leave alone. A ledger that splits revenue between registered and non-registered guests is not bookkeeping pedantry: it is the routine that determines which levy attaches to which dollar.
Room tax is collected from the guest; turnover tax on registered-guest revenue is the operator's own cost, and passing it on is a commercial choice rather than a given. Our guide to turnover tax covers that charge in full.
Who Has to Collect It
The description covers hotels and other guesthouses, and extends explicitly to vacation villas and condos. In practice that reaches a great deal further than the operators who think of themselves as being in the accommodation business.
It is worth establishing your position if you supply short-term accommodation in any of these forms:
- A hotel, guesthouse, inn or apartment hotel
- A villa let to visitors, whether directly, through an agent, or through a booking platform
- A condo unit let short term, including a unit inside a resort rental programme
- A property managed for an owner by a management company, where the question of who collects and remits has to be settled between you
The test for the guest is registration in the civil registry, under article 1 of the room tax ordinance, not tax residence. The two diverge in both directions: a person can be tax resident here without being registered, and registered without being tax resident. That makes the operational routine simple and specific: establish and record at booking or check-in whether the guest is registered in the civil registry, because that single fact decides whether the stay carries room tax or sits in your turnover tax base instead. "We assumed everyone was a visitor" is not a record.
Do not assume a platform handles it
Booking platforms collect and remit certain local taxes in certain territories, under arrangements that vary and change. Whether any given platform does so for your property in Sint Maarten, and for which specific levy, is something to verify directly rather than infer from a line item on a payout statement.
One further point matters here because of the exemption mechanics above. A platform remittance that does not run through your own filing does not discharge your own obligations, and revenue on which room tax is not properly collected and remitted fails the condition in article 8, paragraph 16, so the turnover tax exemption falls away on that revenue. Establish the answer in writing for each channel you sell through, and note that the answer can differ between your platform bookings and your direct ones.
Our guide to short-term rental tax covers the wider position for hosts, including the income tax treatment of the profit and what can be deducted.
Filing and Payment
Knowing the rate is the easy half. The obligations run on a calendar:
- Monthly remittance. Room tax received in a calendar month must be remitted before the fifteenth of the following month, accompanied by a signed statement. A missed remittance draws an immediately collectible provisional assessment carrying a surcharge, which converts a small collected levy into an enforcement event.
- The annual form. An annual return form is issued before 31 December and must be filed by its stated deadline. An operator who receives no form is not excused: they must request one before 15 January.
- Timeshare instalments. The fixed NAf 90 per week charge is assessed and paid in equal monthly instalments, with a statutory allocation between the accommodation price attributable to the unit and the annual maintenance fee.
Timeshare Sits Differently
Timeshare is not a practice that grew up informally: it is its own statutory regime within the ordinance, with the fixed weekly charge, the monthly instalment mechanism and the allocation rule described above, generally reaching the owner inside the annual maintenance fee.
That structure creates a specific situation worth naming. An owner who occupies their own week has paid the fixed charge through the maintenance fee. An owner who rents out their week to somebody else has stepped into a different activity, one that looks like short-term letting to a guest, and the position on that letting is not automatically covered by having paid the maintenance fee. Given the size of the timeshare market on this island, this is a live question for a large number of owners who have never asked it.
Running It Properly
The operational discipline is simple and it is almost entirely about records:
- Show it separately on the guest's bill. A visible line item is the cleanest evidence that it was collected and the easiest thing to reconcile.
- Keep the levy out of your revenue. It is not turnover. Booking it into your sales figures overstates your revenue, distorts your turnover tax base, and makes the reconciliation between the two impossible to run.
- Record civil registry status for every guest on a consistent basis at booking or check-in, because that status routes the revenue between room tax and turnover tax.
- Reconcile monthly, before the fifteenth. Nights sold, room tax collected, room tax remitted, and turnover tax due on registered-guest revenue. Figures that should agree, checked while you can still remember why they might not.
- Settle it in your management agreements. Where an agent or management company handles bookings, the contract should say who collects, who remits and who carries the exposure if it goes wrong. Silence on this point tends to be resolved against the owner.
If It Was Never Collected
This is the uncomfortable scenario, and it is common among villa and condo owners who have been letting for years without knowing the levy existed.
The difficulty is that the guests have gone. You cannot go back to somebody who stayed two years ago and ask for a charge that should have been on their bill, which means the amount comes out of your own pocket rather than being passed on as it should have been. And because uncollected room tax removes the turnover tax exemption on the same revenue, the historic exposure is not 5%: it is the room tax that should have been collected plus the turnover tax the exemption would have covered, plus surcharges. That makes historic exposure genuinely more painful than the headline rate suggests.
What not to do is quietly start collecting from now and hope the earlier period is not examined. An abrupt change in treatment is itself a signal, the earlier periods are where the exposure sits, and accommodation businesses leave a clear record of occupancy across booking platforms, management reports and bank deposits. Take advice on the disclosure position before contacting anyone, because the sequence affects the outcome.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I charge both room tax and turnover tax on a stay in Sint Maarten?
No. They are alternatives on accommodation revenue. Article 8, paragraph 16 of the turnover tax legislation exempts the letting of rooms and apartments from turnover tax if and to the extent that room tax applies, a position the Tax Administration confirmed on 17 July 2026.
Who pays room tax in Sint Maarten?
Guests who are not registered in the Sint Maarten civil registry pay 5% on stays in hotels, guesthouses, villas and condos. The operator collects it from the guest and remits it. Registered guests fall outside room tax, and that revenue is turnover taxed in the operator's hands instead.
When is Sint Maarten room tax filed and paid?
Room tax received in a calendar month must be remitted before the fifteenth of the following month with a signed statement. An annual form is issued before 31 December, and an operator who receives no form must request one before 15 January.
How does room tax work for timeshare in Sint Maarten?
Timeshare uses a fixed charge of NAf 90, roughly USD 50, per week instead of the 5%, assessed and paid in equal monthly instalments, generally reaching the owner inside the annual maintenance fee.
The Short Version
Room tax at 5% is charged to guests not registered in the Sint Maarten civil registry, staying in hotels, guesthouses, villas and condos, and the operator collects and remits it monthly, before the fifteenth. Timeshare uses a fixed NAf 90 weekly charge paid in monthly instalments. Room tax and turnover tax are alternatives on accommodation revenue, not a stack: where room tax is properly collected the letting is exempt from turnover tax, where the guest is registered the operator owes turnover tax instead, and where room tax simply goes uncollected the operator loses the exemption and can face both.
Because the money was always the guest's rather than yours, the cost of not collecting it falls entirely on you, and it cannot be recovered from guests who have already left.
If you let accommodation in Sint Maarten and are not certain your levies are being collected and remitted correctly, talk to us. Confirm current rates, the registration test and filing requirements directly with the Belastingdienst before relying on any figure here.