Montego Bay tourist taxes 2026: US$20 on arrival plus up to US$4 per room per night

The fee you pay on arrival

Every visitor flying into Jamaica pays US$20 in 2026. The Tourism Enhancement Fund, the government agency that collects the money, sets out on its own site that the 2017 amendment to the Tourism Enhancement Act provides for "A Tourism Enhancement Fee of US$20.00 to be charged to incoming airline passengers and US$2.00 to be charged to cruise passengers." Airlines collect it inside the ticket price, so most people landing at Sangster International never see it as a separate line.

The nightly room tax

Tax Administration Jamaica levies a Guest Accommodation Room Tax on every occupied room. Its published table gives US$1 for the smallest properties, US$2 for the middle band and US$4 for properties of "101 rooms and above", charged per room per night rather than per person. Most of the large Montego Bay resorts sit in the top band. The tax has applied since 1 September 2012, and the tax authority states that complimentary rooms attract it too.

A worked example

Two people, seven nights, one resort of more than 101 rooms. The room tax is US$4 times 7, which is US$28 for the room, not for each guest. Add the arrival fee of US$20 each and the fixed government charges for that trip come to US$68, before the general consumption tax that applies to the room rate itself.

One thing is genuinely unclear: the room bands as published overlap, listing 1 to 51 rooms and then 51 to 100 rooms, so a property with exactly 51 rooms is ambiguous on the page itself.

Sources: Tourism Enhancement Fund, Our Story and Tax Administration Jamaica, Guest Accommodation Room Tax.

More on Montego Bay: places, reviews and what travelers say went wrong.