Zanzibar infrastructure tax 2026: 1 to 5 US dollars per person per night

The tax

Hotel guests in Zanzibar pay an infrastructure tax of 1 to 5 US dollars per person per day in 2026. The Zanzibar Revenue Board describes it on its own infrastructure tax page as a tax collected and allocated to infrastructure services in Zanzibar, and gives the hotel rate as ranging from 1 to 5 dollars per person per day depending on the hotel star rate. Rooms located underwater are charged separately at 10 dollars per person per day.

What a stay costs

Two people spending seven nights at a property charged at the top of the band pay 5 dollars each a night, so 70 dollars across the stay. At the bottom of the band the same trip costs 14 dollars. Either way it is settled at the property, in cash or on the final bill, and it is added to a room rate that may already have been paid in full at booking.

Where it comes from

The revenue board lists the legal basis as the Infrastructure Tax 2015, consolidated in 2025, alongside the Tax Administration and Procedures Act of 2009. The same tax also falls on diesel and petrol at 100 shillings a litre and on electricity at 2 percent, so the hotel line is one part of a wider levy.

What the board does not publish on that page is which star rating maps to which dollar amount, so the exact nightly figure for a given hotel is only knowable from the hotel itself.

Sources: zanrevenue.org, zanrevenue.org.

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