The VAT Rise That Landed On 1 January
Hotels, pensions and holiday accommodation businesses in the Netherlands charge 21 per cent VAT on stays from 1 January 2026. The rate was 9 per cent. The Belastingplan 2025 abolished the reduced rate for short-stay accommodation and moved the supply to the general tariff.
The rate follows the stay date. A guest who paid in 2025 for a stay in 2026 or later pays 21 per cent. The same rule catches single-use vouchers bought for a stay in 2026 or later.
German Bookings At Landal Are 50 Per Cent Down
De Gelderlander reported that German bookings at Landal are running 50 per cent lower than a year earlier. Hospitality Management and Bed & Breakfast Nieuws carried the figure on 18 August 2026. Both drew on an analysis by ING.
Germans account for roughly a quarter of Landal's rental turnover, according to that coverage. Landal has not confirmed the 50 per cent figure.
Hiswa-Recron Counts 10 To 20 Per Cent Fewer Germans
Hiswa-Recron reported 10 to 20 per cent fewer Germans at Dutch holiday parks. Coastal locations, border regions and the upper segment carry the heaviest decline, according to the same coverage.
Germans are the largest group of foreign visitors to the Netherlands, with 7.4 million overnight guests. In Zeeland, along the coast, in Limburg and near the German border, the change lands on the booking calendar.
The Cost Stack Under The Room Rate
The VAT increase sits on top of costs that were already climbing. Hospitality wage costs are up 25 per cent since 2020. Tourist tax in 2025 averaged 31.4 per cent higher than in 2021. Both figures come from the ING analysis carried by Hospitality Management and Bed & Breakfast Nieuws on 18 August 2026.
The same analysis puts German and Belgian rates below the Dutch rate. The guest sees the cross-border gap at the point of booking.
How The Germans Changed The Way They Book
A guest post on the RoomPriceGenie site describes three shifts. German guests hesitate longer and pick cheaper periods more often. They book later, and last-minute bookings keep rising. Higher costs push some of them across the border. The writer is Harriet Holst, and the post carries the date 6 October 2026.
The post states that competitors are cutting rates. It states that Landal is running discount campaigns at scale and refers to an internal report whose results fall short of expectations. The post names no source for that report, and no figure from it is verifiable in public coverage.
What The Pricing Advice Says
The post advises three moves. Hold the rate on nights with strong demand, such as holidays, events and sunny weekends. Get competitive earlier on quiet dates, before the guest commits to a cheaper week elsewhere. Reprice every day as last-minute demand arrives.
Its case against blanket discounting is arithmetic. A discount applies to nights that would have sold at the full rate. The property gives away revenue on its strongest dates to rescue its quietest ones. The post puts the alternative as pricing each night on its own demand.
The Vendor Numbers In The Post
RoomPriceGenie states that in a study of 567 hotels across nine countries, room revenue rose 19 per cent on average year over year. It states that owners save around 10 hours a week on pricing, that more than 4,000 hotels in 65 countries work with the company, and that 97 per cent recommend it on HotelTechReport. Those are the company's own figures. None of them was independently audited.
The VAT rate is set by national policy and cannot be changed at property level. The booking pace, the rate on each night and the speed of reaction sit inside the hotel.