If you pay for a hotel room in New Orleans, you owe hotel-room tax, collected by the lodging provider when you pay the room fee. The charges depend on the hotel’s room capacity and whether it collects the Tourism Support Assessment. Your advertised room price is therefore not necessarily the amount you will pay.
To estimate the bill, separate the room charge and mandatory property fees from percentage taxes and the nightly occupancy charge. A temporary card hold is different again: it can reduce your available funds without being part of the accommodation bill.
Hotel tax rates and nightly charges
| Criterion | 9 or fewer rooms | 10–299 rooms | 300–999 rooms | 1,000 or more rooms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Combined percentage room tax | 17% | 15%Best | 15%Best | 15%Best |
| Separate charge per occupied room per night | Not applicableBest | $0.50 | $1 | $2 |
| Additional Tourism Support Assessment | Not eligibleBest | 1.75% if eligible and collected | 1.75% if eligible and collected | 1.75% if eligible and collected |
The hotel-room tax schedule applies to rooms within the corporate limits of the City of New Orleans. As a paying guest, you owe hotel-room tax, which the lodging provider collects when you pay the room fee. Use the property’s total guest-room capacity to identify its case, not the number of rooms you book. A smaller hotel has the higher percentage rate, while larger hotels have a separate nightly charge, so size alone does not tell you which stay will cost less.
The Tourism Support Assessment is conditional, rather than a charge every hotel collects. The operator must belong to the tourism organisation levying it, such as the Convention and Visitors Bureau or New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation. The organisation’s governing body must authorise the assessment, and the assessed hotels must ratify it in a referendum.
For assessment purposes, qualifying hotels provide rooms to transient guests for dwelling, lodging or sleeping. Hospitals, nursing or convalescent homes and sanitariums are excluded, as is hospital- or clinic-connected lodging exclusively for patients and their families. The assessment applies to the daily room charge.
Ask the property which capacity case it falls into and whether it collects the assessment. Use this lodging-specific schedule rather than adding a general sales-tax rate to your estimate. The combined percentage is the room-tax rate, while the assessment and nightly occupancy charge are separate lines.
Calculate the full room bill
- Multiply the quoted room price by the number of nights to establish the room subtotal.
- Add mandatory resort or destination fees associated with the room to the percentage-tax base, even when separately stated.
- Apply the combined percentage room-tax rate for the hotel’s capacity case to that taxable subtotal.
- If collected, calculate the Tourism Support Assessment separately on the daily room charge across your stay.
- Multiply the applicable nightly occupancy charge by the occupied rooms and nights, then add the room subtotal, mandatory fees, percentage tax, assessment and nightly charge.
The taxable room-charge base is the rent or fee charged for paid occupancy. Separating the assessment calculation from percentage room tax keeps their stated bases distinct, particularly when a quote includes mandatory property fees.
For a hypothetical stay, take one room for three nights at $200 per night in a 10–299-room hotel collecting the assessment, with no mandatory property fees. The calculation is:
- Room subtotal: $200 × 3 = $600.
- Percentage room tax: $600 × 15% = $90.
- Tourism Support Assessment: $600 × 1.75% = $10.50.
- Accumulated nightly charge: $0.50 × 3 = $1.50.
- Payable accommodation total: $600 + $90 + $10.50 + $1.50 = $702.
Compare itemised accommodation totals, not headline room prices. Request the property’s classification and capacity case, the room subtotal, mandatory fees, included taxes and assessment, and the final itemised total. If taxes are already included in a quote, do not add them again.
Mandatory fees and card holds
For short-term lodging offers in the US, the prominent total price must include all mandatory fees up front. Businesses must describe fees accurately and display that total more prominently than other pricing information. A mandatory property fee is part of the cost of taking the room, even if the hotel gives it a separate name.
An optional purchase, such as a breakfast you choose to add, is different from an unavoidable fee. A temporary card authorisation is different from either: it reserves funds or credit rather than settling a charge.
Ask what will be charged and what will merely be held on your card. Request the hold amount and the property’s release arrangements, and allow for it when considering your available spending money. The hold should not be added to your accommodation total as though it were another tax.
Long stays, overseas visitors and rentals
A room rented to the same occupant for 30 or more consecutive days is exempt from New Orleans’ hotel occupancy privilege tax. This is the named occupancy-tax exemption, not a blanket exemption from every tax or charge on a long hotel stay. Ask the property to identify that line when explaining your bill.
Overseas visitor status alone gives no hotel-tax exemption or refund entitlement. Eligible foreign mission personnel or dependants may qualify with a valid US Department of State tax-exemption card, subject to the applicable card and lodging conditions.
New Orleans classifies a residential short-term rental as all or part of a residential dwelling rented for fewer than 30 consecutive days. Hotels, motels, bed-and-breakfasts and other separately defined and regulated uses are excluded from that residential rental framework. Identify the accommodation’s classification before using the hotel calculation: a residential rental is not simply another hotel-capacity case.
Query an unexpected charge
Do
- Keep the booking quote and itemised receipt together.
- Ask the property to identify the basis of an unexpected charge and correct an error.
Don’t
- Assume an unexplained surcharge is government tax.
- Dispute a bill without retaining the records showing what was quoted and charged.
Match the disputed line to the quote: is it a property fee, a percentage tax, an assessment or the nightly occupancy charge? A disputed property fee and incorrectly collected government tax need different treatment. Ask for a corrected itemised receipt if the property changes the bill, so the explanation and amounts remain clear.
The guest who paid hotel occupancy tax collected in error may initiate a refund claim with the Louisiana Department of Revenue. The Department administers that process. Retain the billing records that explain the error for which you are claiming a refund.
Sources & fact-checking
Checks against the sources below cover: fares and charges, as well as services.
- Federal Trade Commission — service
- Louisiana Department of Revenue — service
- City of New Orleans — service
- U.S. Department of State, Office of Foreign Missions — service
- Louisiana Legislature — service
- City of New Orleans Bureau of Revenue — fares and charges
- New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority — fares and charges
- Louisiana Department of Revenue; City of New Orleans Bureau of Revenue — service
