Denver charges visitors less than almost any big city in America.
25th
of the 30 biggest US cities, in the tax a visitor pays on the room bill
The lodging tax is the tax a visitor pays on a hotel or Airbnb bill. This page is the table, the proposal, and the math.
The short version
When a visitor books a room in Denver, a combined 15.75% in lodging taxes rides the bill, and the city's share goes into the same budget that pays for streets, parks, and everything else. Only 5 of America's 30 biggest cities charge visitors less than we do.
I want to raise Denver's share by 3 points. That puts the combined rate at 18.75%, still below what a visitor pays in Austin today. They can pick up more of the tab for the city we all live in.
Visitors get a weekend here. We get the whole year.
The table
Combined lodging tax a visitor pays in each of the 30 biggest US cities, compiled from each city's published rates in September 2026.
| Rank | City | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Memphis, TN † | 19.98% |
| 2 | Austin, TX | 19.34% |
| 3 | Chicago, IL | 18.90% |
| 4 | Nashville, TN † | 18.29% |
| 5 | San Antonio, TX | 18.21% |
| 6 | Columbus, OH | 18.00% |
| 7 | Seattle, WA | 18.00% |
| 8 | Oklahoma City, OK | 17.88% |
| 9 | San Francisco, CA | 17.70% |
| 10 | El Paso, TX | 17.50% |
| 11 | Baltimore, MD | 17.50% |
| 12 | Dallas, TX | 17.30% |
| 13 | Fort Worth, TX | 17.30% |
| 14 | Houston, TX | 17.00% |
| 15 | Indianapolis, IN | 17.00% |
| 16 | Louisville, KY | 17.00% |
| 17 | New York, NY † | 16.90% |
| 18 | Detroit, MI | 16.50% |
| 19 | Boston, MA | 16.45% |
| 20 | Philadelphia, PA | 16.25% |
| 21 | Los Angeles, CA | 16.20% |
| 22 | Portland, OR | 16.00% |
| 23 | San Diego, CA | 15.95% |
| 24 | Washington, DC | 15.95% |
| 25 | Denver, CO | 15.75% |
| 26 | San Jose, CA † | 15.73% |
| 27 | Charlotte, NC | 15.25% |
| 28 | Jacksonville, FL | 13.50% |
| 29 | Las Vegas, NV | 13.38% |
| 30 | Phoenix, AZ | 13.07% |
† Published as an effective combined rate. Denver's 15.75% is the bill at a hotel with 50 or more rooms: the city lodger's tax of 10.75%, the 1% tourism improvement district charge those hotels collect, and 4% in state and special district sales taxes, per the city's own tax guide topic 52. Smaller hotels and most short-term rentals bill 14.75%.
What 3 points is worth
Denver publishes what the lodger's tax collects. Recent years, from the city's own budget documents:
The arithmetic: collections divided by the 10.75% rate gives the taxable room base, and 3 points on that base is the new revenue. On 2024 collections that's $149,671,000 ÷ 10.75% × 3%, about $41,800,000 a year. Run it on 2023 and you get about $42,900,000. Call it roughly $40 million a year, and every figure above links to its source so you can run it yourself.
Voters decide, and that's the point
Under TABOR, a council member can't raise a tax. Council refers it to the ballot and Denver voters make the call. I think that's a feature. Colorado has already run this play, twice in one night.
Voters raised their lodging tax by 3.5 points, from 2% to 5.5%, with 63% of the vote, dedicated to workforce housing and childcare.
Voters put a 9% tax on short-term rentals with 63% of the vote to fund affordable housing.
Tourists' beds, voters' call.
Does a higher rate scare visitors off?
Nashville's combined rate is 18.29%, higher than Denver's would be after this raise, and Davidson County set an all-time record in 2024 with $11.2 billion in visitor spending. Visitors pick the city, not the tax line on the room bill.
The research agrees. A 2021 Tourism Economics study tracked 8 US destinations before and after lodging tax increases and found hotels "absorbed any tax increases with little impact to their businesses"; the study argues the real question is how the money gets spent. The copy we read is hosted on Visit Estes Park's own website, and Estes Park voters went on to raise their lodging tax 3.5 points. It isn't alone:
change in hotel revenue, not statistically significant. National Tax Journal, 1992
on hotel sales or employment, establishment-level data. Economic Development Quarterly, 2022
bookings, with guests bearing most of the tax. Review of Economics and Statistics, 2021
There's a pattern in this literature worth naming. Every study predicting big damage is a simulation, and every one of those simulations was commissioned by the lodging industry. The studies that measured real increases mostly found hotels absorbed them. And no measured study anywhere finds a lodging tax cutting spending at local restaurants and shops; that claim lives only in the industry's models. If somebody finds one, send it and this page will quote it.
The arithmetic underneath all of this: lodging runs 25 to 30% of what a domestic trip costs, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, so 3 points on the room raises the cost of the whole vacation by roughly 0.8%. Nobody cancels a trip over 0.8%.
The Airbnb part
Denver has 2,385 licensed short-term rentals as of September 16, 2026, per Denver Excise and Licenses, and every license requires the home to be the host's primary residence. Lodging taxes apply to those bookings the same as hotel rooms, so when the rate moves, it moves for the whole market: the visitor pays it wherever they sleep.
What I'd do on council
Write the referral, publish this math next to it, and put it on your ballot. I have big ideas for this city, but I also have ways to pay for them.