Introducing the Visitor Levy team

Post by Ry, Content Designer, Welsh Revenue Authority (WRA)

You may have read about our work on visitor accommodation registration in previous WRA blog posts. But we’ll also provide another service for visitor accommodation providers to file and pay their Visitor Levy. And we’re ready to start sharing how we go about it.

In March 2026, Cardiff Council announced it’ll introduce the levy from 1 April 2027. The levy is an additional charge on overnight stays in visitor accommodation, such as hotels, campsites and Airbnbs. Accommodation providers will pay the levy to the WRA.

Accommodation providers in Cardiff can read our quick guide to make sure they’re ready by 28 September 2026.

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg

Who we are

As the Visitor Levy team at the WRA, we’re made up of a diverse group of people, each covering a different profession, such as:

• law makers and policy advisers who make sure Visitor Levy meets all its legal rules and policy needs
• product owner and business analysts who oversee that the service delivery matches what the policy has planned
• technology developers and architects who make sure the service has no technical issues, runs smoothly and people’s details are secure
• user researchers and designers who talk to the accommodation providers and translate their needs into a service that can be used by everyone

Together, we’re creating an easy-to-use service for accommodation providers in Wales.

What we’ve been doing

We started to prepare for the collection of Visitor Levy long before Cardiff’s announcement.

Our core team got together in 2025 when we started thinking how to turn Welsh Treasury’s plans into a successful Visitor Levy service.

Since then, we’ve been:

• learning what visitor accommodation providers want from our service
• outlining what the legal acts and regulations require us to do 
• building a secure environment for our digital service
• designing and testing the first service journeys and screens

What’s next

We will be posting monthly updates on how we progress.

Next month, we will be sharing our user research team’s journey of learning how visitor accommodation providers work and what they need from our service.

Have your say

If you are an accommodation provider in Wales, we would love to hear from you! Sign up to take part in user research on Visitor Levy and help us improve our service.

Please note: everything we share is work in progress and may change as we continue developing the service.