Going out for drinks? It’ll cost you dearly this summer
After months of drizzly rain and cold, this weekend finally brought proper terrace weather. What a treat! Well, that is, until the bill arrived – I’m shocked every single time – and it’s only going to get worse. A large part of this has to do with the enormous increase in the so-called precario tax.
You have to pay precario tax (precario) if you use a piece of land owned by the municipality. For example, by putting a terrace on it. And from this year, hospitality businesses have to pay considerably more precario tax for their terraces.
Absurd increase
Many hospitality businesses were absolutely stunned – or rather, completely STUNNED – when they received their 2023 precario tax assessment at the beginning of this week. The rates are enormously higher than on the last assessment, which dates from 2019. In the Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool, we read that café-restaurant De Duvel on Eerste van der Helststraat will see its annual precario tax rise from 2,500 to 8,000 euros, while the neighboring café Venster33 will go from 3,000 to 9,000 euros. A huge increase for businesses in De Pijp. Or how about the Irish pub O’Donnells on Marie Heinekenplein? There, the increase is from 5,000 to a whopping 35,000 euros!
Going out for drinks means paying up
And you know that, one way or another, this will be passed on to the customer. The Cheesy Chicken Burger here now costs 14.50 euros, but probably not for long. And of course, that applies across the board. According to Evers of Koninklijke Horeca Nederland (KHN), the rates are so high that many are wondering whether operating terraces is ‘still viable in this way’. Maarten Foek of De Groene Vlinder on Albert Cuypstraat makes no bones about it. ‘Ultimately, the customer will have to foot the bill for this increase.’ A beer already costs 4 euros here, so brace yourself…
Corona, again…
Where does that huge increase come from? Well, it has to do with corona. In 2018, the municipality was planning to increase the revenue from precario tax on terraces, but because of corona and the mandatory closures of hospitality businesses, the municipality decided not to levy precario tax in 2020, 2021 and 2022. “During this period, the municipality did not collect 11.6 million euros in terrace precario tax,” a spokesperson for the alderman for Finance told the newspaper. As a result, the increase decided on in 2019 is only now becoming noticeable.
Read also:
- Dutch people don’t want to pay for tap water on a terrace
- 9 sneaky tricks supermarkets use to make you pay more
- Keuringsdienst van Waarde: water filters are a scam
Source: Het Parool
