Advertise your job vacancies

Subscribe & Follow

Interviews

Digital nomads row — Cape Town mayor suggests tax on short-term rentals to protect locals

Cape Town’s problems with digital nomads are well documented – from claims of driving up rental costs to causing a shortage of accommodation, particularly in the centre of town. What is to be done? Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says one option is to put everyone on an equal footing by implementing suitable taxes on short-term rentals.

By Suné Payne

14 Feb 2025

Source: Pexels.

Hill-Lewis says a process is under way to change tariffs for those operating short-term rentals, adding that there needs to be an “equal playing field” in the accommodation sector.

As reported, digital nomads occupy short term-rentals along the Atlantic Seaboard, much to the ire of residents, who feel they are being priced out of accommodation in the city as owners rent out apartments and homes to digital nomads who spend weeks working remotely.

Advocacy project Inside Airbnb reported there were about 25,816 listed rentals on the short-term rental platform by 28 December 2024, largely concentrated along the Atlantic Seaboard, in the southern suburbs and along the city’s coast.

Read the full article on Daily Maverick here.

Source: Daily Maverick

Daily Maverick is a unique blend of news, information, analysis and opinion delivered from our newsrooms in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa. There are many ways to describe exactly what we do (and for the price of a cup of coffee we’re capable of talking your ears off about it), but the best way to understand the end result is to experience it. Every part of Daily Maverick is free-to-air and no payment is required, although free registration is required for a small subset of functions and pages.

Daily Maverick is run by an independently owned, private company with no affiliation to any other media group (or political party or religious organisation.) Follow Daily Maverick on Twitter at @dailymaverick.

Go to: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/