Dog owners face tourist tax in beautiful European town | World | News

Tourists bringing their dogs to the beautiful northern Italian city of Bolzano may soon find themselves paying a little extra not for their own stay, but for their pet’s. Starting in 2026, authorities in Bolzano, the capital of South Tyrol, intend to implement a tourist tax specifically for dogs, charging £1.31 per night per animal, in a bid to offset the growing costs of managing pet waste and maintaining public areas. Local dog owners will also be required to pay an annual fee of around £87 under the proposed legislation, according to Italian media reports.

The money raised would be used to fund street cleaning, maintain green spaces, and build designated dog parks and waste facilities. Provincial Councillor Luis Walcher, who introduced the proposal, said: “This is a fair measure because it concerns dog owners exclusively.

“Otherwise, sidewalk cleaning would be the responsibility of the entire community, when it must be said that the only filth on our city streets is dog waste.”

The dog tax follows a controversial DNA tracking initiative introduced last year to identify owners who failed to pick up after their pets.

Under that scheme, dog owners were required to submit their pet’s DNA to a provincial database, allowing authorities to match uncollected dog waste to specific animals.

The program was ultimately scrapped due the difficulities in implementing it. Despite fines of over £900 for non-compliance, only around 12,000 out of 30,000 dog owners were registered, The New York Times reported. 

Dog owners whose pets are already in the DNA registry will be exempt from the new local tax for two years, Walcher confirmed.

However, not everyone agrees with the measure.

Carla Rocchi of the Italian National Animal Protection Agency, said: “After the resounding and costly failure of the absurd dog DNA project, instead of focusing on civic education, targeted checks, and citizen awareness, we’re once again choosing the easy way out: taxing animals and their owners. 

“This measure not only penalises families and tourists who choose to travel with their dogs, but also sends a profoundly flawed message: turning animals into taxpayers’ cash machines.

“ENPA reminds us that pets are not a luxury, but an integral part of families. Targeting them with new taxes doesn’t solve the problems of incivility experienced by a few, but risks only discouraging responsible travel and, even worse, encouraging abandonment.”

Mayor Claudio Corrarati also told RTL radio: “We would be dogs to impose a tax on dogs.”