Cape Town’s New "Airbnb Tax" will Triple Your Rates. Forces Booking Sites to Hand Over Your Data

The Cape middle class already pays the country’s highest cost of living on some of its lowest incomes. About 27,000 Airbnbs are listed here. For a lot of owners renting out that extra room is how the month gets paid. The new by-law would force a home listed on Airbnb as Commercial. Commercial rates are 2.41 times residential. Same flat, 2.41x the rates before a night is booked. Booking sites must hand over your availability data, show a registration number, and pull the listing if you do not comply with the new tax. This is the hardest squeeze they have put on the middle class yet.