Guest Cards as Multi-Purpose Vouchers under German VAT Law

• The Munich Fiscal Court held that guest cards given to overnight guests are multi-purpose vouchers under German VAT law (§ 3(15) UStG).
• The court said these guest cards are not comparable to tickets or admission passes.
• In the guest card model, service partners provide services to the guest/cardholder, not to the card operator.
• Payments from the card operator to service partners are treated as third-party consideration for the guests’ services, so the operator cannot deduct input VAT on those passed-through amounts.
• Payments by hosts to the card operator are taxable only to the extent of the administration fee component.

Source: datenbank.nwb.de

Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.

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