Campsite: VAT, seasonality and mobile-home depreciation in 2026

Quick answer. A campsite splits its VAT across several rates (accommodation and catering at 10%, alcohol and sundry sales at 20%), treats the tourist tax as a third-party account rather than income, reads its operation smoothed over twelve months to absorb a season concentrated into a few weeks, and depreciates its mobile-home fleet over a short period, often 5 to 10 years. Four points where a mistake lastingly distorts the result.

You run a campsite or an open-air hospitality business, and your accounting is anything but standard. Your revenue concentrates into a few weeks, your costs run all year, your invoicing mixes several VAT rates within a single stay, and your accommodation fleet is a heavy asset to renew. Handled poorly, these four topics weaken both your reported result and your real cash position. Handled well, they become management levers.

We support campsite and open-air operators, and we find the same blocking points come back file after file. Here is how to secure them.

A single customer invoice can mix several VAT rates. That is the specific feature of your activity: a stay often combines a pitch, a mobile-home rental, bar consumption and shop purchases, which do not fall under the same regime.

The logic is as follows:

• Accommodation (bare pitch, rental, mobile home, light leisure dwelling) falls under the reduced 10% rate.
• On-site catering also falls under the reduced 10% rate.
• Alcoholic drinks, the shop, sundry sales and certain rentals fall under the standard 20% rate.

The risk appears when the till aggregates everything at a single rate, or when an all-inclusive package (full-board stay, weekend deal) is not properly broken down into its components. You then collect too much or too little VAT and expose the business to a reassessment in the event of an inspection. The rule is simple: the correct settings are made upstream, in the till and booking software, never at filing time.

Hayot Expertise tip. Before each season, have your accountant review the mapping of your till items. Half a day of configuration avoids twelve VAT returns to correct and a recovery risk over three financial years.

The tourist tax is collected from holidaymakers on behalf of the municipality (or the local authority grouping), then remitted to it. It does not belong to you: you are merely a collection intermediary.

The accounting consequence is clear: the tourist tax passes through a third-party account and must never inflate turnover. It is one of the most frequent errors we correct in files we take over. When the tax is recorded as income, two negative effects combine: your turnover appears overstated, which can distort ratios or a threshold calculation, and the reading of any inspection becomes confused.

Here is the distinction to keep in mind between what is income and what is not:

Most of your revenue concentrates in the high season, sometimes over eight to twelve weeks, while a significant share of your costs runs all year: insurance, depreciation, network maintenance, banking fees, permanent payroll. If you read your operation month by month without adjustment, you see massive losses in winter and a summer peak that says nothing about real profitability.

The right approach comes down to two reflexes:

1. Smooth the reading over twelve months. Recurring costs are attached to the whole financial year and you think in annual margin, not in raw monthly balance. It is the only way to know whether the season actually covered the year.
2. Anticipate low-season cash. The result can be good while cash is tight in March or November. You build a cash-flow plan that identifies the trough and, if needed, sizes a reserve or a short-term financing line.

This management of seasonal cash flow matches the issues that apply to any sharply cyclical activity, and it conditions your ability to invest in fleet renewal without a liquidity gap.

Your accommodation fleet is a heavy asset that wears out fast and is renewed regularly. The depreciation period must reflect actual useful life, not a theoretical convention.

In open-air hospitality practice:

• Mobile homes and light leisure dwellings are depreciated over a short period, often 5 to 10 years, aligned with the actual renewal pace of your fleet. An exposed, heavily rented fleet on a damp site renews faster than a protected one.
• The pool, water and electricity networks, reception buildings are depreciated over long periods, consistent with their durability.
• Furniture, appliances and outdoor equipment follow intermediate periods.

The choice of period is not neutral: it weighs on the result, therefore on tax, and on the net book value of the fleet if you are considering a sale or a transfer. It is a trade-off to set with your accountant, in line with your renewal plan.

A few situations fall outside the standard framework and deserve dedicated analysis:

• All-inclusive packages. A package mixing accommodation at 10% and services at 20% must be split using a defensible key, otherwise the tax authority may apply the higher rate to the whole.
• Resale of second-hand mobile homes. Removing a depreciated mobile home and reselling it generates a gain or loss that must be treated correctly, and a specific VAT regime in some cases.
• The campsite and tourist-residence mix. When the business shifts towards long-term rental or serviced residence, the VAT regime and the analysis change.

• A poorly configured till at the start of the season contaminates a whole year of VAT returns.
• Tourist tax recorded as income overstates turnover and confuses any inspection.
• Depreciation spread over too long a period artificially inflates the result and short-term tax, and masks the fleet's real wear.
• Seasonal payroll falls under the open-air hospitality collective agreement, with its own rules on short contracts and hours: a point to frame before hiring, not after.

A firm's value lies not in posting entries, but in making these four points reliable and giving the operator a monthly reading that accounts for the season.

On a family campsite file we took over last year, we found two classic discrepancies: the tourist tax had been booked as income for several financial years, and the till applied a single 10% rate to all sales, bar included. The first overstated turnover and the second under-collected VAT on alcoholic drinks. Once corrected, the restated result was more modest but accurate, low-season cash was finally readable, and the recovery risk was contained. Our conviction: on this type of business, the reliability of the till settings and the correct reading of the tourist tax are worth more than any year-end trick.

Every business has its own accommodation, catering and services mix, and seasonal payroll completes the topic. To go further, discover our support for campsites and open-air hospitality, our bookkeeping and accounts review suited to seasonal activities, and our payroll and HR management for your summer contracts. Our chartered accountancy firm follows your operation throughout the season.