Hayward City Council to consider hotel tax increase

The Hayward City Council will consider on Tuesday a recommendation to increase the City’s Transit Occupancy Tax (TOT) that is imposed on guests staying in Hayward hotels and in other forms of short-term lodging in the City.

The Council is being asked to increase the TOT, also known as the hotel tax, to help close a multimillion-dollar deficit in the City of Hayward General Fund. The General Fund pays for most non-utility-related municipal services, primarily police services, fire protection and emergency medical response.

In 2020, the City of Hayward completed an analysis that determined that Hayward’s TOT rate of 8.5 percent at the time was the lowest in the region. On Nov. 3, 2020, Measure NN was passed by 72 percent of City voters, authorizing the City to raise the TOT rate to up to 14 percent. Citing pandemic-related economic concerns at the time, the Council instead chose to defer an increase, and then later, on July 1, 2025, increased the rate to 12 percent.

The legislation to be taken up at the Council meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 16, would increase the TOT rate from 12 percent to 14 percent, as provided for under Measure NN.

In the 2025 Fiscal Year that ended on June 30, the Hayward TOT generated $2.3 million in revenue for the City’s General Fund when the rate was 8.5 percent. The City was projecting the 12-percent TOT to generate $3.3 million in the current 2026 Fiscal Year. An increase in the TOT rate from 12 percent to 14 percent is projected to generate about $230,000 of additional revenue this fiscal year.