The Maldives isn’t exactly known as a budget travel destination, but is instead known for its endless resorts with overwater villas. Well, a vacation to the Maldives is about to become even more expensive, as the country is greatly increasing its airport fees for travelers, along with increasing some other taxes.
The Maldives’ new $50-240 airport departure tax
For tickets issued as of December 1, 2024, the Maldives will be hiking the taxes that it charges air travelers (this is based on ticketing date, and not travel date). This applies for travelers with itineraries departing the Maldives, and the fees will be included in ticket prices, so they don’t have to be paid in person.
Specifically, travelers can expect to pay the following between the airport departure tax and airport development fee when departing from Male’s Velana International Airport (MLE):
- Economy class passengers will have to pay a $50 tax (compared to $30 before)
- Business class passengers will have to pay a $120 tax (compared to $60 before)
- First class passengers will have to pay a $240 tax (compared to $90 before)
- Private jet passengers will have to pay a $480 tax (compared to $120 before)
As you can see, this represents a 67% to 300% increase in fees. The Maldives is now giving the UK a run for its money when it comes to airport taxes, given the UK’s steep Air Passenger Duty.
Note that this is the second increase to these airport taxes in the past few years. Shortly after the start of the pandemic, we saw the Maldives increase airport taxes significantly, and now the country is taking this to the next level.
What stands out most to me is that the fees don’t in any way reflect the length of an itinerary, So you’ll pay the same business class fee whether you’re taking a short hop over to Colombo, or are traveling all the way to New York.
The Maldives increasing other taxes & fees as well
It’s not just airport taxes and fees that will get more expensive in the Maldives, but also other aspects of a vacation there:
- As of January 2025, the Maldives will increase the daily green tax (levied on each tourist) from $6 to $12 for resorts with over 50 rooms, and from $3 to $6 for resorts with fewer than 50 rooms
- As of January 2025, resorts will be required to exchange $500 per tourist into local currency, for resorts with an average daily rate of over $800; the resort will have to do this, and not the tourist as such
- As of July 2025, the Maldives will increases its tourism goods and services tax from 16% to 17%
As you can see, these changes are all minor individually, but add up. The requirement to convert money into local currency impacts businesses more than individual tourists, but ultimately it amounts to an increased cost.
Bottom line
A vacation to the Maldives will soon become even more expensive. For tickets issued as of December 1, 2024, the country will drastically increase airport taxes. They’re currently $30-90, but will soon be $50-240, depending on the class of service. On top of that, the country will be increasing several other taxes, from sales tax to the daily green tax.
In general I’m opposed to tourist destinations putting up barriers to visiting, whether that come in the form of complicated visas, or expensive fees for entering or departing. That being said, for the Maldives I don’t think that’s totally unreasonable, since the country has to balance taking care of its citizens with its tourism industry.
However, the number of fees increasing seems extreme, and I don’t necessarily see this ending well. The Maldives has an ever-increasing number of properties opening, so you’d think the priority would be to add as few barriers to visiting as possible, so the country can maximize revenue based on the total number of visitors, rather than trying to extract more from each visitor.
I’m curious to see how this all works out, and if the country might backtrack a bit, as I’m sure resorts aren’t happy about all of these changes.
What do you make of the Maldives’ tax increases?
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