Booking Engine Plus: How taxes and fees appear on accommodation cards and in the cart

Gabriela Garcia

Updated November 10, 2026 19:52

Purpose	Understand how inclusive and exclusive taxes and fees affect accommodation-card prices and cart totals in Booking Engine Plus.
Best for	Property admins, general managers, and users responsible for Booking Engine pricing and tax configuration.
Use this when	You need to understand why the accommodation-card price may differ from the cart breakdown or choose whether exclusive taxes and fees appear in the displayed price.
Requirements	Booking Engine Plus and applicable taxes or fees configured for the Website/Booking Engine reservation source. Permission to edit Booking Engine settings is required to change price display.
Expected result	You can interpret displayed prices, understand the cart's tax and fee breakdown, and verify how the display settings affect the guest experience.
Limitations	The exclusive-tax and exclusive-fee display controls apply to Booking Engine Plus accommodation cards. They do not change tax and fee calculations, accounting, checkout behavior, or OTA pricing.

Introduction

In Booking Engine Plus, the amount displayed on an accommodation card and the breakdown shown in the reservation cart serve different purposes. The card helps guests compare accommodation prices, while the cart shows how the reservation total is calculated, including applicable taxes and fees.

Inclusive taxes and fees are already included in the configured price. Exclusive taxes and fees are calculated in addition to that price. Properties can now choose whether applicable exclusive taxes, exclusive fees, or both are also reflected in the accommodation-card price without changing their underlying configuration.

The following sections explain how these options affect the guest-facing price, how the cart calculates and displays the charges, and what differences to expect.

Understand accommodation-card and cart prices
Include exclusive taxes and fees in displayed prices
How inclusive and exclusive taxes are calculated
Understand differences between displayed prices and checkout totals

Understand accommodation-card and cart prices

An accommodation's configured rate and its applicable tax and fee settings determine the reservation total. However, not every amount included in the reservation total must appear in the accommodation-card price.

The distinction depends on how charges are configured and which price display settings the property has enabled:

Configuration	Accommodation-card price	Cart calculation
Exclusive tax or fee	Excluded by default. Can be included when the corresponding price display setting is enabled.	Calculated in addition to the configured rate and reflected in the tax and fee breakdown.
Inclusive tax or fee	Already included in the configured price.	Separated from the inclusive amount for the cart breakdown, without adding the charge a second time.
Both inclusive and exclusive charges	Includes the inclusive charges. Applicable exclusive charges are added to the displayed amount when their corresponding settings are enabled.	Separates inclusive amounts and adds calculated exclusive amounts to determine the final total.

Important: Including exclusive taxes or fees in the accommodation-card price does not make those charges inclusive in your tax and fee configuration. It changes only how the price is presented to guests.

Include exclusive taxes and fees in displayed prices

Properties using Booking Engine Plus can choose whether exclusive taxes and fees are reflected in accommodation-card prices. The two settings are independent, so you can include taxes, fees, both, or neither.

Configure the display settings

To change what is included in the price guests see while comparing accommodations:

In Cloudbeds PMS, open the Account Menu and select Settings.
Open Booking Engine, select the Settings tab, then open Accommodations.
Under Display price, review the following options:
- Include taxes in price: Adds applicable exclusive taxes to the displayed accommodation price.
- Include fees in price: Adds applicable exclusive fees to the displayed accommodation price.
Turn on either option or both, depending on which charges you want included in accommodation-card prices.
Click Save.
Open your Booking Engine, search for an available accommodation, and verify that the displayed price and inclusion note match your selections.

The accommodation-card note changes according to the enabled options:

Taxes only: Prices include all applicable taxes
Fees only: Prices include all applicable fees
Both: Prices include all applicable taxes and fees
Neither: No additional inclusion note is displayed.

The price also follows the property's existing Display price selection:

Lowest nightly rate: Displays the lowest nightly rate during the searched stay, including that night's applicable exclusive taxes and/or fees when enabled.
Total price for stay: Displays the total accommodation price for the searched stay, including applicable exclusive taxes and/or fees for the stay when enabled.

For a detailed explanation of these settings, see Booking Engine Settings page overview.

Compare accommodation-card prices with the settings off and on

Both examples below show the same two-night search for two guests, with a $200 accommodation rate and $30 in exclusive taxes and fees. Notice that the reservation cart total remains $230 in both examples. Only the amount displayed on the accommodation card changes.

Taxes and fees excluded from the card price: With both display settings off, the accommodation card shows $200. The reservation cart adds $30 in taxes and fees, resulting in a $230 total.

Taxes and fees included in the card price: With both settings on, the same accommodation card shows $230 and the note Prices include all applicable taxes and fees. The cart still lists the $200 subtotal and $30 in taxes and fees, with the same $230 total.

These settings apply to Booking Engine Plus accommodation-card prices only. The availability calendar, cart calculations, checkout, and confirmation are not changed by the display controls. Prices shown on Google or other distribution channels are managed separately.

How inclusive and exclusive taxes are calculated

The following examples illustrate how the cart calculates tax amounts regardless of whether exclusive charges are included in the accommodation-card price. They use simplified room rates and tax percentages to show the calculation logic.

Expand the scenario that matches your property's tax setup to see the amounts and resulting cart breakdown.

Exclusive tax example

An exclusive tax is calculated on top of the accommodation's configured rate.

Example:

Room rate: $100.00
Exclusive tax: 10%
Calculated tax: $100.00 × 10% = $10.00

With Include taxes in price turned off, the accommodation card shows $100.00. When enabled, the card can show $110.00 with the applicable tax inclusion note.

Cart breakdown:

Room rate: $100.00
Exclusive tax: $10.00
Total: $110.00

The cart total is unchanged by the display toggle. Only the amount shown on the accommodation card changes.

Inclusive tax example

An inclusive tax is already included in the configured room price. The cart separates the tax from that price rather than adding it again.

Example:

Room rate including tax: $100.00
Inclusive tax: 10%
Base price: $100.00 ÷ 1.10 = $90.91
Included tax: $100.00 - $90.91 = $9.09

Cart breakdown:

Room rate before tax: $90.91
Inclusive tax: $9.09
Total: $100.00

The accommodation-card price already includes the tax. The new exclusive-tax display setting does not change how inclusive taxes are handled.

Both inclusive and exclusive taxes

When both types of taxes apply, the inclusive tax is extracted from the configured price, while the exclusive tax is calculated in addition to the applicable base amount.

Example:

Room rate including inclusive tax: $100.00
Inclusive tax: 10%
Exclusive tax: 14.5%

Calculations:

Base price: $100.00 ÷ 1.10 = $90.91
Inclusive tax: $100.00 - $90.91 = $9.09
Exclusive tax: $90.91 × 14.5% = $13.18

With Include taxes in price turned off, the accommodation card shows $100.00, including the inclusive tax. When enabled, the displayed amount can be $113.18, reflecting both taxes.

Cart breakdown:

Room rate before tax: $90.91
Inclusive tax: $9.09
Exclusive tax: $13.18
Total: $113.18

The total remains the same whether the exclusive tax is included in the displayed card price or added later in the guest's view of the booking process.

These calculations are illustrative. Actual tax and fee amounts depend on the property's configuration, applicable rules, and the searched reservation details.

Reservation source matters: Applicable taxes and fees must be assigned to the Website/Booking Engine reservation source to be included in the Booking Engine calculations. For configuration details, see Reservation Sources: Everything You Need to Know.

Understand differences between displayed prices and checkout totals

For a standard single-unit booking with taxes and fees that can be calculated during the search, including both exclusive taxes and fees in the accommodation-card price helps guests see an amount that matches the expected checkout total.

However, some charges or search conditions can still produce a difference between the accommodation-card price and the final amount:

Payment-dependent charges: Convenience fees or payment fees determined later in the booking process may not be included in the initial displayed price.
Multiple accommodation units: Some charges applied once per reservation can produce differences when multiple units are added to the same booking.
Occupancy changes: Taxes or fees based on the number of guests may change if the occupancy is adjusted after the initial search.
Unavailable tax or fee amounts: If the system cannot retrieve the applicable tax or fee information for a search, the accommodation card can fall back to showing the base price without an inclusion note.

Price display versus tax configuration: The Booking Engine settings do not change whether a tax or fee is inclusive or exclusive, how it is calculated, or how it is recorded in Cloudbeds PMS. If a tax or fee amount is incorrect, review its configuration rather than relying on the display controls to correct it.

If the displayed amount differs unexpectedly from checkout, compare the searched dates, occupancy, selected accommodation, and configured taxes and fees before making changes to the property's settings.

Now that you understand the difference between accommodation-card prices and cart calculations, review these resources for the settings and tax configuration that determine which amounts guests see: