Payment of communal taxes
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As autonomous local government units with their own legal personality, Luxembourg communes manage their own assets and interests through local representatives, under the supervision of the central government.
To accomplish their various missions, communes require sufficient financial resources to cover the costs associated with performing these missions. These financial resources are broken down as follows:
- one-third from the central government’s financial allocation;
- one-third from local taxes, namely the business tax and the property tax;
- one-third from taxes and fees collected by the communes as consideration for services rendered or provided.
Who is concerned
All private individuals, whether owners or tenants, who reside in any commune in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, as well as all companies that are legally established in any Luxembourg commune, are subject to local taxes and communal taxes.
Persons residing outside Luxembourg may also be subject to these taxes when they use services provided by a commune in Luxembourg, for example, when they have a second home in Luxembourg and use water supplies at this property.
In principle, communal taxes are levied without regard to personal circumstances (married or single, with or without children), legal status (private individual, merchant, self-employed person, commercial company, non-profit organisation) or personal income / assets. These taxes generally correspond to payment for services rendered or provided.
How to proceed
The communal business tax (for companies) and the property tax (for companies and private individuals) provide communes with one-third of the revenue used to finance the expenses they incur (schools, road infrastructure, water mains, water supply pipes, sports and cultural facilities, etc.).
Each year, communes set the applicable rates for property and business taxes. The rates applied by the different communes, once approved by the Grand Duchy, are published each year in Mémorial B (the second series of Luxembourg’s official gazette).
The types and amounts of communal taxes levied (for example, on the supply of drinking water, wastewater treatment or waste management) depend on the costs of these services or utilities and can thus vary from one commune to the next.
The main communal taxes are as follows:
- 'chancery' (stamp) taxes (for the issuance of certificates of residence, extracts or copies of civil status records, signature certification, various authorisations, etc.);
- waste management tax;
- tax for the supply of drinking water;
- tax for wastewater and sewage treatment;
- taxes for network connections (to water mains, to pipes, etc.);
- taxes for electricity and gas (for communes managing these utilities);
- tax for the granting of cemetery concessions;
- tax on dogs;
- tax for parking (payment for parking on public thoroughfares);
- special tax for unoccupied residential buildings and some undeveloped plots of land.
Communal taxes are levied either at regular intervals (quarterly, half yearly or annually) or on a one-time basis.
For more details, taxpayers are advised to visit the website of their commune or contact the appropriate departments of the communal administration. Website URLs and street addresses for all communal administrations, as well as contact information for their departments, may be viewed on the website of the Association of Luxembourg Cities and Communes (Syndicat des villes et communes de Luxembourg - Syvicol).
Online services and forms
Who to contact
Communal administrations
- Address:
- Luxembourg
Related procedures and links
Procedures
Links
Further information
Website (French only)
