VAT Changes for Breakfast Products in Germany - How Are You Handling It in Mews?

Hi Robin,

Inka from Mews wrote the following in the DACH group:

“...There is still no solution regarding breakfast products that will be subject to two different tax rates in the future. Our tech team is already working on finding a way to offer products with different tax rates correctly via the booking systems and to make them easily visible on invoices.

However, we cannot promise that there will be a solution before the changeover. Therefore, you will have to work with two separate products in the meantime.

As soon as there is any news on this, you will be notified. If you have any questions in the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards,

Inka Nebel” (thanks to deepl.)

So work is being done on it.

We will probably work with an open split for guests until the final result. So both breakfast rates, Food and Bev will be listed separately on the bill. It's not ideal, but...
 

Best regards

Leif

Hello Leif,

Thank you for updating me with the information you have from ​@inka.nebel . Let’s really keep our fingers crossed that Mews finds a solution before the new VAT rules take effect.

For us, the main issue is that we sell rooms including breakfast, and the breakfast product has already been posted to hundreds of upcoming reservations. If I edit the product rule by including another product, all future reservations will have this additional product cost added on top of the final price - meaning all future reservations will become more expensive than they should be.

I’ve also found that actions like check-in will trigger the product rule and increase the price.
 

Our absolute last resort would be to manually trigger the updated product rule and then manually reduce the nightly rate by the same amount added by the breakfast beverage product. This would have to be done for all existing reservations that include breakfast. As you can understand, this is simply not feasible.
​
 

Hi Robin,

yes, it's the same for us.
We will most likely change the price of the current breakfast product, add the new breakfast product Bev, and manually adjust reservations on a week-by-week or month-by-month basis, hoping that Mews will offer a solution soon.
Hope springs eternal.

Best regards

Leif

Hello,

Yes, we will also update our breakfast prices for 2026; however, the prices for products already posted to reservations will remain unchanged. When the updated product rule is triggered (for example, at check-in), the prices of already-posted products are not updated. Only the product newly added to the product rule will be added on top.

Hopefully, Mews has a solution for this so that we do not have to manually adjust all reservations.

Hello! 👋

Yesterday, I received an email from Mews with a solution to the issue. ​@Leif Penning  did you receive it as well? If not, feel free to send me a message with your email address, and I will forward it to you. The same goes for anyone else who didn’t receive the email but needs it.

Hey ​@Robin Gustavsson, I´d be interested in this mail, thanks :)

Best regards, Niclas 

Thanks ​@Robin Gustavsson 
We are working on sending out email communications to affected customers this week, as well as an article for this community.
We have also just published this help article walking you through the process to prepare for this change:
How to prepare for the 2026 Germany VAT change in Mews Operations

Any further questions that the help article doesn’t answer, the team will be happy to answer.

Thanks

Perfect! 🌟

Hey Sarah, thanks for your reply. In the help article it says we´re supposed to submit a form with the updated product mapping. Why are we doing this? :)

Best regards, Niclas

​@Sarah.Masterton-Brown , 

A question regarding the section marked in yellow: If the price of the two new products must be equal to the price of the old product, what is the difference between submitting the mappings to Mews and updating our product rules ourselves with CANCEL: Breakfast 2025 and ADD: Breakfast Food 2026 & Breakfast Beverage 2026?
 

This is another scenario where my feature request for specifying the start and end dates of a product rule would be extremely valuable, as it would allow us to perform the update today rather than having to wait until the actual start date.
 

Might the difference be that Mews can trigger this instantly, whereas our product rules are only triggered and updated when the reservation is checked in? I know that changing the price of a product does not update the price for products already posted. This means that if I update the product rule and trigger it upon check-in, the price will be updated if it has changed, whereas Mews’ update of the product rule will keep the product prices intact.

Am I correct in my assumption?