City of Santa Barbara shares sales tax revenues fall below projections for Fiscal Year 2025

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – The City of Santa Barbara shared Wednesday that sales tax revenue for the fourth quarter of the city's fiscal year came in at 8.4 percent below budget and sales tax revenues across all of Fiscal Year 2025 are 6.1 percent below projected revenues.

In total, the city collected $29,301,467 in sales tax revenue for Fiscal Year 2025 and none of Fiscal Year 2025's quarterly sales tax reports have met budget projections noted the City of Santa Barbara.

The City of Santa Barbara also shared Transient Occupancy Tax Results through July, the first month of the City's fiscal year, in a press release Wednesday.

The Transient Occupancy Tax is a tax on guests staying in any hotel, inn, motel, or other commercial lodging business for less than 30 days.

Year to date, the city has collected $3.9 million of which $3.5 million came from local hotels and $400,000 came from short-term rentals detailed the City of Santa Barbara.

That brings current Transient Occupancy Tax revenues for July at 2.6 percent below budget added the City of Santa Barbara.

Santa Barbara's Transient Occupancy Tax rate is 12 percent, of which ten percent goes to the City's General Fund and the remaining two percent goes to the Creeks/Clean Water Fund.

The city collected $32.2 million total from the lodging-specific tax in Fiscal Year 2024.

For more information about current and historical financial data for the City of Santa Barbara, click here.