Burlingame moves forward on hotel tax measure: If formally approved, residents will vote on increasing tax from 12% to 15% 

Unlike tax measures for specific items, hotel tax, which targets the roughly 3,500 hotel rooms in Burlingame and has not been raised in the city since 2009, can be used at the city’s discretion. Councilmember Desiree Thayer said she was appreciative of the flexibility, however, she encouraged transparency around how the money would be used. 

“One thing I like about this general tax is we don’t have to earmark it,” she said, noting it can be utilized “depending on the needs of the community.”

The measure would add an additional $5.7 million on top of the $22.8 million in hotel tax that was generated during the 2025-26 fiscal year, for example. Burlingame’s TOT has slowly been rebounding from pandemic-era levels, but has not fully recuperated — from 2018-19, the city generated $29.4 million in TOT. 

The move to increase TOT revenue comes as Burlingame is dealing with increasing expenses, including funding undergrounding of power lines along El Camino Real, purchasing a new City Hall building and refurbishing the corporation yard. While the city still has a balanced operating budget, its predictions for future years show a net general fund deficit. 

Like other cities across the Peninsula, Burlingame is also grappling with the uncertainty around in-lieu vehicle license fee money, with a loss of up to $4 million this year if the state holds funding back from San Mateo County.

The unique bureaucratic mechanisms that deploy VLF funding leads the county and its cities to haggle for the money each year, a system that has worked in the past but has become substantially more tentative. San Mateo County received only a two-thirds reimbursement for the 2024-25 funds, and 2025-26 funds are still up in the air as legislators work out a deal to include for the Peninsula $77 million — which is not the full VLF amount.  

As that debate continues, Burlingame may be prudent to protect itself by creating an increase in local revenue, Mayor Michael Brownrigg said. 

“It may not be additive as much as it is a substitution, and that’s particularly for the VLF,” Brownrigg said. “This city is out $4 million thanks to the state of California. Maybe we’ll get some of it back, it looks like we’re not gonna get some of it back, too.” 

Any money generated by the hotel tax would be solely Burlingame’s to control, City Manager Lisa Goldman emphasized. 

“Local funds, they can’t be taken by the state,” she said. “This money would be taken by us and stay here for the benefit of the community.” 

Polling on the measure shows resident support. Initial support for a November measure raising the tax among a poll of 14,936 likely voters found 45.2% would probably vote yes and 28.4% would definitely vote yes, totaling 73.6% in sum. 

And though hoteliers may not be thrilled by the tax increase, Brownrigg said he hoped the city’s long-standing positive relationships with the business community would make the measure acceptable. 

“There isn’t a hotelier that says, ‘Oh, yes please,’ but there are hoteliers that understand we are not moving to the highest rate, and that we have been good stewards of capital,” he said.