A Hawaiʻi vacation will cost you more in the near future thanks to a new “green fee” that the governor signed into law today.

||| FROM HONOLULU CIVIL BEAT |||

Hawaiʻi has officially become the first U.S. state to enact a so-called “green fee” — a charge added onto hotel room stays and other short-term visits to help protect the local environment and address the growing impacts of climate change.

Gov. Josh Green signed the fee into law Tuesday after years of unsuccessfully urging the Legislature to pass it. Set to take effect next year, the fee could raise around $100 million annually, state officials estimate, a portion which will go toward’s Hawaiʻi’s response to future disasters similar to the 2023 Lahaina wildfire.

“It’s a historic piece of legislation. No other state has done something of this magnitude to have an impact fee that goes directly to deal with climate change,” Green said earlier this month once it was clear lawmakers would approve it at last. “We’ve always known we had to take on climate change, but we had to have a devoted revenue stream, a devoted source of real dollars.”

That revenue stream will come from a .75% increase on the tax Hawaiʻi visitors pay on their nightly hotel and short-term stays. The uptick raises the state’s transient accommodations tax, or TAT, to 10%. Visitors already pay an additional 3% TAT on their stays to the counties.

Overall, the move aims to make Hawaiʻi’s reefs, beaches, trails, mountains and other unique yet vulnerable environments more resilient to heavier storms, more severe droughts and other challenges linked to the changing climate.

It also seeks to avoid making locals pay the entire price of that damage. Green and other supporters say the fee on hotel stays, cruise ship cabins and short-term rentals is justified because there’s a link between the nearly 10 million visitors who fly to Hawaiʻi each year and the island state’s climate change and environment issues.

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