Google has announced that as of November 1, 2020, any advertisers that are promoting in the Austria, Turkey and UK regions will begin to be charged a new fee by Google for ad serving.

This means that in addition to advertising cost, every time ad is served in the 3 specified countries, a Regulatory Operating Costs or Digital Service Tax (DST) Fee will be charged.

• Austria – a 5% Austria DST Fee will be added to next invoice or statement for ads served. This is driven by new digital services tax in that country.
• Turkey – a 5% Turkey Regulatory Operating Costs will be added to next invoice or statement for ads served in Turkey. The Regulatory Operating Costs are being added due to significant increases in complexity and cost of complying with regulations in Turkey.
• United Kingdom – a 2% UK DST Fee will be added to next invoice or statement for ads served in the United Kingdom. The fee is driven by the new digital services tax in that country.

This is currently only applicable to the above 3 regions.

How it impacts your paid search budget

These new taxes will be in addition to the advertiser’s monthly budget. However, these additional taxes are not reflected in account related areas – Cost per click (CPC), cost per acquisition (CPA) and others will only reflect media spend. The taxes will only be reflected in the monthly billing from Google as an additional charge.  

So, for any advertisers promoting to these regions, be sure to take into account the new taxes when you plan your campaign budgets.

Source: Google