Maldives Travel Costs: Resort vs Local Island Budgets, Taxes and Transfers

Per person per day, sharing a double room, excluding international flights:

On a local island the bed is about half your spending and excursions most of the rest; food is cheap. In a resort the room is still the biggest line, but the transfer and the meal plan can add 50 to 100 percent to the headline room rate, and these are the costs first-time visitors underestimate.

Maldivian prices are almost always quoted “plus plus”: before the 10 percent service charge and before the 17 percent tourism goods and services tax (T-GST), which rose from 16 percent on 1 July 2025. The T-GST is charged on top of the service charge, so the two together add 28.7 percent: a $100 room becomes $110 with service and $128.70 with tax. The same rule applies to resort meals, drinks, spa treatments, diving and excursions, and the 17 percent rate also covers local-island guesthouses and dive shops registered in the tourism sector.

On top of that comes the green tax, a flat charge per person per night since 1 January 2025: $12 at resorts, hotels and liveaboard boats, and $6 at guesthouses on inhabited islands with 50 rooms or fewer. Children under two are exempt. A couple spending seven nights in a resort pays $168 in green tax alone; the same couple in a Maafushi guesthouse pays $84. Guesthouses often collect it in cash on arrival, so ask.

The airport departure tax ($50 in economy since December 2024, more in premium cabins) is built into your international ticket and is not paid separately. These rates are set by the Maldives Inland Revenue Authority and change with each budget, so check before you go.

Since 2009 Maldivians have been allowed to run guesthouses on their own inhabited islands, and that is what makes a budget Maldives trip possible. On Maafushi, the busiest guesthouse island, a clean air-conditioned double costs $50 to $100 a night before tax in most months, and the newer beachfront hotels there reach $150 to $200. Thulusdhoo, Huraa, Fulidhoo, Thoddoo, Gulhi and Dhigurah run $60 to $150, usually with breakfast, and quieter islands such as Felidhoo, Dhiffushi or Naifaru are at the lower end. Near the airport, Hulhumalé hotels cost $60 to $150 and are where most people sleep on a late arrival.

Resorts start around $250 to $400 a night for a beach room at simpler three and four-star islands in the Malé atolls, and around $500 to $900 for a standard overwater villa at a well-known four or five-star resort. The top resorts in Baa, Raa, Noonu and South Ari charge $1,500 to $3,000 a night and more for pool water villas. Liveaboard dive boats charge $150 to $400 per person a night including meals and diving, which makes them good value for divers next to a resort plus daily dive fees. See our where to stay guide for island-by-island options.

Food is where local islands and resorts are furthest apart. In local cafés in Malé or on any inhabited island, a plate of fried rice, fish curry with roshi or kothu costs 60 to 120 MVR ($4 to $8), short eats (hedhikaa) are 5 to 15 MVR each with tea, and a fresh juice 30 to 50 MVR. Guesthouse dinners, usually a buffet or set grill of reef fish and curries, run $10 to $20, and full board at a guesthouse is often $25 to $40 a day on top of the room.

In resorts, a breakfast-only rate leaves you buying lunch and dinner at $35 to $60 a main plus tax, so most guests take a plan: half board adds roughly $80 to $150 per person a day, full board $100 to $250, and all-inclusive $150 to $400, depending on the resort. All-inclusive usually pays off if you drink alcohol, and rarely if you do not. Bottled water is $5 to $10 in resort minibars and often free at better resorts, while a 1.5-litre bottle in a local shop costs about 10 MVR.

Alcohol is banned on inhabited islands, so on Maafushi and other guesthouse islands you will not find a beer in a café. A few “floating bars” on boats anchored off Maafushi serve drinks to guests ferried out by guesthouses, at roughly $8 to $15 a beer. In resorts, a beer costs $10 to $15, a cocktail $18 to $30 and a bottle of wine from $60, all before the 28.7 percent in charges; at the airport island hotel bar prices are similar. You cannot bring alcohol into the country, and duty-free bought on the way in is confiscated at customs.

The single biggest surprise on a resort bill is the transfer from Velana Airport, which is priced per person, return, and set by the resort:

Children usually pay half for seaplane and speedboat transfers. Public domestic fares to the far south, such as Gan in Addu or Fuvahmulah, are cheaper than resort-packaged flights, roughly $150 to $300 each way for tourists, and Kudahuvadhoo in Dhaalu and Eydhafushi in Baa are the gateways for flight-plus-speedboat resorts. A couple flying by seaplane can spend $1,500 to $2,400 just reaching their resort, which is why resorts close to Malé with speedboat transfers are such good value for short stays. Public ferries are run by MTCC on fixed timetables, and many routes do not run on Fridays; the faster shared speedboats are booked through guesthouses. Our getting around guide covers routes and timetables.

On local islands, guesthouses and dive shops sell shared trips at fixed prices: snorkelling trips to nearby reefs $25 to $50, a sandbank picnic $30 to $80, a dolphin sunset cruise $25 to $40, a resort day pass with lunch $100 to $200, and a full-day whale shark trip to South Ari from Maafushi or Dhigurah $80 to $150. Divers pay about $60 to $90 per dive on local islands and $90 to $150 at resorts, plus equipment rental and the tax. Ten-dive packages cut the per-dive price by 15 to 25 percent. An open water course runs $500 to $800.

In resorts, the same activities cost two to four times as much: a snorkel trip $60 to $150 per person, a private sandbank dinner $300 to $800 per couple, and a 60-minute massage $120 to $250 before tax. The house reef, kayaks and paddleboards are usually free, and a resort with a good house reef saves you paying for snorkel trips at all.

Tourist SIMs from Dhiraagu and Ooredoo at the airport arrivals hall cost about $15 to $50 for 7 to 30 days with data; resort Wi-Fi is usually free. Card payments in US dollars are standard in resorts, guesthouses and Malé shops, and most resort bills are settled by card at checkout. Bring US dollar notes too: guesthouses often want cash for the green tax and excursions, local ferries take rufiyaa, and dollars are accepted almost everywhere tourists go. Small notes ($1, $5, $10) are useful because change may come back in rufiyaa. ATMs are concentrated in Malé, Hulhumalé, the airport and a few larger islands, and many local islands have one ATM or none at all.

Tipping is not expected because almost every bill carries the 10 percent service charge. If a particular villa host, dive guide or boat crew looks after you, $5 to $10 per day of service at the end of the stay is a generous thank-you.

• Split the trip. Spend most nights on a local island and two or three at a resort; you get the overwater villa photos for a fraction of a week’s resort bill.
• Choose a speedboat resort. Resorts in North and South Malé Atolls cost $100 to $300 return to reach, against $600 to $1,200 by seaplane.
• Travel in shoulder season. May, October and November cut resort rates by a quarter to a half; see our best time to visit guide.
• Use public ferries. On days you are not in a hurry, the MTCC ferry costs a few dollars against $30 to $70 for a shared speedboat.
• Book the meal plan up front. Resorts discount bundled plans more than à la carte dining.
• Bring reef-safe sunscreen and snorkel gear. Resort shops sell sunscreen at $30 to $50 a tube.

Per person, sharing, excluding international flights:

These are consistent with our main Maldives guide itinerary budgets, and the gap between the rows is almost entirely the bed, the transfer and the drinks.

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