Updated 7 October 2026 · Reading time: 9 minutes
USALI in brief
USALI (Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry) is the international standard the hotel industry uses to organise revenue, costs and results. It is published by HFTP (Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals) and is the common language of operators, chains, lenders, investors and benchmarking companies.
The idea is simple: instead of grouping costs by nature, as the Italian statutory income statement does, USALI assigns them to the department that generates them. You see how much each department earns (rooms, food and beverage, spa) and how much overheads weigh before the operating result.
The main benefit is comparability: two different properties, or the same property in different years, are read under the same rules. It is also the format foreign investors and groups expect to receive.
What changes with the 12th Revised Edition
HFTP presented the 12th Revised Edition in July 2024, and it has been in effect since 1 January 2026. The departmental structure stays the same; the changes are mainly about transparency and new lines:
- Energy, water and waste: the “Utilities” department becomes “Energy, Water and Waste”, with detail on waste and renewable sources.
- Loyalty programmes: new expense lines to measure what loyalty programmes really cost.
- Executive lounge: costs recorded within the rooms department on dedicated lines.
- Headcount in FTEs: a new schedule asks for full-time equivalent employees by department, useful for indicators such as FTEs per occupied room.
- Brand and management fees: one schedule that gathers all costs paid to brands and management companies.
- All-inclusive properties: a dedicated section for package revenue and add-on services.
The structure of the USALI income statement
The USALI income statement reads like a ladder that steps down from revenue to the result:
| Level | What it contains |
|---|---|
| Departmental revenue | Rooms, food and beverage, other operated departments (spa, parking, activities), miscellaneous income. |
| Departmental expenses | Direct costs of each department: departmental payroll, cost of sales, commissions, linen, supplies. |
| Departmental profit | Revenue minus departmental expenses, department by department. |
| Undistributed expenses | Administrative and general, information systems, sales and marketing, maintenance, energy, water and waste. |
| Gross Operating Profit (GOP) | The result of the hotel operation, the reference figure for comparing properties. |
| Management fees | Fees paid to a management company, if any. |
| Non-operating income and expenses | Rent, property taxes, insurance and other ownership items. |
| EBITDA | Result before depreciation, interest and taxes. EBITDAR, widely used in leases, stops before rent. |
From Italian statutory accounts to USALI
The income statement required by Article 2425 of the Italian Civil Code classifies costs by nature (raw materials, services, leases, personnel, other operating expenses). To get to USALI, each account in the chart of accounts is mapped once to the right USALI line. The most common correspondences:
| Statutory line | Where it goes in USALI (summary) |
|---|---|
| A1 Revenue from sales and services | Split by department: rooms, F&B, other departments, using booking-system and point-of-sale data. |
| B6 Raw materials and consumables (+ B11 change in inventories) | F&B cost of sales; guest amenities and supplies in the departments that use them. |
| B7 Services | Split by destination: laundry and OTA commissions to rooms, consultants to administration, advertising to sales and marketing, maintenance, energy and water to their own department. |
| B8 Leases and rentals | Property rent under non-operating expenses; equipment rentals in the department that uses them. |
| B9 Personnel | Assigned to the department where the person works; shared staff are split by hours. |
| B10 Depreciation, financial charges, income taxes | Below EBITDA: outside the operating view. |
| B14 Other operating expenses | IMU and property taxes under non-operating expenses; the rest mainly to administrative and general. |
The detailed choices depend on each property's chart of accounts. When the books are not kept by cost centre, part of the costs is allocated with agreed criteria (hours worked, revenue, rooms). What matters is documenting the criteria and applying them the same way every time.
The KPIs this makes possible
With departmental data and booking-system statistics you can calculate the industry indicators: occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, TRevPAR, GOP margin, GOPPAR, cost per occupied room (CPOR) and payroll as a share of revenue. Definitions are on the KPIs page, and you can try them with the free calculator.
USALI for campsites, B&Bs and groups
- Campsites: pitches, accommodation units and services become separate departments; units replace rooms, and opening days are used to read seasonality. More in the campsite guide.
- B&Bs and non-hotel accommodation: the scheme is simplified to a few departments and five or six indicators, without losing comparability.
- Multi-property groups: shared costs (shared staff, inventory, utilities, management) are allocated with agreed drivers, down to the calculation basis for intragroup recharges. More in the multi-property groups guide.
Where to start
The set-up work is done once: analysing the chart of accounts, mapping it to USALI lines, allocating shared costs, combining the data with the booking system. After that, each month's data flows into the same scheme. The full process is on the USALI method page; the services are on the Services page.
Source: HFTP, Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry, 12th Revised Edition (usali.hftp.org). The correspondences with Italian statutory accounts are indicative and must be checked against each property's chart of accounts.