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FTC Junk Fee Rule: What Hotels and Ticket Sellers Must Show Upfront

The FTC requires covered hotel and ticket sellers to disclose total prices upfront, including most mandatory fees. Here’s what the rule covers and what charges may be shown later.
From TheFinanceBase Team4 min to read
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Since May 12, 2025, businesses that advertise live-event tickets or short-term lodging generally must show the total price—including mandatory fees—upfront and make it more prominent than other pricing information. The FTC rule does not ban fees or set their amounts; it requires clearer price disclosures and truthful descriptions.

What the FTC rule requires

The Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, 16 C.F.R. Part 464, applies when a covered business offers, displays, or advertises a price for live-event tickets or short-term lodging. If it knows a charge and can calculate it, the seller generally must include that charge in the total price shown upfront. The total price must be more prominent than other pricing information, except the final amount due at payment. The FTC’s rule guidance explains how the requirement works.

That means an unavoidable ticket service fee, a mandatory hotel resort fee, or a required vacation-rental cleaning fee generally belongs in the advertised total. A seller also may not misrepresent a charge’s nature, purpose, amount, or refundability. The rule does not prohibit a fee or dictate what a business may charge; it governs how covered prices and charges are represented.

Which businesses, tickets, and stays are covered

The rule covers businesses offering, displaying, or advertising the covered products through websites, apps, in-person sales, or other channels. That includes ticket platforms and resellers, travel agents, lodging platforms, and sellers transacting with other businesses as well as consumers.

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Live-event tickets

Concerts, sports, theater, and other performances people watch as they occur are generally covered. Prerecorded audiovisual performances and ordinary film screenings generally are not live events under the rule.

Short-term lodging

Hotels, motels, inns, short-term rentals, vacation rentals, home shares, and discounted extended hotel stays can fall within the rule. It does not set a fixed number of days that makes a stay “short-term”; the circumstances matter. Long-term rental housing in a landlord-tenant relationship is outside this short-term lodging coverage.

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What may be left out of the upfront total

The rule allows certain charges to be excluded from the initial total: taxes and other government charges, shipping, and optional goods or services the consumer chooses. Exclusion is not permission to hide a charge. Before asking the consumer to pay, the business must disclose excluded charges, including their nature, purpose, and amount, and identify the good or service to which a charge applies. The final amount of payment must be displayed at least as prominently as the total price.

Shipping may be included in the upfront total. If it is excluded, it must still be disclosed before payment and included in the final amount. The FTC says handling charges are not shipping charges, so they generally must be included in the upfront total.

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Optional selections can change the price. A seller may advertise the lowest available price only if a consumer can actually obtain the offer at that price and the advertisement is not otherwise misleading. When the consumer selects an option that changes the price, the displayed total should update. Charges that cannot be calculated in advance because they depend on a consumer choice, or that arise later and could not have been known at the time, may be excluded under the rule’s terms.

How to compare a hotel or ticket offer

Compare offers for the same event and seat or the same dates, room terms, and party size. Different cancellation conditions, seat locations, or optional selections can make headline prices unlike-for-like even when both sellers follow the disclosure rule.

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The rule improves price disclosure; it does not standardize fee amounts or prohibit dynamic pricing.

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FTC enforcement example: StubHub

In April 2026, the FTC announced that StubHub would refund $10 million in fees following FTC allegations about ticket-price disclosures. The announcement identified potentially eligible consumers as people who bought live-event tickets in the United States from May 12 through May 14, 2025; it does not mean every StubHub customer or every ticket buyer qualifies. The announced order prohibited specified misrepresentations about total prices, fees, final payment amounts, refunds, and cancellations. See the FTC’s StubHub announcement for the stated eligibility and remedy details.

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How to report a suspected violation

Consumers who believe a covered seller hid a mandatory charge or misrepresented a fee can submit a report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Include the offer or checkout details and any records that show the advertised price and charges presented before payment.

What the FTC estimated about the rule

When announcing the final rule in December 2024, the FTC estimated it could save consumers up to 53 million hours per year searching for total prices for tickets and short-term lodging. The agency also estimated the time savings as equivalent to more than $11 billion over the next decade. Those figures are projections, not measured results. The FTC’s announcement includes the estimates.

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.

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