Travelers booking a hotel room in the United States now face a different checkout screen than they did a year ago. The Federal Trade Commission’s rule on unfair or deceptive fees, published in the Federal Register on January 10, 2025 and codified at 16 CFR Part 464, requires every hotel and short-term lodging provider to display the total price, including mandatory resort and service fees, at the point a rate is first shown. The rule took effect May 12, 2025 for most properties, while smaller businesses received a six-month grace period that expired in January 2026.
What is verified so far
The core obligation is straightforward: when a hotel advertises, offers, or displays a price, that number must already include every mandatory charge the guest cannot avoid. A nightly rate plus a mandatory resort fee, for example, must be rolled into one total figure rather than revealed later in the booking flow. According to the FTC’s own business guidance, taxes, government-imposed charges, shipping costs, and genuinely optional add-ons may still appear separately. The rule also bars hotels from misrepresenting the nature, purpose, or amount of any fee, closing a loophole that allowed vague line items like “facility charge” or “amenity fee” to appear without clear justification.
The agency confirmed the May 12, 2025 effective date in an official announcement, and the U.S. Government Accountability Office independently verified both the publication and compliance timeline in its major-rule report. The rule applies only to two sectors: live-event tickets and short-term lodging. That scope is narrower than what the FTC originally proposed. The November 2023 notice of proposed rulemaking, published as 88 FR 77420, covered a broader set of industries, but after reviewing public comments, the agency narrowed the final regulation to lodging and live events.
Federal action followed state-level momentum. California’s SB 478, signed in 2023, already prohibited advertising a price that excluded mandatory fees. Minnesota passed a similar session law in 2024, classifying the same practice as deceptive trade conduct. The FTC cited both statutes in its rulemaking record as evidence of broad concern about drip pricing, the practice of revealing charges incrementally during checkout. By the time the federal rule appeared, many large hotel brands had already faced public criticism and private litigation over resort fees, creating pressure to standardize “all-in” pricing nationwide.
For consumers, the most visible change is at the moment they first search for a room. Instead of seeing a low nightly rate that balloons after mandatory fees are added on the final screen, guests should now see a single, inclusive number wherever prices are displayed. The same expectation applies to advertising, whether on a hotel’s own website, in email promotions, or in print and digital ads. The rule is designed to make price comparisons easier and to prevent hotels that rely heavily on mandatory fees from appearing cheaper than competitors that bundle more into the base rate.
What remains uncertain
Several questions lack clear answers in the public record. No FTC or GAO data has surfaced showing how many small properties actually used the six-month grace period or whether those businesses met the January 2026 deadline. The agency’s FAQ explains what compliance looks like but does not describe enforcement mechanisms, penalty structures for violations, or the volume of consumer complaints received since May 2025. Without that data, the real-world bite of the rule is difficult to measure.
How the rule interacts with third-party booking platforms like Expedia, Booking.com, or Google Hotels also lacks detailed guidance. The text of the regulation makes clear that any business that “advertises or offers” lodging must present the total price, but the division of responsibility between an online travel agency and the underlying hotel is not fully spelled out in the publicly available materials. It is unclear, for example, whether a platform that simply passes through a hotel’s rate feed can be held liable if the hotel fails to include a mandatory fee in the initial price display.
Another open question is how aggressively the FTC will pursue borderline practices. Some properties may try to push the definition of “optional” by labeling commonly used services-such as basic Wi‑Fi or access to on-site fitness centers-as add-ons that can be declined, even if most guests consider them part of a standard stay. The rule’s prohibition on misrepresenting the nature of a fee suggests the agency could challenge such tactics, but there is no public enforcement history yet to show where the lines will be drawn.
There is also limited information on how the rule interacts with existing state laws. California and Minnesota already require all-in pricing, and other states may follow. Whether the federal standard will be treated as a floor that states can exceed, or as a ceiling that preempts stricter rules, is not clearly addressed in the materials the FTC has released. Until courts or additional guidance resolve those questions, hotels operating across multiple states may continue to face a patchwork of overlapping obligations.
For now, travelers can expect clearer prices on most booking sites and hotel pages, but the long-term impact of the FTC’s fee rule will depend on how vigorously it is enforced, how platforms and hotels interpret gray areas, and whether additional data emerges on compliance and consumer outcomes.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
