This is an opinion piece. The views are the author’s own.
You find a $60 ticket. You click through. By checkout it is $84, and the extra money has names like “service fee” and “facility charge.” In 2025 the Federal Trade Commission decided that was a problem, and it was right. Now the rule needs to cover a lot more than tickets and hotel rooms.
What the rule actually does
The FTC’s fees rule took effect May 12, 2025. It applies to live-event tickets and short-term lodging, including hotels and short-term rentals. Businesses must show the total price, including mandatory fees, wherever the price appears, and may not misrepresent a fee’s nature, purpose, amount or refundability, according to a summary from the law firm BakerHostetler. Taxes, shipping and optional add-ons can be left out of the headline price, but they must be disclosed before you pay. The rule does not cap fees. It only requires honesty about them, as Consumers’ Checkbook points out.
And it is being enforced. In April 2026 the FTC announced a $10 million settlement with StubHub, alleging the company advertised ticket prices without the all-in price up front. The agency said the lapse lasted about three days, and StubHub had said it chose a phased rollout because a major sporting event’s tickets went on sale that week. A company can hardly say the rule is unclear when it has said it supports it. The point is that a few days of non-compliance still cost millions.
The gap is the point
Consumers’ Checkbook notes that you can still get hit with added fees at checkout on restaurant delivery apps, and that the rule does not affect airlines. A separate Transportation Department effort on airline pricing was put on hold by a federal court, per the same report. Retail is outside the rule as well, based on the scope BakerHostetler describes.
Think about what that means. Tickets and hotels now have to tell you the real price, and the next purchase of your day, a sandwich delivered to your door, does not. Nobody’s mental model of shopping is divided that neatly. When the price on the screen is not the price you pay, trust drops everywhere, including at honest businesses.
Make the sticker price the price
The FTC has shown it can act under the general law against deceptive pricing, with a rental housing complaint and warning letters to car dealership groups in March 2026, as BakerHostetler reports. Case-by-case enforcement is slow, though, and it rewards whoever has the best lawyers. A plain all-in pricing rule for anything sold online would be simpler for everyone, including the honest businesses that already do it.
Critics say mandatory total pricing is clunky for products with variable delivery costs. Fair enough: shipping and taxes can still be shown separately, as they are under the current rule. But a fee that every customer pays and the seller knows about in advance is just part of the price. Say so on the first screen.
Until then, treat any price as provisional until the last page of checkout, and be a little more annoyed than the website expects you to be.
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