For twenty years the resort fee ran the same play: advertise $99, collect $137, and let the difference materialize at checkout under names like "destination fee," "urban amenity fee," or our favorite genre entry, the "resort fee" at a hotel with no resort. That play is now illegal. What replaced it is worth understanding precisely, because the fee itself is doing fine.
Hotels can no longer charge you a surprise resort fee surprise you. The charge is alive and well, now printed on the sticker
What actually changed on May 12, 2025
The FTC's Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees (the "Junk Fees Rule," 16 CFR Part 464) took effect that day, covering hotels, vacation rentals, and live-event tickets. The mechanics, translated:
The advertised price must be the real price. Any price a hotel displays must clearly, conspicuously, and prominently include all mandatory fees. The FTC's guidance says the total must be the most prominent number on the page. Resort fees, destination fees, and service fees can't wait in ambush at checkout anymore; that's the "drip pricing" the rule bans by name.
Taxes and truly variable costs can still arrive later, but before you enter payment information, not after.
The penalties are real. Violations can draw civil penalties of over $53,000 per violation, and each deceptive listing counts. This is why every major booking site suddenly grew a "total price" toggle or display.
What did not change
Nothing got cheaper. The rule regulates disclosure, not price. A hotel can charge a $75 nightly "destination fee" for a gym you won't visit and bottled water you didn't ask for, as long as the total appears up front. The FTC was explicit that it isn't capping fees.
The fee still works on the back end. Mandatory fees are often excluded from the rate that travel agent commissions, some loyalty point earnings, and price-match guarantees are calculated on. The disclosure rule doesn't touch any of that arithmetic, which is a large part of why fees exist in the first place.
And a perspective check: industry data has long shown only around 6% of U.S. hotels charge a mandatory resort or destination fee at all. It's a concentrated habit (Vegas, resort markets, big-city flagships), not a universal one, which makes avoiding it entirely realistic.
How to shop under the new rules
Compare totals only. The nightly rate is now a decorative number. Two hotels at "$180 a night" can be $40 apart in reality; the law guarantees the real figures are visible, so use them.
If a fee ambushes you anyway, that's not a negotiation, it's a violation. Drip pricing after May 12, 2025 breaks a federal rule. Report it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and mention the rule at the desk; hotels know what the citation means now.
At checkout, read what the fee claims to buy. The rule requires fees to come with truthful explanations. A "resort fee" covering things the hotel gives everyone anyway (wifi, gym, "local calls" in the year 2026) is the tell that it's a pricing strategy wearing an amenity costume. You can't refuse a disclosed mandatory fee, but you can let it lose the comparison for them.
State laws can be tougher. California, New York, Tennessee, and several other states passed their own transparent-pricing laws, and the federal rule explicitly doesn't override stronger state protections. A federal Hotel Fees Transparency Act has also passed the House. The floor is set; the ceiling is still moving.
Bottom line: the era of the checkout ambush is over, and that's a genuine win. The era of the $50 fee is not. The law handed you accurate labels; the comparison shopping is still your job, and now it actually works.
How we checked this
Verified July 2026 against: the FTC's final rule announcement and rule text (16 CFR Part 464, effective May 12, 2025), FTC disclosure guidance and 2025 inflation-adjusted penalty figures (via LegalClarity's legal analysis), industry fee-prevalence data from the American Hotel and Lodging Association, and reporting on state laws and the Hotel Fees Transparency Act from Hotel Dive and Morgan Lewis's regulatory analysis. Rules evolve and enforcement climates shift; the current rule text is the document that counts.
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