The FTC's junk-fees rule took effect for hotels and tickets — then the lawsuits started

The FTC's Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, better known as the Junk Fees Rule, took effect on May 12, 2025, after being narrowed from an initially much broader proposal covering restaurants, delivery apps and more down to two industries: short-term lodging and live-event ticketing. The rule requires any business offering, displaying or advertising a price in those categories to show the total price, inclusive of all mandatory fees, more prominently than any other pricing information — effectively banning "drip pricing," where a low headline price grows as mandatory resort, service or convenience fees get added at checkout.

The rule doesn't cap what businesses can charge. As one industry analysis put it, sellers can still charge any amount they want; they just have to disclose the total upfront rather than revealing it piece by piece during checkout. That distinction matters for pricing teams: this is a presentation rule, not a price-control rule.

Enforcement followed quickly. In September 2025, the FTC and seven states sued Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster over historic drip-pricing practices predating the rule, and the defendants moved to dismiss in January 2026. The FTC also sent a warning letter to StubHub over allegedly deceptive fee practices. And the agency has signaled it isn't done narrowing the loophole: on March 13, 2026, it issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking targeting fee practices in rental housing — application fees, deposit-related charges and other costs that can obscure the real price of a lease.

For any business advertising prices with add-on fees, even outside lodging and ticketing, the practical lesson is the same one regulators keep repeating: a fee that's clearly disclosed and consented to is generally defensible; one that's hidden, buried, or revealed only at the last step of checkout is an increasingly live legal risk, federal rule or not, under the FTC's general Section 5 authority against deceptive practices.