Hotel Resort Fees in 2026: What They Cost and How to Skip Them

You see $189 a night on a hotel page. You book it. Three nights, you tell yourself. About $570 plus tax. Then checkout shows up and the bill says $738. Somewhere along the way, $168 in resort fees, destination fees, and amenity charges got tacked on. Nothing extra was delivered. You just paid 30 percent more than the rate you thought you were getting.

This is the hotel industry's most successful upcharge. In 2026 it's still everywhere, the FTC tried to regulate it, and most travelers still don't know how to dodge it. Here's the actual playbook.

What a Resort Fee Actually Is

A resort fee is a daily mandatory charge a hotel adds to your room rate. The hotel tells you it covers things you'd otherwise pay for separately. Wi-Fi. Pool access. Gym. A bottle of water. Local calls. In practice, it covers things you would never pay for and would never use.

The average resort fee in the US in 2026 is $33 per day. The range is wider. Budget urban hotels charge $15. Las Vegas casino resorts hit $50 to $55. Some Hawaiian beachfront properties have crossed $60 a night. None of those numbers are negotiable at check-in unless you push hard.

The thing that makes resort fees particularly frustrating. They're calculated on the pre-tax room rate, but they're taxed themselves. So a hotel can advertise a low room rate, collect taxes on a higher total, and book the resort fee revenue at a higher margin than the room itself.

The Cities Where They Hit Hardest

Las Vegas is the worst offender. Almost every major Strip property charges a resort fee, and most are between $45 and $55 per day. A three-night stay at a $150 advertised rate becomes a $300+ resort fee line on the bill before tax. Vegas hoteliers built the industry's largest resort-fee economy and the rest of the country followed.

Hawaii is second. Beachfront resorts on Oahu and Maui average $45 a night in resort fees and call them "amenity fees" or "destination charges." The math is the same.

New York City and Miami have the urban-fee version. They're labeled "destination fees" because they're not actually at resorts. They cover the same nothing. $30 to $40 a day, applied to roughly 40 percent of Manhattan hotels.

Orlando follows the same playbook around the theme parks. The pattern is clear. Anywhere tourists go and stay for multiple nights, fees show up.

The FTC Rule and What It Actually Did

In 2025, federal rules took effect requiring hotels to display the all-in price upfront. Resort fees can no longer be hidden until checkout. They have to be quoted in the headline rate or in clear proximity to it on the booking page.

This was supposed to kill the practice. It didn't. What it did was make resort fees visible. The fees are still there. They're just disclosed earlier in the booking flow, usually in slightly smaller text, often as a separate line called "additional fees" or "due at hotel."

The actual effect of the rule has been to make it easier to comparison shop. You can now see which hotels charge resort fees before you book. That alone is worth something. But the fees themselves haven't gone away, and they haven't shrunk.

How to Actually Avoid Them

Filter by total stay cost, not nightly rate

Most booking platforms now let you sort by total stay cost. This is the single most important filter. A hotel at $150 a night with a $50 resort fee is more expensive than a hotel at $175 a night with no fee. The nightly rate alone hides this.

Book independent hotels and boutique properties

Independent hotels and small boutique brands almost never charge resort fees. The fee model was built by big chains and casino resorts. A 50-room boutique hotel in the same city as a 1,000-room resort will often beat the resort on total cost, even at a higher advertised rate, because there's no fee on top.

Use points or status

Most major chains waive resort fees on reward stays. If you have hotel points sitting around, this is one of the few cases where redemption value goes up because of the fee waiver. Top-tier loyalty status (Hilton Diamond, Marriott Titanium, Hyatt Globalist) also typically waives the fees on cash stays.

Ask at check-in if you didn't use the amenities

This works more often than you'd think. If you never touched the pool, never used the gym, and brought your own water, ask at check-out to have the resort fee adjusted. About a third of properties will waive at least part of it for a polite, specific request. The other two-thirds will refuse. It costs nothing to ask.

Pick hotels in fee-light cities

Some major cities barely have resort fees. Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Denver, most of the Midwest. Smaller European cities are also largely fee-free, though some are starting to add "city tax" charges that function similarly. If you can be flexible on destination, the city itself can save you $30 to $50 a night.

The Calculation That Actually Matters

When comparing two hotels, do this math.

Take the advertised nightly rate. Add the resort fee. Multiply by nights. Then add the taxes (around 12 to 15 percent on the room and the fee). That's the real number. We did this exercise on five randomly selected Vegas Strip hotels for a four-night stay. The cheapest advertised rate ($129) ended up second-most-expensive on total cost because of a $55 nightly resort fee plus tax. A hotel listed at $159 with no fee was $87 cheaper overall.

The lesson is to do this math on every booking. Especially in Vegas, Hawaii, and any major US tourist destination.

Where Best Fits In

Best gives you 10 percent cashback on the entire booking, including any resort fees that ship with the rate. On a four-night Vegas stay where you can't avoid the fee, that cashback is roughly equal to one night of resort fees. We pay attention to all-in pricing on the platform for exactly this reason. A hidden fee that flows through to the user as a percentage cashback is a smaller hidden fee.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are resort fees mandatory?

Yes, in almost all cases. The hotel adds them to your bill at check-out and you have to pay them to complete your stay. Asking nicely can sometimes get them adjusted, but you can't refuse them outright without risking a dispute on your card.

What is the average resort fee in 2026?

$33 per day in the US, with a range of $15 to $60. Las Vegas and Hawaii are at the top of the range. Most urban destination fees fall between $25 and $40.

Can I dispute a resort fee on my credit card?

If the fee was clearly disclosed at booking, no. If it wasn't disclosed at all (rare in 2026), yes. Credit card chargebacks usually require evidence the fee was hidden, which is harder to prove now that the FTC rule is in effect.

Do resort fees apply to award stays?

Most major chains waive them on points redemptions. Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt all do. IHG sometimes charges them. Smaller chains vary. Always check the property page before redeeming.

Why don't hotels just raise the room rate instead of charging a fee?

Because the fee revenue isn't visible in published rate comparisons. A hotel at $200 a night looks more expensive than a competitor at $150 a night plus a $50 fee, even though the actual cost is identical. The fee is a marketing tool for the advertised rate.

Images: Hero and inline hotel and Las Vegas photography via Unsplash and Pexels, used under license.