Resort Fees in 2026. The New Rules That Ended the Checkout Surprise
Resort fees are not gone, but hiding them is now illegal. What the FTC rule and New York City's 2026 rule changed, and how to shop hotels under honest pricing.
For two decades, the resort fee was the hotel industry's favorite magic trick. Advertise a room at $189, then reveal at checkout that the real price was $234 once a mandatory "destination fee" appeared. In 2026, that trick is mostly illegal to perform. Two separate rules now force the full price into the open, and they change how every traveler should read a hotel search page.
The fees themselves did not go away. That part matters just as much.
What the federal rule actually requires
The FTC's Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees took full effect in May 2025. It requires every hotel, motel, short-term rental, and booking site to show the total price, including all mandatory fees, any time a price is displayed at all. The total has to be at least as prominent as any other number on the page, and the disclosure has to be unavoidable. A guest should not be able to click through to payment without seeing the real cost.
The penalties have teeth. Violations can draw civil penalties of up to $53,088 per violation, and regulators count each deceptive price display as its own instance. Hotel Dive's analysis called the rule a de facto national standard for hotel pricing, since no chain wants to run separate pricing displays for different states.
Here is what the rule does not do. It does not ban resort fees. It does not cap them. A hotel can still charge $55 a night for the pool towels and the lobby wifi. It just has to tell you before you book, not after.
New York went further in February
New York City's own hotel fee disclosure rules took effect on February 21, 2026, applying to hotel owners, operators, and booking platforms doing business in the city. The city rule layers local enforcement on top of the federal one, which means a Manhattan hotel now faces two separate regulators if a mandatory fee shows up late in the booking flow. California's honest-pricing law has worked the same way at the state level since 2024.
The practical result is that fee games are migrating out of the fine print and into the room rate itself, where at least the comparison is honest.
Why hotel prices look higher in 2026, and why they are not
The most common reaction we hear from travelers this year is that hotels got more expensive. Often what actually happened is that the advertised number finally matches the real one. A Las Vegas room that showed $99 in 2023 and charged $144 after fees now shows $144 from the first search result. Same price. Less ambush.
This is a genuine win for anyone who compares prices, because comparison finally works. When every site must show totals, the cheapest listed option is actually the cheapest option. Before the rule, the "cheapest" result was frequently just the one hiding the most.
Where mandatory fees still hit hardest
Resort and destination fees remain heaviest in a familiar set of markets. Las Vegas leads, with mandatory fees of $35 to $60 a night at most Strip properties. Miami Beach, Orlando, Hawaii, and New York follow, and urban "destination fees" of $25 to $40 have crept into big-city hotels that have no resort amenities at all.
The fee usually bundles things like wifi, pool access, gym entry, and a beverage credit. Sometimes the bundle is real value. Usually it is not, and our breakdown of which hotel extras are actually worth paying for applies directly. You cannot decline a mandatory fee, but you can let it change which hotel wins your booking.
How to shop hotels under the new rules
Sort by total price, always. Every legitimate booking site now shows it upfront, so use it and ignore the base-rate number entirely.
Check what the fee includes before you pay for duplicates. If the mandatory fee covers breakfast or parking you would have bought anyway, the effective room price just dropped. If it covers a gym you will never enter, treat it as pure rate.
Watch the taxes on the fee. Mandatory fees are usually taxed like the room, which means a $50 fee costs closer to $58 in high-tax cities.
And put your savings tools to work on the full amount. When you book through Best, the 10 percent cashback is calculated on your hotel booking, so honest all-in pricing works in your favor twice. Once at comparison time, once at cashback time. Details on how that works are in our cashback explainer.
How we got here. A short history of the fee
Resort fees started in the 1990s as a Hawaii and Vegas invention, a way to advertise a lower nightly rate than the competitor across the street while collecting the difference at the desk. The practice spread because it worked twice over. It won the price-comparison war on the booking sites, and it dodged the commission and tax treatments applied to room rates in some jurisdictions.
By 2023, mandatory fees had reached roughly one in ten US hotels and far more in the big leisure markets, and the average fee in Las Vegas had climbed past $40. Attorneys general in several states sued over drip pricing. Marriott settled in 2021 and agreed to show fees upfront. The FTC rule finished the job the lawsuits started, and the New York and California rules made sure there was nowhere to retreat.
If a surprise fee still shows up
Compliance is broad in 2026, but not perfect, and international hotels booked through smaller channels remain the most common gap. If a mandatory charge appears at the desk that never appeared in your booking total, do three things.
First, show your booking confirmation and ask the desk to remove the charge. Most will, because the paper trail now runs against them. Second, if they refuse, pay it, keep the folio, and dispute the charge with your card issuer as not agreed to at purchase. Card disputes over undisclosed mandatory fees succeed regularly now that total-price rules exist to point at. Third, report it at reportfraud.ftc.gov. That last step feels symbolic but is not, since the FTC builds cases on complaint volume.
Keep screenshots of the booking page when you book anywhere you suspect games. Thirty seconds of screenshotting has settled more fee arguments than any regulation.
FAQ
Are resort fees illegal now?
No. The FTC rule and the New York City rule require disclosure of the total price upfront. Hotels can still charge mandatory fees of any size, but they can no longer reveal them late in the booking process.
Can I refuse to pay a resort fee at check-in?
Not if it was disclosed in the total price when you booked, which in 2026 it almost always is. If a fee appears at the desk that was never shown during booking, you have a strong case. Ask for it in writing, pay under protest if needed, and dispute it with your card issuer and the FTC.
Do resort fees earn cashback or points?
Cashback through Best applies to your booking total on the platform. Fees collected separately by the hotel at check-in generally sit outside any rewards math, which is one more reason totals-first comparison matters.
Which cities have the highest resort fees in 2026?
Las Vegas remains the leader, with most Strip hotels charging $35 to $60 a night. Miami Beach, Orlando, Honolulu, and New York round out the heaviest markets.
Images. Hero by Frames For Your Heart via Unsplash, used under license. Check-in desk by Helena Lopes via Unsplash. Front desk payment by Mikhail Nilov via Pexels.
