FTC Junk Fee Rule: Short Term Rentals Must Show Totals
Short term rental coverage of the FTC's junk fee rule has treated it as a hotel story, or at best an Airbnb display story. That reading misses who the rule binds. The Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees took effect on May 12, 2025, is codified at 16 C.F.R. Part 464, and applies to any business that offers, displays, or advertises short term lodging. A host advertising nightly rates on a website they own is doing exactly that.
The operative detail is small and expensive. The FTC's own business guidance uses a vacation rental cleaning fee as its worked example of a mandatory charge that must sit inside the total price shown upfront. A large share of host built direct sites still advertise a nightly rate and introduce the cleaning fee at checkout. That is the pattern the rule was written to stop, it has been unlawful since May 2025, and the fix takes an afternoon.
Key facts
- The FTC's Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees took effect May 12, 2025, is codified at 16 C.F.R. Part 464, and was approved on a 4-1 vote on December 17, 2024.
- A covered good or service includes "Short-term lodging, including temporary sleeping accommodations at a hotel, motel, inn, short-term rental, vacation rental, or other place of lodging," and the rule reaches any business that offers, displays, or advertises it. 16 C.F.R. 464.1 defines a business to include an individual.
- The FTC's worked example is explicit: "A vacation rental adds a cleaning fee that consumers must pay in addition to the nightly rate. The cleaning fee must be included in the total price."
- Taxes and other government charges, shipping charges, and charges for optional goods or services may sit outside the advertised total, but their nature, purpose, and amount must be disclosed before the guest consents to pay.
What the rule actually requires
Total price, in the rule's language, is the maximum total of all fees a consumer must pay for the good or service plus any mandatory ancillary good or service. In host terms: the number a guest cannot get out of paying.
Section 464.2(a) makes it an unfair and deceptive practice "for any business to offer, display, or advertise any price of a covered good or service without clearly and conspicuously disclosing the total price." Section 464.2(b) adds a layout rule: a business "must disclose the total price more prominently than any other pricing information," with the final amount of payment as the single exception. Section 464.2(c) governs what you leave out, requiring the nature, purpose, and amount of any excluded charge before the guest consents to pay.
Itemization survives. A business may itemize mandatory charges, but "itemization must not overshadow the total price." You can still show a guest that $1,030 breaks into $880 of nightly rate plus a $150 cleaning fee. You cannot lead with the $880.
The rule does not restrict what you charge. In the Commission's own words, "It does not prohibit any type or amount of fee, nor does it prohibit any specific pricing strategies." Keep the cleaning fee and its amount. Move where it appears.
Does the rule reach a site you own?
The regulation defines a business as "an individual, corporation, partnership, association, or any other entity that offers goods or services." An individual is named first: no small operator exemption, no unit count threshold, no carve out for a site the host built themselves.
The rule reads on offers, displays, and advertisements, not checkout alone, which is the part hosts most often get wrong. A social post with a nightly rate, a Google ad, a calendar tooltip, and a search card on your own site are all displays of price, and each carries the obligation.
The listing site question runs both directions. The FTC guidance says that "if intermediaries display pricing information for the seller, they must display the total price. In such a case, sellers must provide intermediaries with the information necessary to calculate the total price." The platform carries the display duty, and you carry a duty to give it what it needs. A cleaning fee you keep off platform and collect separately is a problem under that sentence.
Which of your fees go inside the price, and which do not
The FTC's test is functional: fees are mandatory if they relate to a good or service "necessary to make the underlying good or service fit for its intended purpose; or a required purchase when people buy the underlying good or service."
Inside the total
Cleaning fees, resort or amenity fees, mandatory linen charges, booking or administrative fees, and any processing surcharge every guest pays. The FTC's resort fee example shows how little discretion there is: a hotel that charges the fee automatically and waives it only when challenged is still charging a mandatory ancillary service.
Outside the total, disclosed before payment
Taxes and other government charges, meaning state and local lodging or transient occupancy tax for most US hosts. These may sit outside the advertised total, but 464.2(c) still requires their nature, purpose, and amount before the guest consents to pay. A line reading "plus taxes" with no figure does not meet that standard. Genuinely optional add ons also sit outside, and the FTC treats a charge as optional when it requires an affirmative opt in: mid stay cleans, a firewood bundle, early check in sold as an upgrade.
The grey zone worth getting right
Pet fees, extra guest fees, and damage waivers turn on whether the charge is avoidable for that booking. A pet fee is avoidable for a guest traveling without a pet and unavoidable once a pet is added, which puts it under the FTC's provision that a business "can't calculate a fee or charge in advance because it depends on choices someone makes during the transaction." A damage waiver charged to every reservation is not avoidable and belongs inside the total. Make such charges genuinely selectable and recompute the total when a guest selects one.
On per night display, the FTC has published no lodging specific guidance for browse pages, so what follows reads the rule's text rather than quoting the agency. Before a guest picks dates, stay length is a choice made during the transaction and the cleaning fee cannot be spread across it. Once dates are selected the fee is knowable and the displayed total must include it. Showing the all in number the instant dates are chosen avoids the question.
What this changes about competing with the OTAs
For years the direct channel's price advantage was partly presentation: your site showed $220 a night, and the OTA showed a larger number because it aggregated more of the cost earlier. Once both channels advertise an all in price, that illusion disappears and the comparison becomes real money. Run it on a four night stay at $220 a night with a $150 cleaning fee, taxes aside.
Direct: four nights at $220 is $880, plus the $150 cleaning fee, so the total price you must advertise is $1,030. That is $257.50 per night all in.
Now the same stay on Airbnb. US hosts who had not already moved were shifted to the host only fee structure on September 15, 2026, and Airbnb's help center states that under the single fee structure "Most hosts pay 15.5%", charged on the booking subtotal, which includes the cleaning fee. List the same $1,030 and Airbnb deducts $159.65, leaving you $870.35.
To hold the same $1,030 net, you divide rather than subtract: $1,030 divided by 0.845 is $1,218.93. Check it: 15.5 percent of $1,218.93 is $188.93, and $1,218.93 minus $188.93 is $1,030.00. The guest now sees $304.73 per night all in on Airbnb against $257.50 on your site.
The gap is $188.93 on a four night stay, or 18.34 percent above the direct price. The correct markup is 18.34 percent, not 15.5 percent, because the fee comes off the raised number. That is the same divide-do-not-subtract arithmetic behind the real cost of Airbnb fees and the September 15 host fee deadline, and it is the basis for pricing a direct site against the OTAs. A guest comparing two all in totals is comparing the thing you actually win on.
A short audit of your own site
Five places to look, in the order a guest meets them:
- Search or listing cards. Is the price the all in figure or the bare nightly rate, and is the cleaning fee disclosed nearby?
- The first screen after dates are selected. The total is computable here, and the all in number should be the most prominent price on the page.
- The tax line. Confirm a specific amount appears, not "plus applicable taxes," before payment.
- Optional add ons. Confirm each requires a click and that the total updates when selected.
- Everything outside your site. Google ads, Instagram captions, a rack card at the visitor center. The rule reaches advertising, not only checkout.
If you are building the site rather than auditing one, these display rules belong in the same pass as the basics a direct booking site needs to take its first reservation. A flow that shows an all in total the moment dates are chosen is table stakes for any platform, Haven or otherwise.
What to watch next
No enforcement action under the fees rule has targeted lodging as of September 22, 2026. The first case was against StubHub, filed April 9, 2026 and resolved by a stipulated order the next day for $10 million in penalties and consumer redress. That is ticketing, and it signals how the Commission treats a first mover in a covered industry rather than previewing a lodging target.
Keep Part 464 separate from a second proceeding that is easy to confuse with it. The FTC issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on rental housing fee practices on March 13, 2026, with comments closing April 13, 2026. It covers residential rental housing, which the Commission had decided "in its discretion, to proceed incrementally and not include" when it wrote Part 464. It has no bearing on your nightly rates.
Watch your own state too. The FTC guidance says that where a state gives greater protections, you comply with both. California is the clearest case: the Attorney General's hidden fees guidance lists short term rentals among the industries covered by SB 478, effective July 1, 2024, and AB 537 added Business and Professions Code section 17568.6 the same day, carrying a civil penalty up to $10,000 per violation.
Frequently asked questions
Does the FTC junk fee rule apply to my own vacation rental website, or only to Airbnb?
Both. The rule covers any business that offers, displays, or advertises short term lodging, and 16 C.F.R. 464.1 defines a business to include an individual. There is no exemption for a small host or a site you built yourself. Platforms carry their own display duty, and sellers must give them what they need to calculate the total.
Do I have to include the cleaning fee in the price I advertise?
Yes, once the total is computable. The FTC's guidance uses this exact scenario and states that a vacation rental cleaning fee consumers must pay in addition to the nightly rate must be included in the total price. You may still itemize it, provided the itemization does not overshadow the total.
Can I show lodging taxes separately from the nightly rate?
Yes. Taxes and other government charges may be excluded from the advertised total, but not from disclosure: 16 C.F.R. 464.2(c) requires the nature, purpose, and amount of any excluded charge, plus the final amount of payment, before the guest consents to pay.
What happens if I do not comply?
The FTC can seek civil penalties for rule violations. Its inflation adjusted maximum was $53,088 per violation as of the adjustment published January 17, 2025, and the figure is revised annually. Practical exposure for a single host is far smaller, but the fix costs an afternoon.
