NYC Hotel Junk Fee Ban Starts Feb 21, 2026
New York City's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection has adopted a final rule aimed at stopping hidden mandatory hotel fees from being tacked onto stays after travelers think they have found the price. The change matters for both visitors booking rooms in the five boroughs and New York City residents shopping for hotels elsewhere, because the rule is written to reach ads and offers directed at New York City consumers. Travelers should plan to recheck how prices appear across hotel sites, online travel agencies, and metasearch results as the effective dates roll in, and keep screenshots of what they were shown at the moment they booked.
The NYC hotel junk fee ban treats it as a deceptive trade practice to show a hotel stay price without clearly and conspicuously disclosing the total price, including mandatory fees, making the true cost easier to compare before you commit.
The adopted rule adds a new hotel fee disclosure section in Title 6 of the Rules of the City of New York, and it requires that any offer, display, or advertisement disclose the total price more prominently than other pricing information, while also prohibiting misrepresentation of the nature or purpose of fees. It also sets out a disclosure framework for excluded fees and the final amount due before a consumer consents to pay. Civil penalties for "improper hotel fee disclosure" begin at $525 and escalate for repeat violations, which raises the stakes for hotels and third party sellers that continue drip pricing tactics.
One important correction to common headlines, New York City is not instantly eliminating credit card holds as a practice. The adopted rule requires disclosure of a hotel's general policy for deposits or holds, the standard amount, reasons a hotel may keep part or all of it, and an approximate release or refund timeline, but that specific disclosure provision is delayed until January 22, 2027.
Who Is Affected
Travelers booking hotels in New York City are the most directly affected, because the total price requirement reshapes how room rates should appear on hotel brand sites, online travel agencies, and metasearch listings for New York City stays. If you are traveling for major demand peaks, including global events that tighten inventory, the practical benefit is faster apples to apples comparison when every listing is supposed to surface mandatory fees in the total.
New York City residents shopping for hotels outside the city are also in scope, because the rule applies to anyone offering, displaying, or advertising the price of a hotel stay to a New York City consumer. In practice, that language pressures large booking platforms and major hotel groups to standardize how they present total price when they target New York City shoppers, even if the hotel itself is elsewhere.
Hotels, hotel operators, and third party booking entities are the operational layer that will feel the change first. Pricing display logic, taxes and fee breakdown modules, confirmation emails, and pre arrival messaging typically pull from different systems, and "mandatory fees" have often lived outside the nightly rate field. The rule's penalty schedule, starting at $525 per violation, creates a compliance incentive to fix those seams rather than leaving it to front desk staff to explain surprises after arrival.
What Travelers Should Do
Before February 21, 2026, get into the habit of capturing the full price view at the moment you book, including the page that shows the total price and any fee breakdown, plus your confirmation email. If a listing still shows a low nightly rate and a separate mandatory fee appears only late in checkout, treat that as a risk signal, and consider switching to a property or channel that shows an all in total up front, especially for non refundable bookings.
Use a decision threshold that is about certainty, not just dollars. If the fee structure is unclear, or if the property cannot state the all in total that will be charged before taxes, it is usually better to rebook into a comparable option with transparent totals than to gamble that the final bill will align with the headline rate, particularly during sellout weeks when alternatives disappear fast.
Over the next 24 to 72 hours after you book, monitor three things in your own paperwork rather than relying on memory, the total price you were shown, the final amount confirmed in writing, and any stated policy for deposits or holds. Keep in mind that the rule's hold and deposit policy disclosure provision is delayed until January 22, 2027, so you should still proactively ask about incidental holds at check in, and plan a credit limit buffer if you travel on a tight budget.
Background
Hidden mandatory hotel fees are a classic travel system problem because they distort shopping at the top of the funnel, then create friction at the point of service delivery. First order, drip pricing increases search costs, makes rate comparisons unreliable, and can push travelers into bookings they would not choose if totals were clear, especially when inventory is tight and travelers feel pressure to buy fast. Second order, the confusion shows up downstream as front desk disputes, refund demands, and chargebacks, which can clog customer service queues at hotels and booking platforms, and can also disrupt business travel expense workflows when the folio does not match the traveler's approved estimate.
New York City's adopted rule is explicitly modeled on the Federal Trade Commission's Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, which targets hidden mandatory fees in short term lodging and requires prominent total price disclosure. The city's approach anchors enforcement in its Consumer Protection Law by defining certain hotel pricing displays as deceptive trade practices, and it adds a local penalty schedule for improper hotel fee disclosure. City officials also pointed to consumer complaint volume as a justification, including more than 300 complaints in 2025 related to hidden hotel fees or unexpected holds.