Ticket sellers must show the total price with mandatory fees under a 2025 FTC rule: what changed for fans

Since May 12, 2025, anyone in the United States who advertises or displays a price for a concert, game or show ticket has had to show the total price, including mandatory fees. The requirement comes from the Federal Trade Commission's Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, published in the Federal Register on January 10, 2025, which also covers hotels and other short-term lodging. The rule sets no limit on fees. What it changes is when they must be counted: in a total price shown alongside any price, not only at checkout.

The problem the FTC described

The FTC's target, in its words, was bait-and-switch pricing: advertising a price that leaves out mandatory fees. Venues, ticket sellers and resellers, it wrote, had long added charges to a ticket's face value step by step through a purchase. In what the FTC called a non-generalizable sample, the Government Accountability Office found that ticket fees averaged 27% of the ticket price in the primary market and 31% in resale.

It also cited a StubHub experiment: with fees shown up front, 83% of buyers looked at a single listing, against 74% when the fees came last. Combined with the five to ten minutes many sellers hold seats in a cart, that gap underpins its estimate of search time saved.

What sellers must do now

The rule, 16 CFR part 464, rests on two prohibitions. Whenever a business offers, displays or advertises a ticket price, it must give the total price clearly and conspicuously, and no other pricing information may stand out more. And no business may misrepresent a fee: what it is, what it pays for, how much it is or whether it can be refunded. The total price is the most a buyer must pay, including anything the buyer is required to buy with the ticket. Three kinds of charges may be left out of it: government charges such as taxes, shipping charges, and optional add-ons. These, and the final amount, must be disclosed before the buyer consents to pay.

FTC staff's guidance of May 5, 2025, its compliance guide for small businesses, gives examples. A fee an online ticket seller charges on every purchase cannot be avoided, so it belongs in the total price. So does a 3% credit card surcharge when the seller offers no other viable way to pay online. A VIP package or a binocular rental is optional and can be added later. Staff also say sellers must explain what each fee pays for, rather than using catch-all names like “convenience fees,” “service fees” or “processing fees.” The guidance, which speaks for FTC staff and does not commit the Commission, covers concerts, sporting events, theater and other live performances, but generally not film screenings.

Resale is covered too: the guidance lists resellers and third-party platforms among covered businesses, and a marketplace that shows a seller's prices must show the total. Dynamic pricing stays legal, the Commission wrote, but adjusted prices must include all known mandatory fees.

From a rule for every industry to tickets and hotels

The FTC opened the rulemaking in October 2022 and in October 2023 proposed a rule that would have applied across the economy. In the final rule, the Commission chose to focus on the two industries where it had first examined drip pricing, live-event ticketing and short-term lodging. Other industries stay under the general ban on deceptive pricing, which the FTC said it would enforce case by case.

StubHub, Vivid Seats, the National Association of Ticket Brokers, and Live Nation and Ticketmaster told the FTC they supported all-in pricing, with Vivid Seats and the brokers' association asking that it apply to every seller. Live Nation and Ticketmaster added that service charges pay venues and ticketing companies, which typically get no share of a ticket's face value. Commenters split over itemized fees: the Recording Academy called itemization the only way to keep third-party charges in check, while TickPick asked the FTC to prohibit it. The final rule allows truthful itemization as long as the total price is more prominent.

The vote, and a new administration

The Commission approved the rule by a 4-1 vote, announced on December 17, 2024. The dissent came from Andrew Ferguson, then a commissioner, who wrote in a statement dated the same day that he objected “only on the ground that the time for rulemaking by the Biden-Harris FTC is over” and that his vote should not be read as a position on the rule's merits. He added that the final version addressed practices and industries for which the Commission had some evidence, calling it “a significant improvement” on the original proposal.

The rule took effect under the new administration. President Trump's Executive Order 14254 of March 31, 2025, “Combating Unfair Practices in the Live Entertainment Market,” told the FTC to act, by proposing regulations if necessary, to ensure price transparency “at all stages of the ticket-purchase process, including the secondary ticketing market.” When the FTC published staff's guidance on May 5, 2025, it said the rule furthers that order. By September 2025, Ferguson was the agency's chairman.

What applies now

The rule is in force. In the electronic Code of Federal Regulations, current to November 9, 2026, all five sections of part 464 still carry May 12, 2025, as their latest amendment date, so the text has not changed since it took effect. Where a state law protects buyers more, businesses must follow that law as well, FTC staff say.

Ticket fees are also central to the FTC's own case against Ticketmaster, which it calls the leading provider of concert tickets. On September 18, 2025, the FTC and seven states sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster, alleging that Ticketmaster advertised prices substantially lower than buyers paid after fees, which the agency says reached as much as 44% of a ticket's cost. The FTC says the conduct violates the FTC Act and the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, and the fees it cites, $16.4 billion from 2019 to 2024, date from before the rule applied. Live Nation's report for the quarter ended September 30, 2026, says its motion to dismiss was denied in September 2026 and that “we do not believe that a loss is probable of occurring at this time.” It adds: “The Company will vigorously defend itself.” Our report on Live Nation's third quarter covers its other court cases.

For buyers, the 2025 change stands: the total price shown must already include the fees every buyer pays, and only taxes, shipping of physical tickets and optional extras may be added before payment. FTC staff's guidance points consumers who suspect a violation to the agency's reporting page.