Whether you’re purchasing concert tickets, checking out of a hotel or canceling a cable subscription or gym membership, you’ve likely run into a spate of additional charges.
[Read: This Is What New Subscription Laws Mean for Your Money]
These are unexpected — and sometimes hidden — fees that companies pass on to you for a service that costs them little (or nothing) to provide. Among American consumers, they are wildly unpopular.
According to a 2024 Navigator Research survey that polled general election voters in 61 battleground congressional districts, nearly nine in 10 want Congress to pass laws banning or limiting junk fees.
Although a few states, including California and Connecticut, have passed legislation to ban junk fees or regulate their disclosure, there is no federal law regarding them. However, the Federal Trade Commission did implement a Junk Fees Rule in December 2024.
“Junk fees make people feel angry, helpless and frustrated — like they’re being nickel and dimed,” says Nadine Chabrier, a senior policy counsel working on federal policy and litigation at the Center for Responsible Lending. “These fees affect virtually everyone, but financially vulnerable consumers frequently bear the brunt of such fees.”
Here’s what junk fees are, what the FTC rule does and how consumers can avoid paying more than they have to.
Common Junk Fees
Many people are unaware of these extra charges until they complete a transaction or have already received a product or service. Common junk fees include:
— Service charges for event tickets
— Resort fees at hotels
— Late payment fees for credit cards
— Airline family seating fees
— Termination fees for phone or internet service
— Document preparation fees for financial transactions
— Out-of-network ATM fees
— Checking account overdraft fees
— Restaurant living wage fees
— Online convenience fees
“A lot of times these fees are just ways for companies to gouge consumers secretly, or to get an unfair advantage over their competitors,” says Teresa Murray, director of the consumer watchdog office at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
“If there is a fee that everyone is charging but one company isn’t disclosing it, that can make one company seem like their product or service is cheaper. But they’re just not being transparent,” she adds.
The FTC Junk Fees Rule
In both his 2023 and 2024 State of the Union addresses, former President Joe Biden promised to crack down on these fees with the Junk Fee Prevention Act. While legislation was introduced in 2023 to create the act, the bill never progressed beyond the committee stage.
The FTC, however, has been working on this issue since 2022 and announced a final Junk Fees Rule in late 2024. This rule only applies to live-event ticketing and short-term lodging, such as hotels and vacation rentals. Under the rule, businesses must, with few exceptions, include all mandatory fees in advertised prices. They must also disclose the cost of fees, what they are for and whether they are refundable.
Consumers are estimated to spend 53 million hours each year searching for this fee information, according to the FTC. The commission says that by requiring total prices be shared conspicuously, the time savings from the rule will have a value of $11 billion over the next 10 years.
Junk Fee Defenders
Still, regulating junk fees has some detractors.
“Congress never gave the FTC the authority to regulate pricing policies across the entire complex economy, all in one sweeping edict,” Jeff Stier for The Federalist Society, a conservative and libertarian legal group, said in an email.
Peter Earle, a senior research fellow with the American Institute for Economic Research, says that many so-called junk fees involve businesses passing along the added costs they face to do business.
A concert-ticket promoter, for example, needs to pay the facilities that host events and other vendors that make them possible.
“Many times, the reasons for which these fees are appended are defensible,” Earle says. “The only way to eliminate them is by rolling them into a single price, and consumers would like that even less.”
Consumers Can Control Some Junk Fees
The FTC rule only applies to a limited group of junk fees, but there are ways to avoid others.
The first, says Howard Dvorkin, a certified public accountant and chairman of Debt.com, is to be more discerning about where you shop.
“Stop patronizing the places that keep hitting you with these stupid charges, and eventually they’ll get the message that they shouldn’t be charging them,” Dvorkin says. If you see that one company is charging extra but another isn’t, take your business elsewhere.
For example, as a traveler, you have choices between airlines. Review the terms and look for one that has a low or no-fee policy on services you want. Maybe you want to take the kids on a trip and don’t want to be charged extra for adjacent seats for children. If so, you may lean toward Alaska, American or Frontier.
When buying tickets to concerts, plays and sporting events, you may be able to avoid the service fees by purchasing tickets directly through the box office. If you are an avid movie-goer and want to reserve seats online, consider joining the cinema’s reward program. Some will waive convenience fees for members. If you don’t know what kind of fees you may be up against when you stay at a hotel, a little research goes a long way. Check out how much you might be charged for things like parking, resort fees and Wi-Fi, then call and ask how you may get around those charges.
Have you ever been surprised by a restaurant check that seems unusually large? Read the bill carefully. You may spot fees for credit card transactions, employee health insurance and inflation. You can try to have them purged from the bill, but if management doesn’t budge, consider dining elsewhere in the future.
To eliminate or lower fees associated with banking, select low-fee credit cards. Pay your bills on time and stay within the limit to avoid financial penalties. Open checking and savings accounts at financial institutions that keep account fees to a minimum.
For everything else, from terminating phone or internet service to having documents prepared to executing financial transactions, it always pays to ask if there are any additional charges to be aware of and under what circumstances they can be waived.
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What Is a Junk Fee and How Does It Affect You? originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 05/27/25: This story was published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
