Resort Fees, Explained: What They Cover and Whether You Can Avoid Them

A resort fee is a mandatory daily charge added to a hotel bill, on top of the room rate, that the guest cannot decline and pays regardless of whether the covered amenities, typically Wi-Fi, pool and gym access, sometimes bottled water or a daily newspaper, are ever used. It is not a tip, not a tax, and not optional. It has also been the subject of more regulatory action than almost any other line item in travel.

The number that matters

Average resort fees in the US run around US$43 a night as of 2026. On a five-night stay, that adds roughly US$215 before tax, on top of whatever room rate got you to click "book." Fees run highest in Las Vegas and Hawaii, commonly US$35 to US$65 a night, while most standard city hotels charge nothing at all. The fee is charged per room per night, not per person, so it does not scale with how many people are actually using the pool.

Why regulators got involved

The core complaint was never that hotels charge for amenities. It was that the fee was disclosed as late as possible, often only at the final step of checkout, after a guest had already compared prices and committed time to a booking, a practice regulators call drip pricing. Multiple state attorneys general pursued enforcement actions against major chains over exactly this. Hyatt and Sonesta both faced lawsuits alleging rates were advertised without the mandatory fee clearly disclosed; Choice Hotels settled with a multi-state coalition of attorneys general over the same underlying practice.

What the 2025 federal rule actually changed

The Federal Trade Commission's Junk Fees Rule, finalized in December 2024 and effective from May 2025, requires that the total price, including mandatory resort fees, be displayed clearly and prominently before a consumer is asked to pay, rather than revealed at the final step. It did not ban resort fees themselves, and no nationwide settlement forcing their removal has been finalized. The rule targets disclosure timing, not the existence of the charge.

What it did not fix

A fee disclosed upfront is still a mandatory fee. California went further than the federal rule, passing legislation effective July 2024 that requires all mandatory charges to be baked into the advertised total price from the first screen, not merely disclosed before payment. Most other states rely on the FTC standard, which permits the fee to be shown clearly, just not hidden until checkout.

How this intersects with preferred-partner booking

Resort fees are charged independently of how a room is booked, direct, OTA, or preferred-partner advisor, and are not something a preferred-partner credit is designed to offset by default, though in practice a property credit can often be applied against it. The more relevant point is that a preferred-partner or brand-loyalty booking sometimes does waive the fee entirely: some Hyatt award redemptions at Hyatt properties waive the resort fee, while Marriott and Hilton typically do not extend the same waiver on comparable stays.

Our position

Always compare total price, room rate plus resort fee plus tax, not the headline number, before booking anywhere the fee applies. Google Hotels and most major OTAs now default to showing the all-in total following the FTC rule; if a site is still showing only the base rate, treat that as a signal to check more carefully, not as evidence the fee doesn't apply.