Guide · Hotel tipping
What your resort fee actually guarantees
Since May 2025, federal rule requires a hotel to tell you what a mandatory fee is for and how much it costs, before you agree to pay. It does not require the fee be small, refundable, or connected to a tip — and reading the actual rule is the only way to tell which one you are looking at.
The short answer
The rule guarantees disclosure, not a discount. A hotel must show you a mandatory fee’s dollar amount and what it is charged for, as part of the total price, before you agree to pay — and it is illegal for the hotel to misstate what that fee covers. sourced It does not ban the fee, cap it, or fold it into the room rate for you. And nothing about the rule means the fee reaches the person who cleans your room — that depends entirely on whether the required disclosure names a gratuity, and almost none of them do.
The rule, in its own words
16 CFR 464.2(c) is the operative sentence, effective May 12, 2025: sourced
“A business must disclose clearly and conspicuously, before the consumer consents to pay for any covered good or service: the nature, purpose, and amount of any fee or charge imposed on the transaction that has been excluded from total price and the identity of the good or service for which the fee or charge is imposed.”
464.3 backs it with a separate prohibition on lying about any of that:
“[A business may not misrepresent] the nature, purpose, amount, or refundability of any fee or charge” or “the identity of the good or service for which the fee or charge is imposed.”
464.1 defines what this covers, and it is narrower than “every hidden fee”: short-term lodging — hotels, motels, inns, short-term and vacation rentals — and live-event tickets, and it reaches third-party booking sites and resellers as well as the property itself. sourced
What it does not do
- It does not ban the fee. A mandatory resort, destination or amenity fee is still allowed to exist and still allowed to be mandatory.
- It does not require the fee be folded into the nightly rate. It can stay its own line item, as long as the total price is shown at least as prominently as any smaller figure on the page.
- It does not say where the money goes — only that the hotel has to name what the fee is for. That name is the only thing that tells you whether it reaches staff at all. house judgment
So does it cover your tip?
Only if the disclosure the hotel is now legally required to give you actually names a staff gratuity. Almost none do — “resort fee,” “amenity fee” and “destination fee” describe pool towels, WiFi and gym access, not a tip pool. Unless the stated purpose names gratuities, the fee is not one, and the person who cleans your room has not been paid anything by it. house judgmentThat is exactly the test the hotel tipping calculator runs on this line: it renders the resort fee at $0 and keeps housekeeping’s tip on its own line, in cash, separately.
Now for the rest of the stay.
The hotel tipping calculator prices housekeeping, the bellhop, valet, doorman and concierge on the clock each one actually runs on, and shows the resort fee at $0 with the rule above quoted right on the line.
Build your list →Sources
- 16 CFR § 464.1 — Definitions — what counts as a “covered good or service” and who the rule reaches.
- 16 CFR § 464.2 — Hidden fees prohibited — the total-price and pre-payment disclosure requirements quoted above.
- 16 CFR § 464.3 — Misleading fees prohibited — the ban on misstating a fee’s nature, purpose or refundability.
- FTC — Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees to Take Effect on May 12, 2025 — the effective date.
Informational only. This guide reports the regulation as published and labels our own reasoning as ours. It is not legal advice. If you believe a hotel misstated a fee, the FTC accepts consumer complaints at reportfraud.ftc.gov. Last reviewed: August 2026.
More on how KindHow separates a source from a house call: the published methodology. Every guide is listed on the guides index.