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Guide

The FTC junk fee rule and what it means for a rodeo committee.

The Federal Trade Commission’s Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, codified at 16 CFR Part 464, took effect on May 12, 2025. The rule covers live-event ticketing and short-term lodging. If you sell rodeo tickets to the public, the rule applies to your storefront.

What the rule requires

A business covered by the rule must show the total amount the consumer will pay in a transaction as the most prominent price throughout the transaction. That price must include every mandatory fee, in the same currency, before the consumer is asked to consent to the purchase.

Optional or contingent charges (a chosen add-on, a voluntary donation, a shipping method the buyer selects) are excluded from the up-front total. Government-imposed taxes may be disclosed separately if they are clearly identified.

What it does not allow

  • Showing a face-value price and adding a mandatory fee only at the last step.
  • Rendering the base price in a larger typeface than the all-in total.
  • Describing mandatory fees with vague labels that a reasonable buyer would not understand as covering a specific service.

How SeatMaxx handles this

Every price rendered on a SeatMaxx storefront is the all-in total the buyer will pay. There is one component that formats currency for the buyer, PriceDisplay, and it runs the same fee schedule the checkout charges against. If the number a buyer sees drifts from what checkout charges, the checkout is the bug.

Donations pass through at zero fee, so a buyer who adds a $5 donation sees the total move by exactly $5. Free tickets and comp tickets are also never fee’d.

Committee-payer fee mode is available for committees that want to absorb the fee out of face value. In that mode the buyer sees the face price and pays the face price; settlement takes the fee out of the committee’s share. The rule is satisfied in both modes because the total the buyer will pay is what is shown first.

What a committee should verify on any platform

  1. Open the storefront on a phone. The first price you see for a ticket should be the total, not the face value.
  2. Add a ticket to the cart. The line total shown should match the number displayed on the event page.
  3. Reach the last step of checkout. No new mandatory fee should appear that was not part of the up-front total.

If any of the three fail, ask the vendor how they intend to comply before May 12 of any given year, and get the answer in writing.

Where to read the rule

The final rule text is published at 16 CFR Part 464. The FTC’s summary and business guidance are on the FTC site under the Bureau of Consumer Protection’s pages on junk fees. Search “FTC junk fee rule 464” and read the primary source; do not rely on secondary summaries, including this one.

Related reading: How to sell rodeo tickets online.