NYC's Junk Fee Rule Hits Every Business With $3,500 Fines

Three violations, $3,500 each, no cure period. That’s the exposure New York City just put on every business advertising to its consumers.

On July 8, the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection proposed a rule requiring “all-in” pricing across virtually every industry in the city, not just hotels. First violation runs $525, second $1,050, third and beyond $3,500. No warning, no fix-it window. Every ad, every checkout screen with a buried fee counts separately, so the math scales fast for anyone running national marketing at city consumers.

That’s a real departure from the model DCWP is copying. The FTC’s Junk Fees Rule only covers live-event tickets and short-term lodging. NYC’s version is industry-neutral, adds a misrepresentation ban on fee labels like “service fees,” and pairs it with recordkeeping rules where a missing document creates a legal presumption against the business. That last piece is the sleeper: DCWP doesn’t have to prove your fee was deceptive if you can’t produce paperwork justifying it.

Follow the pattern and this isn’t NYC improvising. California’s SB 478, Minnesota, and Colorado already run economy-wide junk fee statutes, and DCWP Commissioner Sam Levine has positioned the agency as one of the country’s most active local regulators. Banks and fintechs shouldn’t assume TILA and RESPA insulate them either. DCWP explicitly invited comment on whether federal preemption covers their marketing at all.

Comments close August 7, with a hearing the same day. That’s the real deadline that matters here.

— Marcus Webb