Sponsors (4)
The bill improves upfront price transparency for people booking lodging but imposes compliance costs on lodging businesses and limits state and local authority over price-display rules.
Consumers (people booking lodging) will see the full total price for services up front when booking, reducing surprise fees at checkout and making it easier to compare offers.
Hotels and short-term rental platforms may incur compliance costs to change price displays and booking systems, which could be passed on to customers through higher prices.
State and local governments lose some ability to set their own price-display rules because the bill preempts conflicting state law, reducing local regulatory flexibility.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Introduced January 29, 2025 by Amy Klobuchar · Last progress January 29, 2025
Requires hotels, short-term rentals, online travel sellers, and intermediaries to clearly and prominently show the total price for a lodging purchase — including government taxes, fees, and assessments — whenever a price is advertised or offered and at all points in the purchase process. Grants the Federal Trade Commission authority to enforce the rule as an unfair or deceptive practice, allows state attorneys general to bring certain suits in coordination with the FTC, and sets an affirmative defense for intermediaries that reasonably relied on inaccurate price data and corrected it quickly. The rule applies to advertisements and offers placed in interstate commerce and takes effect 450 days after enactment; it includes detailed definitions, allows less-prominent display of component fees, permits indemnification agreements among covered parties, and preempts state or local price-advertising requirements that conflict with the federal standard (with a narrow exception for state laws that already require a total-price display that meets the federal rule).