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The Junk Fee Rule You Think Applies to You Doesn't

September 2, 2026

The FTC's junk fee rule does not apply to your leasing office. Sit with that, because most of the trade press has been sloppy enough to make you think otherwise.

The rule the FTC finalized targets live-event ticketing and short-term lodging. Hotels, concert tickets, that kind of transaction. Long-term apartment leasing was not brought under it. If someone on your team forwarded you a piece implying the FTC now requires all-in pricing on apartment listings nationally, that piece is wrong, or at least badly overstated.

That doesn't mean you're in the clear. It means the exposure isn't coming from where the headlines say it is. It's coming from your state, and in some states it's already binding.

California's SB 478, the Honest Pricing Law, took effect in 2024, and it does reach rentals. It requires that the price advertised, displayed, or offered be the actual total price a consumer will pay, with mandatory fees built in, not tacked on later in the funnel. Government charges and shipping-type costs get carved out, but application fees, amenity fees, and other recurring charges you control do not. If you operate in California, this is not a future problem. It's a current one, and it applies to what's on the listing page, not just what's in the lease.

New York has its own junk fee framework working through similar territory, requiring that advertised prices reflect the full amount a renter will actually owe. The details differ from California's approach, and enforcement is still developing, so treat New York as a state where the direction is clear but the specifics are still settling. Don't assume your California compliance work covers New York. It won't. The two laws don't require you to show the same things in the same places.

HUD doesn't have a junk fee rule the way the FTC does, but fee structures that function differently depending on a renter's source of income, or that get applied inconsistently across applicants, can still create fair housing exposure under existing HUD guidance. That's a separate risk lane from pricing disclosure. Keep it separate in your head. The fix for one is not the fix for the other.

Here's the practical split for your team. The ad, the listing, the ILS syndication feed, and your own website need to show the real number a renter will pay, if the jurisdiction requires it. Not "starting at." Not a base rent with fees revealed at application. The lease is where the itemization lives: what each fee covers, why it recurs, how it's calculated. Ads carry the total. Leases carry the breakdown.

Don't wait for a federal standard to settle this.

There isn't one coming for apartment leasing on the timeline your legal team needs. If you operate in California or New York, you already have an obligation, and treating it as wait-and-see is the wrong call.

What you should do instead is audit your ILS listings state by state, not portfolio-wide. A pricing display that's fine in Texas can be a problem in California. Your CRM and website vendor should be able to tell you, right now, whether your displayed price on a California or New York listing includes mandatory fees. If they can't answer that in one conversation, that's your answer about whether you're covered.

This is not legal advice. State pricing-disclosure law is moving fast and unevenly, and anything here should be checked against current statute and your own counsel before you change what your ads say.

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