Resort Fees at Minnesota Resorts and Hotels

A resort fee, destination fee, or amenity fee added to a Minnesota stay is governed by two separate rules that arrived five months apart, and the test under both is the same: did the nightly rate you were shown already include it? If it did, there is no problem. If the rate said $189 and the folio says $189 plus a $32 resort fee, the rate you were shown was not the price.

A third answer applies to a lot of folios: the line item is a government tax, and both rules leave taxes alone by their own text.

Dates matter more here than anywhere else on this site. The Minnesota statute reaches conduct on or after January 1, 2025. The federal rule took effect May 12, 2025. A 2024 stay is outside both.

The federal rule — narrow, and lodging is one of the two things in it

The Federal Trade Commission’s Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees is codified at 16 C.F.R. part 464. It is unusual among consumer rules in that it covers almost nothing — and hotels are one of the two things it covers.

§ 464.1 defines the scope:

Covered good or service means:

(1) Live-event tickets; or

(2) Short-term lodging, including temporary sleeping accommodations at a hotel, motel, inn, short-term rental, vacation rental, or other place of lodging.

Tickets and lodging. Restaurants, rental housing, gyms, car repair, retail, delivery, and telecom are all outside it.

The prohibition is § 464.2:

(a) It is an unfair and deceptive practice and a violation of this part for any business to offer, display, or advertise any price of a covered good or service without clearly and conspicuously disclosing the total price.

(b) In any offer, display, or advertisement that represents any price of a covered good or service, a business must disclose the total price more prominently than any other pricing information. However, where the final amount of payment for the transaction is displayed, the final amount of payment must be disclosed more prominently than, or as prominently as, the total price.

“Total price” is defined in § 464.1 as “the maximum total of all fees or charges a consumer must pay for any good(s) or service(s) and any mandatory ancillary good or service, except that government charges, shipping charges, and fees or charges for any optional ancillary good or service may be excluded.”

So a mandatory resort fee is inside the total price under the federal rule, and taxes are not. And § 464.2(c) adds a second duty — before you consent to pay, the business must clearly and conspicuously disclose “[t]he 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,” plus “[t]he final amount of payment for the transaction.” § 464.3 separately makes it a violation to misrepresent “the nature, purpose, amount, or refundability of any fee or charge.”

Who enforces it. The Commission. In the preamble to the final rule the FTC explains that “Section 5(m)(1)(A) of the FTC Act does, however, authorize the Commission to seek civil penalties in court for violations of trade regulation rules, such as the final rule here.” Part 464 itself is five sections long — definitions, two prohibitions, a relation-to-state-laws section, and a severability clause — and none of them gives a consumer a right to sue over a violation.

And the federal rule expressly leaves Minnesota’s law standing. § 464.4:

(a) In general. This part will not be construed as superseding, altering, or affecting any State statute, regulation, order, or interpretation relating to unfair or deceptive fees or charges, except to the extent that such statute, regulation, order, or interpretation is inconsistent with the provisions of this part, and then only to the extent of the inconsistency.

(b) Greater protection under State law. For purposes of this section, a State statute, regulation, order, or interpretation is not inconsistent with the provisions of this part if the protection such statute, regulation, order, or interpretation affords any consumer is greater than the protection provided under this part.

The Commission said the same thing in the preamble: “A State law can provide greater protections and, solely for that reason, will not be inconsistent with the rule; a business can comply with both.”

The citation, and why you will see two of them

You will find this rule cited as 90 FR 2066 in some places and 90 FR 2166 in others, and I chased that down because a wrong citation is the kind of thing that makes a reader distrust everything around it.

Both are correct and they point at different pages of one document. The Federal Register document — “Trade Regulation Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees,” FR Doc. 2024-30293 — was published January 10, 2025 and runs from page 2066 to page 2167 of volume 90. Its citation is 90 FR 2066. The eCFR’s source note for part 464 reads “90 FR 2166, Jan. 10, 2025,” because page 2166 is where the codified regulatory text begins inside that same document, which is the page a CFR source note gives.

The rule is effective May 12, 2025. As of September 18, 2026 the Federal Register shows no later document amending, staying, or removing part 464.

The Minnesota rule — broader, and it arrived first

Minn. Stat. § 325D.44, subd. 1a(a):

A person engages in a deceptive trade practice when, in the course of business, vocation, or occupation, the person advertises, displays, or offers a price for goods or services that does not include all mandatory fees or surcharges.

No industry list. Any business, any advertised, displayed, or offered price. Subdivision 1a(b) defines “mandatory fee” as one that “(1) must be paid in order to purchase the goods or services being advertised; (2) is not reasonably avoidable by the consumer; or (3) a reasonable person would expect to be included in the purchase” — any one of the three is enough. A resort fee charged on every room clears clause (1) without argument.

Subdivision 1a was added by Laws 2024, chapter 111, sections 1 and 2, each of which reads:

This section is effective January 1, 2025, except that this section is effective June 1, 2025, for industries where the prices are regulated by the Metropolitan Airports Commission.

I walk the rest of the statute — every safe harbor, the exemptions, and what the remedy actually is — in Is This Fee Legal in Minnesota?.

Paragraph (h) mentions hotels. It does not cover your room rate.

The safe harbor a hotel will reach for is subdivision 1a(h), and it names hotels by name:

(h) A food or beverage service establishment, including a hotel, is compliant with this subdivision if, in every offer or advertisement for the purchase of a good or service that includes pricing information, the total price of the good or service being offered or advertised includes a clear and conspicuous disclosure of the percentage of any automatic and mandatory gratuities charged.

Read what the sentence is about. It is a food and beverage paragraph — “[a] food or beverage service establishment, including a hotel” — and the thing it shelters is a clear and conspicuous disclosure of the percentage of any automatic and mandatory gratuities charged.

A room-service tray charge stated as a disclosed gratuity percentage is what this paragraph reaches. A banquet gratuity percentage is what this paragraph reaches. A nightly resort fee is not a gratuity and is not a food or beverage charge, and paragraph (h) does not say anything about nightly room rates. Stretching a gratuity-disclosure paragraph to cover a room-rate fee is the argument to watch for, and the text does not obviously support it.

Searching the Minnesota Supreme Court, the Minnesota Court of Appeals, the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota and the Eighth Circuit on CourtListener on September 18, 2026, I found no decision construing subdivision 1a or any of its paragraphs. That database is thin on unpublished Minnesota opinions, so none had surfaced as of that date — which is not the same as none existing.

Where the hotel is in the clear

Taxes are excluded by the statute’s own words. Subdivision 1a(b) closes with this:

For the purposes of this subdivision, mandatory fee does not include taxes imposed by a government entity on the sale, use, purchase, receipt, or delivery of the goods or services.

State and local sales tax imposed by a government entity on the stay does not belong in the advertised nightly rate, and a hotel that lists it separately is complying. Whether a particular local lodging or tourism tax is inside the exclusion depends on whom the ordinance taxes — the guest’s purchase, or the operator’s receipts — and that is worth checking on your own folio. The federal rule does the same thing from the other direction: its “total price” definition lets “government charges” be excluded.

The limit on that concession is in the words. The exclusion is for a tax imposed by a government entity. A privately imposed charge is not a tax because the folio prints it next to the real ones.

A nightly rate that already includes the fee is compliant. A property that quotes $221 and explains that the number includes a $32 resort fee has done exactly what both rules ask. Neither rule limits what a hotel may charge or what it may call the charge. They govern the number you are shown.

And conduct before the dates is outside both rules. A 2023 stay with a $40 resort fee on it is not reached by either one.

What decides it, and what to keep

Two documents answer the whole question, and you probably still have both.

1. The confirmation email, showing the quoted nightly rate you booked at.
2. The folio, showing the resort or amenity fee as its own line.

Put the quoted rate next to the fee line. Either the rate included it or it did not.

If you stayed more than once, keep all of them. A repeat guest holds the thing a single stay cannot show: whether the same property presented the same price the same way, over and over.

Madgett Law, LLC is evaluating whether Minnesota lodging fee practices can be challenged on behalf of the guests who paid them. Nothing on this page is advice about your stay, and sending documents to a law firm does not make you a client. If you stayed at a Minnesota resort or hotel on or after January 1, 2025 and the rate you booked was not the rate you paid, we want to see the confirmation and the folio.

---

Published by Madgett Law, LLC. Statutes and session laws verified September 18, 2026 against the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes; 16 C.F.R. part 464 against ecfr.gov; the rule’s citation, effective date, and status against federalregister.gov.