StubHub has agreed to pay $10 million to settle with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for violations of the Junk Fees Rule. Announced in 2024 under the Biden administration’s Lina Khan-led FTC, the Junk Fees Rule requires that ticketing and rental agents display the full price up-front. Alleged deceptive pricing occurred in the three days after the rule went into effect, and an injunction filed in the Southern District of New York orders the ticketing company to make payments to customers who purchased tickets within that window.

In a release detailing the settlement with ticket resale giant, the FTC holds that StubHub deliberately violated the Junk Fees Rule by “deceptively advertising ticket prices on its website without clearly and conspicuously disclosing up-front how much consumers actually would pay, including all mandatory fees.” The agency’s suit follows a warning letter sent to the platform that outlined its apparent violations, to which Stubhub did not respond.

A StubHub spokesperson told Nexstar that the company did not agree with the FTC’s assertions, but agreed to refund a portion of the fees it collected as a show of its support for all-in pricing legislation. “This settlement covers a limited number of transactions, spanning just three days in May 2025, where some listings on our site may have displayed ticket prices exclusive of fees,” the representative said.

The three days in question followed the May 12 launch of the Junk Fees Rule, which formally orders StubHub and competing ticketing companies to display the true total price, inclusive of any additional fees, more prominently than any other pricing information. StubHub’s “roll-out” process after the law took effect encompassed the May 14 announcement of the coming year’s NFL schedule, which StubHub reportedly admitted was a “99th percentile traffic event”; during this period, displays on StubHub’s website advertised prices excluding fees and failed to disclose the total price. Under the settlement terms, StubHub will distribute the $10 million portion of its fees through a consumer redress program, and will notably be required to itemize any fees or charges factoring into the all-in price – an oversight of the Junk Fees Rule cautioned against by some industry advocates.

“Price transparency is essential to a free and competitive marketplace,” said Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Today’s settlement underscores the Commission’s commitment to ensuring that consumers pay the price they are promised.”

The FTC has taken a more active position on enforcing its regulations for the live event ticketing industry since last March, when President Trump’s executive order on Ticketing declared that the administration will use “all lawful authority” to combat price gouging and encouraged the FTC to “rigorously enforce” 2016’s Better Online Ticket Sales [BOTS] Act. In the months following, the agency announced the second-ever legal action against aftermarket ticket brokers for BOTS Act violations, then sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster for alleged illegal and exploitative practices throughout its ticketing business.