The Federal Trade Commission said the ticket resale provider violated the agency’s free transparency rule and did not disclose total ticket prices for live events.
WASHINGTON — StubHub has agreed to pay $10 million to settle charges from the Federal Trade Commission alleging the company did not properly disclose ticket prices to consumers.
The FTC announced that StubHub, which is the nation’s largest ticket resale provider, would refund $10 million in fees to consumers after the company violated the agency’s rule on unfair or deceptive fees.
“The Commission’s Fees Rule makes it very clear that the total price of live-event tickets must be disclosed up-front to enable consumers to make fully informed purchasing decisions,” said Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection in a news release.. “Price transparency is essential to a free and competitive marketplace. Today’s settlement underscores the Commission’s commitment to ensuring that consumers pay the price they are promised.”
The FTC’s order comes after the agency issued a warning letter to the ticket selling platform in May 2025 saying that multiple prices on its websites appeared to violate the Fees rule, which had taken effect on May 12, 2025.
According to the agency, the rule, says t is an “unfair and deceptive practice for any business to offer, display, or advertise the price of a live-event ticket without clearly, conspicuously and most prominently disclosing the total price,” which the Rule defines 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.”
StubHub had advertised ticket prices without showing the full price to consumers after the rule had gone into effect, according to the commission’s complaint. In specific, StubHub failed to show total prices for highly-demanded NFL tickets ahead of May 14, 2025, when the season schedule was announced.
The ticketing platform must use the $10 million to refund consumers and is prohibited from misrepresenting the price of any good, service, fee or charge. The order also states that StubHub must explain why the fee or charge is being imposed in the total ticket pricing.
StubHub must refund customers within 90 days of the order. According to the news release, the two groups eligible are consumers who bought tickets for live events in the U.S. between May 12, 2025 and May 14, 2025. The first group includes those whose total price was not properly disclosed in the initial pricing display, while the second group encompasses consumers who bought tickets during that window.
