Say tax is added
383
Say nothing is added
12
Do not say
108
Of the 395 hotels that say either way, 97% add tax on top. “Nothing added” can mean the figure already includes tax; it does not mean the fee is untaxed.
Why the fee is taxed
A resort fee is part of what you pay for the room, so the hotel’s local room tax is usually charged on it as well. A $40 fee in a city with a 15% hotel tax costs $46 a night. On a five-night stay that is $30 of tax on the fee alone.
Hotels word it as “plus tax”, “plus applicable taxes” or “excluding tax”. When a hotel says the figure includes tax, the fee on our pages is the figure it states; we never convert one into the other.
Why the total you are shown may still leave it out
The FTC rule on hotel fees (16 CFR Part 464, in force May 12, 2025) requires the total price to include mandatory fees, but lets a seller leave government taxes out of the price it displays. So a total that includes the resort fee can still exclude the tax on it, and the tax arrives at check-out.
Our hotel pages show what a fee adds to a stay with the tax on top where the local rate is known, and our search ranks hotels on the total including every fee.
Questions people ask
- Do I pay hotel tax on the resort fee?
- Usually. 383 of the 503 hotels we read say tax is added to their fee; 12 say nothing is added; 108 do not say.
- Does the price I was shown include the tax on the resort fee?
- Not necessarily. The FTC rule lets sellers leave government taxes out of a displayed total, so check whether the total says taxes are included.
Whether the fee is per room or per person: per room or per person.