Illinois Enacts a Junk Fee Ban Requiring All-In Upfront Pricing (HB 228)

Illinois Enacts a Junk Fee Ban Requiring All-In Upfront Pricing (HB 228)

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed the Junk Fee Ban Act, HB 228, on June 25, 2026, requiring businesses to show the full price of a good or service, including all mandatory fees, before a consumer decides to buy. The law takes effect January 1, 2027 and was part of a package of consumer-protection bills signed the same day.

Information last verified on July 6, 2026. This is a developing story; we update it as the record changes.

Status: Signed into law on June 25, 2026; effective January 1, 2027. This is an enacted statute. Companion bills signed the same day have their own effective dates, noted below.

Jurisdiction scope: This article addresses Illinois HB 228 and companion consumer-protection statutes. It describes Illinois law and, for context, comparable rules in other states and at the federal level. It is not a compliance manual. For related coverage, see US consumer lemon laws and the FTC's $35 million junk-fee settlement with Hopper.

What Happened

Gov. JB Pritzker signed HB 228, the Junk Fee Ban Act, on June 25, 2026 at an event in Chicago, alongside a set of other consumer-protection measures. The bill passed the Illinois Senate 46 to 12 and the House 77 to 18 in the 104th General Assembly, sponsored by Rep. Bob Morgan and Sen. Omar Aquino. The Junk Fee Ban Act takes effect January 1, 2027.

At its core, HB 228 requires all-in pricing. It makes it unlawful for a business to advertise, display, or offer a price for a good or service that does not include every mandatory fee or surcharge, with government taxes excluded from that total. The idea is that the first price a consumer sees should be the price they actually pay before tax. The law reaches required service fees, processing and convenience fees, surcharges, and mandatory gratuities, and it targets familiar practices such as hotel and short-term-rental resort fees, ticket service and facility fees, and add-on charges on food-delivery and rideshare apps, which must be itemized before checkout.

At the signing, Gov. Pritzker said that "corporations have become more and more creative in finding ways to charge consumers more while telling them less about what they're charging them for." The Junk Fee Ban Act operates through the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, 815 ILCS 505, meaning a violation is enforced as a deceptive practice under that existing framework rather than through a new standalone enforcement scheme.

HB 228 did not move alone. On the same day, the Governor signed three related bills. HB 4984, a ghost-ticketing ban, prohibits ticket resellers from listing or selling tickets they do not hold in physical or contractual possession, and it took effect immediately. SB 318 bars using bots to buy tickets in excess of a posted per-event purchase limit, effective January 1, 2027. SB 3561 creates the Buy-Now-Pay-Later Loan Regulation Act, which requires point-of-sale installment lenders to register with the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, with lender compliance required by January 1, 2028.

What the Law Actually Says

Illinois already had a broad consumer-protection statute, the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, 815 ILCS 505, which prohibits unfair and deceptive acts in trade and commerce. HB 228 builds on that Act rather than replacing it. By defining the omission of mandatory fees from an advertised price as unlawful, the Junk Fee Ban Act treats hidden-fee pricing as a deceptive practice, which means the enforcement tools and penalties of the existing Act carry over. This is a common drafting choice: it lets a new consumer rule inherit a mature enforcement structure instead of creating a parallel one.

The all-in-pricing concept is not unique to Illinois. California's Honest Pricing Law, enacted through SB 478 and effective July 1, 2024, requires advertised prices to include mandatory fees and excludes only government taxes and certain shipping charges. Minnesota amended its Deceptive Trade Practices Act to require the same, effective January 1, 2025. At the federal level, the Federal Trade Commission's Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, codified at 16 C.F.R. Part 464 and effective May 12, 2025, requires total-price disclosure for live-event tickets and short-term lodging and bans misrepresenting the nature and amount of fees. Illinois's law is broader in scope than the federal rule, which is limited to tickets and lodging, and it sits alongside the FTC's efforts rather than duplicating them.

The distinction between mandatory and optional charges is what the law turns on. All-in-pricing statutes generally require that fees a consumer cannot avoid be built into the displayed price, while genuinely optional add-ons can be presented separately. That line is why the statutes reach resort fees and service charges, which a buyer must pay to complete the purchase, but treat truly discretionary extras differently. The Illinois attorney general enforces the Consumer Fraud Act, and consumers have historically had a private right of action under it, which is the mechanism that gives the new pricing rule practical teeth. For how the federal side of hidden-fee enforcement has played out, see our coverage of the FTC's junk-fee settlement with the travel app Hopper and Connecticut's auto-renewal and right-to-repair rules.

Analysis: Why This Matters

The following is analysis from the Recording Law Editorial Team.

Illinois is a large market, so an all-in-pricing mandate there matters beyond the state line. National retailers, ticketing platforms, hotels, and gig-economy apps generally do not build state-specific checkout flows for a market the size of Illinois; they tend to adjust the whole system. That is part of why state hidden-fee laws have an outsized effect: a rule in California, Minnesota, or Illinois can nudge pricing practices for consumers everywhere.

The choice to route the Junk Fee Ban Act through the existing Consumer Fraud Act is a practical one. It means the state did not have to invent penalties or an enforcement agency; the attorney general's existing authority and the Act's private right of action apply. That tends to make a law easier to enforce than a freestanding statute with an untested remedy. The same-day package reinforces the theme, pairing the pricing rule with targeted fixes for ticket resale and installment lending, two areas where consumers frequently encounter surprise costs.

The limits are worth stating plainly. The law regulates how prices are displayed; it does not cap what a business may charge, and it does not guarantee any individual a refund. Its effect depends on enforcement and on how businesses classify mandatory versus optional fees. This analysis does not predict how any particular enforcement action will resolve, which will depend on the specific pricing practice at issue.

How This Affects You

For Illinois consumers, the practical change arrives at the point of sale starting January 1, 2027: advertised and displayed prices are supposed to include mandatory fees, so the number shown should reflect what is owed before tax. That makes comparison shopping more reliable, because two listed prices are meant to be genuinely comparable rather than one hiding fees that appear only at checkout.

For businesses that sell to Illinois consumers, the compliance question is which fees are mandatory. Charges a customer must pay to complete a purchase generally need to be included in the displayed price, while truly optional items can be shown separately. Because the rule runs through the Consumer Fraud Act, the usual enforcement and private-action tools apply. This is general information about how the statute works, not advice about any specific pricing model, which a business should review with counsel before the effective date.

This is general legal information, not legal advice. It covers Illinois HB 228 and related statutes and reflects sources verified on July 6, 2026. Laws change and this story is developing; consult a lawyer licensed in Illinois about your specific situation.

Sources

• Illinois General Assembly, HB 228 bill status (104th General Assembly)
• Office of Gov. JB Pritzker, statement on signing junk-fee and consumer-protection legislation, June 25, 2026
• Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, 815 ILCS 505
• Federal Trade Commission, Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, 16 C.F.R. Part 464
• California Attorney General, hidden-fees (Honest Pricing Law) guidance

Related articles

• US consumer lemon laws: how to qualify and get a refund
• FTC fines travel app Hopper $35 million over hidden junk fees
• Connecticut auto-renewal and right-to-repair rules take effect

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Last updated: 2026-07-06. This is a developing story; details verified as of 2026-07-06.