"Fee transparency" is being used to describe three different obligations.

One is about the advertised price: what number a listing has to show. One is about the lease document: what has to be itemized, and where. And one is about the fee itself: whether a particular charge can be made at all.

A state can do one of these without the others. The same fee can be lawful to charge, lawful to advertise separately in one state, and required to be folded into a single total price in another.

And since March 2026, there is a federal track as well. It is not a rule. But it shows what practices and industry issues the FTC is currently examining, and it names property management software as part of the picture.

The Federal Position: A Question, Not A Rule

On 13 March 2026, the Federal Trade Commission published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Rental Housing Fee Practices, at 91 FR 12325. Comments closed on 13 April 2026.

An ANPRM is the first stage of rulemaking, not a rule. It asks questions. After reviewing comments, the Commission may take further steps under section 18 of the FTC Act, or none.

What the notice asks about. The FTC is seeking comment on practices such as advertising rent that fails to include all mandatory fees or charges, imposing fees and charges without express informed consent, and misleading consumers about the nature and purpose of fees or charges. Among its specific questions, it asks whether a rule should require the total rent, including all mandatory fees, to be disclosed clearly and conspicuously whenever a price is quoted, and whether that total should be displayed more prominently than any other pricing information.

Three things to hold alongside that.

1. The FTC's existing fee rule does not cover rental housing. Its Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, at 16 CFR Part 464, applies to live-event ticketing and short-term lodging. The notice records that the Commission chose to proceed incrementally and did not include rental housing in that rule.

2. Enforcement does not wait for a rule. The notice describes two cases brought under existing law. In FTC v. Invitation Homes, a September 2024 stipulated order required the company to advertise total rent including all mandatory fees and to pay $48 million in consumer redress. In FTC and State of Colorado v. Greystar, a December 2025 stipulated order required Greystar to advertise total rent including all mandatory fees most prominently and to pay $23 million in consumer redress, plus $1 million to Colorado. In April 2026, a coalition of state attorneys general also filed a comment supporting federal action on rental fee transparency.

3. And the notice names software. The FTC defines "rental housing providers" to include rental property owners and managers and third-party property management software providers, listing services and online rental platforms. In December 2025 the FTC sent warning letters to 13 property management software providers, and the notice asks how software and listing technology affect the ability to advertise total rent accurately.

Check the current status before relying on any of this. A rulemaking that is an open question today may have moved by the time you read it.

Rule One: The Advertised Price

Colorado is the clearest example.

House Bill 25-1090, codified at C.R.S. § 6-1-737, took effect on 1 January 2026. It requires advertised rental prices to show the total price as a single, clear and conspicuous number, displayed more prominently than any other pricing information. Colorado's total price includes amounts that must be paid or are not reasonably avoidable, excluding government charges unless voluntarily included.

Read what that does in practice. A listing that presents base rent prominently and leaves mandatory fees outside the advertised total would not satisfy that total-price requirement.

It also reaches the fee itself. The same section prohibits a landlord or agent from requiring a tenant to pay a fee, charge or amount for maintenance of common areas. That is a substantive restriction, not a disclosure rule, which is why the three categories above are worth keeping separate.

And enforcement has its own guidance. In November 2025 the Colorado Attorney General issued a memorandum on enforcement priorities for utility billing under HB 25-1090, including its treatment of certain ratio utility billing arrangements. Anyone operating in Colorado should read it rather than a summary of it.

Rule Two: The Lease Document

Virginia took a different route. Instead of regulating the advertisement, it regulates the first page of the lease.

Under Va. Code § 55.1-1204.1, enacted in 2025 and effective from 1 July 2025, the first page of a written rental agreement must itemize the charges that make up the security deposit, the amount of rent due per payment period, and any additional one-time charges due before the commencement date or included in the first rental payment.

Immediately above that list, the agreement must carry a set statement: "No additional security deposits or rent shall be charged unless they are listed below or incorporated into this agreement by way of a separate addendum after execution of this rental agreement."

Note what that list covers and what it does not. Several summaries describe it as requiring every fee on the first page. The statute's itemization is framed around the security deposit, rent per period, and one-time charges due at or before the start. Read the current section itself before designing a lease template around a summary. Our Virginia VRLTA compliance guide covers this alongside the other 2025 and 2026 Virginia changes.

Rule Three: Whether The Fee Can Be Charged

This is the layer most likely to be missed, because it hides inside laws described as transparency laws.

Colorado's bar on fees for common area maintenance is one example. Other states and localities restrict particular categories of fee, cap particular charges, or impose conditions on when certain charges may be assessed.

Colorado also places a separate limit on certain fee increases. Section 6-1-737(4)(b) prohibits a landlord from requiring a tenant to pay a fee, charge or amount that increases by more than 2% over the course of a rental agreement of one year or less, with an exception for utilities.

A fee that is perfectly disclosed can still be unlawful to charge. Which means a compliance review that stops at "is it in the listing and the lease" has only answered two of the three questions.

One Fee, Three Questions

Take a single charge and run it through all three rules. A property charges every resident a $50 monthly amenity fee, and advertises the unit at $1,450.

Question one: what does the advertised price have to show? In Colorado, if the fee must be paid or is not reasonably avoidable, it is part of the total price. The listing cannot lead with $1,450 and put "+ $50 amenity fee" underneath. The single, most prominent number has to be $1,500. If residents can reasonably avoid the fee, it is not part of the total, but Colorado still requires the nature and purpose of pricing information outside the total price to be disclosed clearly and conspicuously.

Question two: what does the lease have to show? In Virginia, the first-page itemization is framed around the deposit, rent per payment period and one-time charges at the start. A recurring monthly amenity fee is not a one-time charge, so its first-page treatment turns on whether it falls within one of the statute's other listed categories, including the amount of rent due per payment period. That is a question to settle deliberately, not to assume by leaving the fee on page four.

Question three: can it be charged at all? This is where the label stops mattering. If the "amenity fee" in substance pays for maintaining the pool, gym and grounds, then in Colorado the relevant question is the statute's prohibition on requiring a fee for maintenance of common areas, whatever the fee is called. That is a question to take advice on before the fee goes into any listing.

Same $50, three different kinds of answer. And every one of them depends on two facts recorded about the fee: whether it is mandatory, and what it actually pays for.

How Many States?

The National Apartment Association described Colorado, from 1 January 2026, as the 19th state to adopt mandatory rental housing cost transparency requirements. The FTC's own notice lists twenty state bills in this area, and describes them as states that have enacted, or are in the process of enacting, such statutes.

Treat any count with the same care as the laws themselves. "Transparency requirement" covers advertising rules, lease disclosure rules and substantive fee limits, and a count depends on which of those you include and whether pending bills are counted. There is also a local layer. Cities including Bellingham, Washington and Fayetteville, Arkansas have their own measures.

So the useful question is not how many states. It is which of the three rules applies at each property you operate.

The Classification Problem Underneath All Three

Here is why this is an operations problem and not just a legal one.

All three rules depend on the same underlying facts about each charge:

1. Is it mandatory or optional? Advertising rules generally turn on whether the charge is required to rent the unit. The FTC's notice asks, separately, about misrepresenting mandatory fees as optional and the reverse.

2. Is it recurring or one-time? Virginia's first-page itemization, for example, is framed around one-time charges at or before the start of the tenancy. The FTC's notice asks whether one-time fees should be part of total rent or disclosed as a separate move-in cost.

3. Is it rent, a deposit, a fee, a pass-through or a government charge? Colorado's total price includes amounts that must be paid or are not reasonably avoidable, and excludes government charges unless voluntarily included, so the classification of each item decides whether it goes into the number.

And what does it actually pay for? As the worked example shows, the substance of a fee can decide whether it may be charged at all, and the FTC's notice asks separately about misrepresenting the nature and purpose of fees.

If those facts live in three places (the listing tool, the lease template and the billing system), they will drift apart, and the advertised total will stop matching what is actually charged. That mismatch is one of the problems the state laws and the FTC's inquiry are concerned with.

A practical control is to maintain one classification for each charge and use it consistently across the relevant systems. When each charge code carries its own mandatory, recurring and category flags in the ledger, the advertised total, the lease itemization and the monthly bill can be kept consistent from the same underlying charge classification, rather than reconciled after the fact.

What To Do Now

Map which rule applies where. For each property, establish whether the state or locality has an advertising rule, a lease disclosure rule, substantive fee limits, or several.

Classify every charge once. Mandatory or optional, recurring or one-time, what kind of charge it is, and what it pays for.

Audit listings against the classification. In an advertising-rule jurisdiction, every mandatory charge that should be in the total price needs to be in it, including on third-party listing sites your feeds populate.

Audit lease templates. In a lease-disclosure jurisdiction, check the first page against the statute's own list, not a summary of it.

Check the fees themselves. Confirm that each charge is permitted at all where the property sits, judged by what it pays for rather than what it is called, and check any limits on how much it can increase.

And watch the federal track. The FTC's inquiry could lead to a federal rule, and the questions it raises overlap with issues that state and local laws are already addressing.

FAQ

1. Is there a federal rental junk fee rule?
Not currently. The FTC published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on rental housing fee practices at 91 FR 12325 on 13 March 2026, with comments closing on 13 April 2026. An ANPRM is the first stage of rulemaking and may or may not lead to a rule. The FTC's existing fee rule at 16 CFR Part 464 covers live-event ticketing and short-term lodging.

2. Can fee disclosure practices be challenged without a specific law?
Yes. The FTC's notice describes its cases against Invitation Homes and Greystar under section 5 of the FTC Act, both resolved by stipulated orders requiring total rent including mandatory fees to be advertised. State attorneys general have also pursued rental-fee transparency through state-law enforcement.

3. Does the FTC's inquiry cover property management software?
The notice defines rental housing providers to include third-party property management software providers, listing services and online rental platforms, and asks how technology affects the ability to advertise total rent accurately. The FTC also sent warning letters to 13 property management software providers in December 2025.

4. What does Colorado require?
C.R.S. § 6-1-737, enacted by HB25-1090 and effective 1 January 2026, requires advertised rental prices to show the total price as a single, clear and conspicuous number displayed more prominently than other pricing information. The total price includes amounts that must be paid or are not reasonably avoidable. The act also prohibits requiring a tenant to pay a fee for maintenance of common areas, or a fee that increases by more than 2% over a rental agreement of one year or less, excluding utilities.

5. If I charge a mandatory monthly amenity fee in Colorado, how do I advertise it?
A fee that must be paid or is not reasonably avoidable is part of the total price, so the advertised number has to include it and be the most prominent price shown. Separately, check what the fee pays for, because Colorado prohibits requiring a fee for maintenance of common areas.

Sources: Federal Trade Commission, Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Rental Housing Fee Practices, Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 91 FR 12325, 13 March 2026, for the scope of the inquiry, the definition of rental housing providers, the practices and questions on which comment was sought, the list of state bills, and the Invitation Homes and Greystar orders; FTC, "FTC Sends Warning Letters to 13 Property Management Software Providers Nationwide," 9 December 2025; 16 CFR Part 464;the Colorado Attorney General's memorandum of 24 November 2025 on enforcement priorities for utility billing under HB 25-1090; the Colorado Attorney General's comment letter to the FTC of 13 April 2026; Va. Code § 55.1-1204.1; and National Apartment Association materials for the attributed count of states and local developments. The worked example is illustrative, uses invented figures, and does not describe any actual property or determine how a particular fee would be treated. State and local law in this area changes frequently; verify the current position for each jurisdiction. This article describes general concepts and is not legal advice. Confirm your position with counsel before changing advertising, lease or fee practices.