FTC Initiates Process To Adopt Proposed Rule On Rental Housing Fee

The piece you’re referring to is about the FTC’s new Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) on “unfair or deceptive rental housing fee practices,” which formally kicks off a rental-fee rulemaking focused on hidden or junk fees in long‑term housing rentals.

What the FTC just did

• On March 12–13, 2026, the FTC issued an ANPRM titled “Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Rental Housing Fee Practices” and published it in the Federal Register.

• The ANPRM seeks public comment on whether a federal rule is needed to prohibit unfair or deceptive fee practices in the rental housing market, including hidden or nontransparent charges layered on advertised rent.

• The comment period is 30 days from Federal Register publication (i.e., through mid‑April 2026).

Policy backdrop and authority

• This rental-fee ANPRM follows the FTC’s 2024–2025 “junk fees” work and is explicitly framed as an effort to combat hidden fees that inflate the real cost of housing and undermine price competition.

• The Commission is invoking its Magnuson‑Moss rulemaking authority under section 18 of the FTC Act to define unfair or deceptive rental fee practices, similar to how it approached the cross‑industry junk fees rule under the prior administration.

• The ANPRM is also positioned against a backdrop of state and local “junk fee” and rental price-transparency laws (e.g., Colorado and several city‑level initiatives), with the FTC acknowledging this parallel activity.

Practices and issues in scope

While the text is high‑level at this stage, the ANPRM and law‑firm analyses indicate several focal points:

• Requirements to disclose the total rent (up‑front “all‑in” pricing) rather than advertising base rent and revealing mandatory fees only at lease‑signing or move‑in.

• Treatment of common add‑ons, such as “administrative” fees, convenience fees, required trash or pest-control fees, mandatory amenity packages, and similar recurring charges that may not be optional in practice.

• Application, screening, and move‑in/move‑out fees, including whether they are clearly disclosed, reasonably related to cost, and charged only when services (e.g., screenings) are actually performed.

• Requirements for obtaining “express, informed consent” for fees, avoiding pre‑checked boxes or buried terms, and ensuring that renters understand what they will pay over the lease term.

• Potential prohibitions on charging fees that are misleadingly described (e.g., suggesting they are government‑mandated when they are not) or that duplicate other charges.

Procedural posture and next steps

• This is an ANPRM, not a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), so the FTC is at the earliest, information‑gathering stage in the Magnuson‑Moss process.

• After reviewing comments, the FTC could: issue an NPRM with draft rule text, decide not to proceed, or pursue alternative approaches such as guidance or enforcement‑only strategies.

• Any eventual rule would create a new basis for civil penalties for covered rental‑fee practices, in addition to existing Section 5 enforcement and state junk‑fee statutes.

Practical takeaways for housing and financial players

• Landlords, property managers, and rental platforms should expect the FTC to scrutinize fee disclosures, “total price” representations, and consent mechanisms well before a final rule is in place.

• Banks, fintechs, and servicers with embedded roles in rent‑payment, deposit products, or rent‑reporting offerings may be pulled into investigations if they facilitate or market fee structures that are nontransparent or misleading.

• Trade associations and large operators will likely file detailed comments on cost/benefit, preemption, interaction with state laws, and operational impact (e.g., on pricing models, online leasing flows, and billing systems).

Is your main interest the legal theory (unfairness vs deception and interaction with state junk‑fee regimes), or are you looking for compliance‑oriented detail for a particular type of market participant (e.g., large REITs vs small landlords vs payments providers)?