The number on an apartment listing is not always the number you pay. Apartment fees are the difference: a listing can show an all-in price, or it can show a base rent with every charge the property treats as mandatory arriving later — a technology package, a trash pickup fee, a utility administration charge. In the cases the Federal Trade Commission has taken to court, renters did not learn those numbers until after they had paid a nonrefundable application fee and were deep inside a lease that ran, in the FTC’s description, forty to sixty pages.
That is not a hypothetical. In December 2025, Greystar — which the FTC calls the nation’s largest multi-family rental property manager — agreed to pay $24 million to settle charges that it advertised rents that left out fixed, mandatory monthly fees. The FTC and the State of Colorado alleged those hidden fees had cost renters in Greystar properties “hundreds of millions of dollars since at least 2019,” and that consumers “often have not discovered the fees until after they have signed a lease or moved in.” On the FTC’s account, some paid “hundreds of dollars more than they expected each month,” and some found out only after handing over an application fee or holding deposit — money that was not refunded when they decided not to sign. Greystar settled rather than going to trial, so these remain allegations the company resolved, not findings a court made against it.
This article does two things. It goes through the fees you are likely to meet, one at a time, with the single question worth asking about each. And it makes the argument the fee lists on rental platforms are not written to make: information is cheapest to get before a nonrefundable fee leaves your account, and the money does not come back afterward.
The rule you have heard about does not cover your lease
If you followed the news about junk fees, you may believe there is now a federal rule requiring the full price up front. There is — and it excludes apartments. The FTC’s Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees took effect May 12, 2025. It requires the total price to be shown first and most prominently, and it says a business “must describe what fees are for and avoid vague phrases like ‘convenience fees,’ ‘service fees,’ or ‘processing fees.'” But the FTC’s own guide to the rule lists the lodging it does not cover, and the first item is “long-term or other rental housing that involves an ongoing landlord-tenant relationship.” The FTC’s examples of covered lodging include hotels, motels, inns, and vacation rentals booked through platforms. An ordinary long-term lease is not on that list.
What does apply to your lease is older and broader: the FTC Act’s ban on deceptive practices, which is the law the FTC used against Greystar and, before that, against Invitation Homes, which the FTC calls the largest single-family home rental provider in the country. In March 2026 the FTC mailed 444,131 checks totaling more than $47.2 million to Invitation Homes renters. The agency says those renters could not opt out of the undisclosed fees, which paid for “services” the FTC itself put in quotation marks: “smart home technology” and “utility management.” The same complaint covered charges at move-out for normal wear and tear and for damage that was there before the renter arrived.
Three things are worth holding apart here, because collapsing them is how a renter ends up either falsely reassured or falsely helpless.
First, the 2025 fee rule does not cover an ordinary long-term lease. Second, the FTC Act’s older ban on deception does, and the FTC says so in the rulemaking notice it issued in March 2026: “Unfair and deceptive rental housing fee practices violate federal law.” Its guidance to landlords is just as blunt — “advertising a rental price that excludes mandatory charges is a violation of the law.” Third, and this is the part that matters while you are standing in a leasing office: those settlement orders bind Greystar and Invitation Homes, not the landlord you are about to apply to. You cannot recite the Greystar order and require this building to follow it.
That March 2026 notice is the FTC asking the public whether a rental-housing fee rule should exist — the opening step of a rulemaking, not the end of one. Rulemakings run for years, so check where it stands before you lean on it.
What the record gives you, then, is not a script. It is a yardstick — the regulator’s own account of what honest rental pricing looks like — and the knowledge that a federal agency has twice put money behind that account.
Two numbers to get in writing before you pay anything
The proposed Greystar order, filed in December 2025 with the case still listed as pending, is unusually specific about this. Before charging an initial payment or deposit, it requires disclosure of the total monthly leasing price and, for every fee: whether it exists and how much it is, whether it is optional or required, its nature and purpose, and how often it is charged. That is a checklist a regulator wrote for a company that had to be sued into using it. You can borrow it for free, by asking for two numbers.
The first is what the order calls the total monthly leasing price, and its definition is worth copying exactly: “the entire monthly amount a tenant must pay to lease a Property, including all mandatory monthly costs or fees associated with the Property, and excluding variable utility costs and optional fees.” So it is the rent plus every fixed charge you cannot decline. It is not “rent plus utilities” — what you burn in electricity and water moves month to month, and the FTC’s term deliberately leaves it out. Ask for the fixed figure first, then ask separately what utilities have actually run in that unit. The second number is the total due before you get keys: application fee, any administrative or holding charge, the security deposit, the first month, and anything else collected up front. If you want to see how fast that one grows, our move-in cost guide adds it up line by line, with a calculator.
Ask for both in writing — an email is enough — before you pay the application fee. You are not testing whether the property charges fees. You are testing whether it can state its own total, and whether it will do so before it has your money.
Fee by fee: what it is, and the one question to ask
The FTC’s request for public comment lists six things about a fee that a renter can be misled about: its “nature, purpose, amount, refundability, optionality and recurrence.” Every question below is one of those six, pointed at a specific line on the invoice.
Application fee
The application fee is the one a federal agency has actually counted, and the one two states have written statutes about. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s 2022 reports on tenant screening found that “a reported 68% of renters pay application fees when applying for rental housing,” and that those fees are “often used to pay the cost of tenant background check reports.” The CFPB’s finding about the reports themselves is the sharper one: renters “pay for the reports, but often do not see them.” You pay for a document about yourself that you may never read.
Two states have written some of these questions into law, and they are worth reading even if you live nowhere near them. New York’s Real Property Law § 238-a bars a landlord from demanding payment for processing, reviewing or accepting an application at all, with background and credit checks as the exception — and that exception is capped at the actual cost or $20, whichever is less. The same section requires the fee to be waived if you supply a check run within the past thirty days, and bars collecting it unless the landlord hands you a copy of the report and the screening company’s invoice. Vermont goes further: 9 V.S.A. § 4456a says a landlord “shall not charge an application fee” to apply for a residential dwelling unit.
Be clear about what that does and does not mean for you. Rent outside New York or Vermont and you have neither protection, and no federal law supplies an equivalent. Rules on application fees are set state by state and sometimes city by city, so your own are worth looking up at your state attorney general’s or housing agency’s website. What these two statutes give every reader is a set of questions a legislature somewhere thought were fair to ask.
The question: what does this fee pay for, and will I receive a copy of the report it buys? Ask for the screening company’s name and what the report costs. An answer gives you something checkable. No answer leaves you paying an amount you cannot tie to anything — worth noting, without reading a motive into it, because the person in front of you may simply not have been told. Either way, if a report is pulled and you are turned down or offered worse terms because of it, the Fair Credit Reporting Act entitles you to an adverse action notice and the right to dispute what is in the report — and the CFPB found that renters “often do not receive” that notice. Our guide to tenant screening reports covers how to get the report and what to do about an error.
Administrative, processing, or “lease preparation” fee
This is the fee whose name is the problem. The FTC’s fee rule does not outlaw administrative fees, in the industries it covers or anywhere else. What it requires of covered businesses is that they say what a fee is for and avoid vague labels — it names “convenience fees,” “service fees” and “processing fees” as examples of what not to write. A landlord is not bound by that rule. It is still a fair standard to hold one to.
The question: what does this pay for that the rent and the application fee do not? Then the follow-up that matters more: if I am approved and choose not to sign, do I get it back? The Greystar complaint turned on that second question. In the FTC’s account, renters who found the real monthly cost after approval and declined to sign lost what they had already paid.
Holding deposit or reservation fee
A holding deposit takes the unit off the market while your application runs. The word “deposit” suggests it comes back. Ask under what conditions it does, and get the answer for three cases: you are denied; you are approved and sign; you are approved and do not sign. Whether a holding deposit is refundable turns on the agreement you sign and on your state’s rules, so “we keep it” is not automatically improper. It does tell you exactly what discovering a fee late would cost you, which is why the two totals above come before the holding deposit, not after.
Mandatory monthly add-ons: technology, trash, packages, pest, “amenity”
These are the fees at the center of both FTC cases, and they are the ones that turn the advertised rent into something else. A technology or smart-home package, valet trash, package lockers, pest control, an amenity or community fee, a utility administration charge. Do not assume any single one is trivial. In the Greystar case the FTC says consumers were “sometimes paying hundreds of dollars more than they expected each month” for the stack, and in the Invitation Homes case the FTC says these were charges renters “could not opt out of.”
The question is not whether the fee is reasonable. It is: is this mandatory, and can I opt out? Whether a charge you cannot decline is legally “rent” is a question for your lease and your state’s law, and not one you need to settle. What you need to do is simpler. When you compare two places, add every non-declinable charge to the rent before you compare, and make sure each one sits inside the total monthly leasing price you asked for.
Utility billing and “utility management” charges
Where a building bills utilities back to residents rather than having you open your own accounts, two different charges can land on the same line, and they behave differently. The usage itself is variable — it moves with the weather and with how you live, which is why the FTC’s definition of the total monthly leasing price leaves it out. A fee for calculating and billing that usage is not variable. It is a fixed monthly charge, and it belongs inside your total. Invitation Homes’ “utility management” fee was among the charges the FTC required it to refund. The question: how is my share calculated, and is there a service charge on top of the usage? A building that meters each unit can show you a reading. One that allocates by square footage or by headcount can show you the formula. What you are listening for is a method — and if the usage genuinely does vary, ask what the last twelve months looked like in that unit.
Pet deposit, pet fee, pet rent
Three different things that get one word. In ordinary leasing vocabulary, a pet deposit is held and returned absent pet damage, a pet fee is paid once and kept, and pet rent is a monthly charge for as long as the pet lives there. Those are conventions rather than legal definitions — what a given charge actually means, and whether it is permitted or capped at all, depends on your lease and your state. Which is exactly why the question is: which of these is it, and which part comes back? A leasing office that uses the three words interchangeably is one to slow down with.
Fees for paying rent, paying late, or a returned payment
The FTC’s fee rule contains a test worth borrowing even though it does not bind a landlord. Under that rule, in the industries it covers, a payment fee counts as mandatory when no other viable fee-free method exists, and optional when one does. That is not rental law in any state. It is still the right way to think about your own budget: if the only way to pay rent is a portal charging a “convenience fee,” you are paying it twelve times a year, and it belongs in the total. The question: is there a way to pay rent that carries no fee? Then: when does a late fee start, and how much is it? New York’s answer is written into the same § 238-a — no late fee until rent is five days past due, and never more than $50 or five percent of the monthly rent, whichever is less. Your state’s answer may be different. The lease’s answer should not be a surprise.
Move-in, move-out, elevator, key, and fob fees
One-time charges tied to the property and its access rather than to your monthly occupancy. Ask what each covers, whether it is charged per occurrence or once per tenancy, and whether any part is refundable. A fob deposit is different from a fob fee for the same reason a pet deposit is different from a pet fee, and the difference is the part that comes back.
The security deposit is not a fee
It is worth saying plainly, because it sits on the same move-in invoice: a security deposit is not a fee. It is your money, held as security, and the rules on what may be deducted, what documentation is required, and when it must be returned are set by your state rather than by the building. The Invitation Homes complaint included charges at move-out for normal wear and tear, for damage that predated the renter, and, in the FTC’s words, “even renovations.” The protection against that is not a question you ask at the leasing office. It is a move-in inspection you document yourself on day one, and a written demand for the deposit later if you need one.
How to hear the answer
Every question above has three possible answers, and the answer tells you more than the fee does.
A specific answer — a number, a purpose, a line in an email — is what a building that prices honestly can give without friction, because it costs the building nothing. A vague answer — “it’s standard,” “everyone charges that,” “it’s all in the lease” — is not a refusal, but it means the person in front of you either does not know or is not allowed to say. Ask for it in writing. Vagueness that survives a request for an email is a refusal.
A refusal to state the total monthly price before you pay is the same pattern the FTC sued over twice, and it deserves to be taken seriously. It is not, by itself, proof that a particular building is dishonest. The agent may not know, may need approval, or may be working inside a system that will not show them the number either.
What it does mean is that you are being asked to spend a nonrefundable fee while knowing less than you could. Treat that as a decision rather than a rule.
Look for the number somewhere else first — the lease, the application portal, the fine print on the listing. An agent who cannot answer is not the same as the information being unavailable. Then work out what you are risking: a $50 application fee on the apartment you want, in a market where units go in a day, is a different calculation from $300 across three buildings. Save what you were shown, because if the advertised price and the lease disagree later, screenshots and emails are the whole of your position. And be honest about the cost of walking — in a tight market, refusing to apply can mean losing the place to someone who applied anyway.
This article is not telling you never to pay an application fee into an unanswered question. It is telling you not to pay one without knowing that is what you are doing.
When the fee is not the point
One caution the fee lists leave out: a building with more fees is not automatically the worse deal. What matters is the total, and a one-time fee can cost less than a small recurring one.
A worked example, invented for illustration and not drawn from any real listing. Building A advertises $1,450 a month, charges a $250 administrative fee, and has no mandatory monthly add-ons. Building B advertises $1,375, charges no administrative fee, and requires a $45 technology package and $30 valet trash every month. On the listings, B looks $75 a month cheaper. At the total monthly price, both are $1,450. Over a twelve-month lease, A costs $17,650 and B costs $17,400 — B really is $250 cheaper in year one, and that $250 is A’s administrative fee. Renew for a second year, when the administrative fee is not charged again, and both cost $17,400. The $75-a-month advantage on the listing was never there. The only way to see that was to ask for the total.
The short version
The advertised rent is the starting number, not the price, and apartment fees are what separate the two. Before you pay an application fee, get two figures in writing: the total monthly leasing price with every mandatory charge, and the total due before keys. Ask each fee what it pays for and whether it comes back. Add every charge you cannot decline to the rent before you compare one place with another. A property that will put its total in writing has made your decision easier; one that will not has left you deciding with less — and the moment to notice that is while the application fee is still in your account.
Sources
- Federal Trade Commission, The Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees: Frequently Asked Questions — the rule’s effective date and scope, including its exclusion of “long-term or other rental housing,” and its language on vague fee names and payment-method fees.
- Federal Trade Commission, Greystar Agrees to Pay $24 Million and Stop Deceptive Advertising Practices (December 2, 2025) — the settlement terms, including disclosure of every fee’s amount, purpose and mandatory status, and the total monthly leasing price, before taking any payment.
- Federal Trade Commission and State of Colorado v. Greystar Real Estate Partners LLC et al., case page and the proposed stipulated order (Case No. 1:25-cv-00165-CNS, D. Colo.) — the definition of “Total Monthly Leasing Price” at paragraph K, the disclosures required before charging an initial payment or deposit, the $23 million and $1 million judgments, and the allegation that the fees cost renters hundreds of millions of dollars since at least 2019.
- Federal Trade Commission, Are you managing a rental property? Lessons from the FTC’s lawsuit against Greystar (December 8, 2025) — the “hundreds of dollars” figure, the 40- to 60-page lease detail, the unrefunded application fees and holding deposits, and the statement that advertising a price excluding mandatory charges violates the law.
- Federal Trade Commission, FTC Sends Checks Totaling More Than $47.2 Million to Consumers Deceived by Invitation Homes (March 11, 2026) — the refund total and check count, the fee types renters could not opt out of, and the move-out charges.
- Federal Trade Commission, FTC Seeks Public Comment on a Proposed Rulemaking Regarding Unfair or Deceptive Rental Housing Fee Practices (March 12, 2026) — the advance notice of proposed rulemaking, and its list of what a renter can be misled about: nature, purpose, amount, refundability, optionality and recurrence.
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB Reports Highlight Problems with Tenant Background Checks (November 15, 2022) — the 68% application-fee figure, what the fee funds, renters’ lack of visibility into the report, and adverse action notices under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
- New York State Senate, Real Property Law § 238-a, Limitation on fees — the background and credit check fee cap at actual cost or $20, the thirty-day waiver, the copy-and-invoice requirement, and the late fee limits in subdivision 2.
- Vermont General Assembly, 9 V.S.A. § 4456a, Residential rental application — the prohibition on charging an application fee for a residential dwelling unit.