Washington, D.C. has passed a bill that will cap the resale of live entertainment tickets at 10% of their original price and ban so-called surveillance pricing.
The D.C. Council approved the bill, known as the Restricting Egregious Scalping Against Live Entertainment (RESALE) Act, unanimously on Tuesday, which includes several different components intended to protect fans from ticket scalpers.
One aspect of the bill is a strict limit that bans resellers from charging more than 10% of the ticket’s face value. The bill also requires the original seller to advertise the full cost of the ticket, including any fees that might be tacked on later. The concept, known as “all-in” pricing, became a focus of the FTC during President Joe Biden’s tenure in the early 2020s and is something that’s currently being pursued in New York by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
The bill also bans the use of any technology that allows resellers to purchase mass quantities of tickets above stated limits from the original seller. Resellers who sell 50 or more tickets per year would also need to register with the District, according to the legislation, and become bonded.
The ban on surveillance pricing in the D.C. bill means that sellers can’t use personal information collected about a given consumer to adjust the price of tickets. Surveillance pricing, sometimes referred to as personalized pricing, means that some people are being charged different prices for the same ticket based on information like demographics or behavior. Instacart, for example, was recently caught charging almost 25% more for identical food items, though the company says it was just an experiment that it’s no longer conducting.
“This is without a doubt the most pro-fan, pro-consumer piece of legislation in the country,” councilmember Charles Allen said, according to the Washingtonian.
As the Washingtonian notes, the bill still needs to be signed by the mayor and pass a congressional review before it can officially become law, which is expected to happen in January 2027.
There have been a few bills passed at the state level in recent months to prohibit certain types of surveillance pricing, with Maryland, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York all passing their own legislation. However, those laws all target surveillance pricing at grocery stores, one of the largest concerns for consumers as inflation outpaces wages, according to the latest national data.
Critics of surveillance pricing bans believe the patchwork of laws is untenable, but a national surveillance pricing law is unlikely as long as the Republicans control Congress and the White House.
Sen. Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat from New Mexico, and Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, introduced legislation in February to ban surveillance pricing at food retailers called the Stop Price Gouging in Grocery Stores Act of 2026. But it’s probably not going anywhere in the current environment. Congress struggles to function normally these days, no matter what’s in front of them. And passing a bill that would be seen as unfriendly to large business interests is basically impossible when Republicans are in control.
Washington D.C.’s law narrowly targets ticket prices, which have admittedly been as big a concern for Americans as groceries, though perhaps it’s a good example of how ridiculous prices can get. Taylor Swift tickets that originally sold for $800 were being resold for $5,000 each. That would be illegal under Washington, D.C.’s new law.
