Lifestyle

NYC Is Going to War on Junk Fees and Subscription Traps

By Mike Harper · April 22, 2026

If you live in New York City and you’ve ever been blindsided by a fee that wasn’t in the original price — or trapped in a subscription you couldn’t figure out how to cancel — the city’s new mayor has made your frustration his policy agenda.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed two executive orders on January 5 targeting what he calls “subscription tricks and traps” and hidden junk fees, launching what consumer advocates are calling the most aggressive local consumer protection push in the United States. Both orders direct the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection to crack down on businesses that bury fees at checkout or make subscriptions easy to start and nearly impossible to cancel.

The junk fees order — Executive Order 9 — established a citywide task force specifically targeting hidden and unavoidable charges that appear only after a customer is already committed to a purchase.

“New Yorkers deserve to know exactly what they are paying, how much it will cost, and whether they are signing up for an ongoing charge — before a single dollar leaves their account,” Mamdani said in a statement announcing the orders.

The subscription order — Executive Order 10 — directed the DCWP to pursue what has become known nationally as “click-to-cancel” protections: a rule requiring that canceling a subscription be exactly as easy as signing up for one. That proposal moved forward in April when the DCWP published a formal proposed rule, opening a 30-day public comment period that runs through May 8. If adopted, New York City would become the first municipality in the country to enforce this level of subscription protection — stepping into a gap left when a federal court struck down the FTC’s similar national rule in July 2025.

The practical scope is broad. The proposed click-to-cancel rule would apply to gyms, streaming services, apps, meal kits, beauty boxes, and any other business offering automatic renewals or continuous service offers to New York City consumers. Businesses that violate it would face fines starting at $525 per violation, rising to $3,500 for repeat offenders, and would be liable for restitution to harmed consumers.

The man running the enforcement effort is Samuel Levine, the city’s new DCWP commissioner — who previously directed the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection under President Biden and helped write the original federal click-to-cancel rule that was later struck down. He is now applying that same approach at the city level.

“If it’s easy to sign up for something, it should be just as easy to cancel,” Levine said.

The broader context makes this land harder. According to a JD Power study, 34% of small businesses now add credit card surcharges at checkout. Restaurant surcharges have jumped from 16% in 2022 to 20% in 2025. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey hit its lowest-ever reading in April — worse than 2008 and the pandemic — driven in part by a widespread sense that costs are rising faster than people can track them, from hidden fees to subscription charges they forgot they signed up for.

Whether the proposed rules survive legal challenge from business groups — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce fought the federal version aggressively — is unresolved. A public hearing is scheduled for May 8. For now, New York City has drawn the clearest line of any municipality in the country: fees that aren’t disclosed upfront are a target, and subscriptions that trap people are next.