What is a Las Vegas resort fee, and what does it cover?

A mandatory nightly charge the hotel adds on top of the room rate: $45 to $55 a night on the Strip in 2026, plus 13.38% tax. You pay it however you booked and whether or not you use anything it covers.

What it covers

Officially, things that used to be free: in-room Wi-Fi, the fitness center, pool access, local phone calls. Some hotels pad the list with bottled water, boarding-pass printing or a couple of daily gym passes. The honest reading is that it lets a hotel advertise a lower nightly rate and collect the difference later, and the amounts have climbed for two decades on exactly that logic.

Can you get out of it?

Not by asking at the desk. Three things genuinely remove it:

1. A no-fee hotel: Casino Royale on the Strip, Four Queens or Binion's Downtown.
2. Waiver-level loyalty status: Caesars Rewards Diamond or MGM Rewards Gold and up.
3. A fully comped night.

The one partial exception: if an included amenity failed during your stay, a closed pool for instance, ask for the fee to be credited at checkout. On a quiet day that sometimes works.

Since May 2025 the FTC requires the fee in the upfront total, so the check-in ambush is mostly over, but the fee itself was never banned. The full mechanism is in resort fees explained; parking, the restaurant CNF line and ATM fees are in hidden fees in Las Vegas.