Less than it used to at the checkout, more than you'd think in resale. Both countries now require the full price, fees included, on the first screen. The US has no resale cap and fees averaging about 27% of face value; the UK has a face-value resale culture, a government committed to capping resale, and no reliable public fee figure.
Here is the comparison, cell by cell, with the source for each.
| United States | United Kingdom | |
|---|---|---|
| Fees shown up front? | Yes, since 12 May 2025: the FTC fee rule requires the total price including mandatory fees to be most prominent; Ticketmaster shows All In Prices before taxes | Yes, since 6 April 2025: the DMCC Act requires the total price with mandatory charges from the first price shown; the CMA's first fine was £4.2m in April 2026 |
| How big are the fees? | Primary 13–58% of base, averaging ~27%; resale 20–56%, averaging ~31% (CRS) | No comparable published figure we've found. Booking fee per ticket is the norm; we won't put a percentage on it |
| Resale price rules | No cap. Artists can cap resale or use Face Value Exchange on Ticketmaster | No cap yet. Government committed to face value + unavoidable fees, quantity limits and platform enforcement; CMA fines up to 10% of turnover; no timetable |
| Face-value lanes | Ticketmaster Face Value Exchange, extended to CashorTrade in April 2026 | Twickets (face value + fees), Ticketmaster fan-to-fan; artist caps such as Olivia Dean's 2026 tour |
| Regulators' recent moves | DOJ settlement with Live Nation (Mar 2026); 26 states + DC won a monopolisation verdict (Apr 2026), remedies pending | CMA Oasis investigation → Ticketmaster undertakings (Sep 2025): 24h notice of tiered pricing, price info in queues, no misleading "platinum" labels |
| Native alerts | Ticketmaster favourites: new events, on-sales, low availability; SeatGeek and StubHub price alerts | Ticketmaster favourites; Twickets free alerts, max 10, off for high-demand events |
| Currency and tax | USD; sales tax added at checkout where it applies (the FTC total excludes government charges) | GBP; the DMCC total price must include all mandatory charges from the first screen |
| Found My Tickets at launch | Trackers and public price history for Ticketmaster US | Trackers and public price history for Ticketmaster UK |
Fees: the gap moved from the screen to the rate
For years the honest summary was that an American checkout was a drama in three fees and a British one added a booking fee and stopped. The first half of that is now regulated on both sides. In the UK, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act's drip-pricing rules took effect on 6 April 2025: mandatory charges must be in the first price a consumer sees, and the Competition and Markets Authority's first fine under the Act, £4.2 million against the AA's driving schools over a £3 booking fee shown only at checkout, arrived in April 2026. In the US, the FTC's fee rule followed on 12 May 2025 and Ticketmaster switched to All In Prices the same day.
What didn't change is how much the fees are. Studies cited by the Congressional Research Service put US primary-market fees at 13–58% of the base price, averaging about 27%. We have not found a comparable, published, non-anecdotal figure for UK fees, so this page doesn't offer one; the earlier version of this guide said "10–15%" and we've withdrawn it. If you know of a study, tell us. How much are Ticketmaster fees has the US detail.
Practical upshot: a £60 UK listing and a $60 US listing are both now close to what you'll pay, with the UK total required to carry every mandatory charge and US sales tax still to come. Budget from the checkout total in either case, and set any alert on that number.
Resale: two philosophies, one of them about to become law
In the US, resale is an open market. Prices float wherever sellers dare, on the primary platforms as much as anywhere, and the only caps are the ones artists choose: Ticketmaster lets organisers cap resale prices or route resale through Face Value Exchange, which it extended to CashorTrade in April 2026. The bigger US story is antitrust rather than resale: the Justice Department settled with Live Nation in March 2026 and a coalition of states won a jury verdict in April that Live Nation and Ticketmaster had illegally monopolised ticketing; remedies are still to be decided.
In the UK, the culture and the rules lean against profiteering. Twickets built a whole marketplace on face-value-plus-fees resale (it also launched in the US in 2017, where it's a smaller presence), artists routinely cap resale, as Olivia Dean's team did when Ticketmaster capped resale and refunded markups on her 2026 tour, and the government has now committed to legislate: resale capped at face value plus unavoidable fees, resale quantity limited to the purchase limit, platforms obliged to enforce, with CMA fines of up to 10% of global turnover under the DMCC Act. There is no legislative timetable yet, so today it is a commitment rather than a rule.
For a buyer that means a sold-out UK show often has a fair-price second chance worth watching, and a sold-out US show has a second market where the price is a mood. How to buy face-value resale tickets covers the lanes on both sides.
Queues, presales and drops: the same rituals
Both markets share them: presale codes, waiting rooms, the 10am Friday general sale, and the quiet reappearance of held-back seats once production is finalised. The UK's one recent difference is regulatory: after the Oasis sale, Ticketmaster gave the CMA undertakings to give 24 hours' notice when tiered pricing is used and to show price information during online queues, so a UK queue should now tell you more about what's on the other side than a US one does. Day-of drops happen in London the way they happen in Austin, and the value of not watching for them by hand is identical.
Travelling for a show? Check both markets' dates for the same tour. The night that's impossible at home is sometimes half the price a train or a flight away, and the fee-inclusive total is the only fair way to compare a £ and a $.
What it means for your tracker
At launch, we watch Ticketmaster in the US and the UK: trackers and a public price chart for every event we cover. Set the number you'd pay in pounds for the London date and in dollars for the Austin one, mandatory fees included. We record what the listing advertised in the listing's currency, and every chart says what that observed price includes. We don't buy tickets in either country.