NYC Chambers to City: Fix the pricing rule before it hurts small businesses
Alliance representing 200,000 small businesses backs honest pricing but warns the proposed "Total Price" Rule would confuse customers and fine businesses for honest mistakes
NEW YORK, NY — August 7, 2026 — The Five-Borough Chamber Alliance (comprising the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Staten Island, and Queens Chambers of Commerce) today submitted formal comments to the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) on its proposed "Total Price" Rule (Ref. No. 2026 RG 027 / DCWP-75), which would require businesses to disclose an all-in "total price" whenever a price is advertised.
The Alliance, which represents most of the 200,000 small businesses across New York City — 85% of them companies with ten or fewer employees — made clear that it supports the Department's goal of eliminating hidden fees. No honest business benefits from competitors who conceal costs from customers. But as drafted, the rule would create serious problems for the very small businesses it is meant to protect.
"We fully share DCWP's commitment to honest, transparent pricing — our members compete on trust every day," said Jessica Walker, President & CEO of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. "But a one-size-fits-all mandate that forces businesses to advertise numbers that don't reflect what customers will actually pay doesn't create clarity. It creates confusion, and it puts neighborhood businesses at risk of hefty fines for honest mistakes."
In its comments, the Alliance identified six key concerns and asked the Department to address each before finalizing the rule:
1. Conflicts with federal pricing requirements. Some businesses — including small internet service providers and moving companies — are already required by federal law to display prices in a prescribed format. The rule would force them to advertise two different official prices for the same service, confusing customers and exposing businesses to penalties no matter which number they lead with. California and Massachusetts both exempted federally compliant businesses from their junk-fee laws; the Alliance asks DCWP to do the same.
2. Prices that depend on the customer. Many businesses — movers, event venues, caterers, contractors, and providers of bundled or customized services — cannot calculate a maximum price up front because the final cost depends on the customer's choices, configuration, or location, including the sales tax owed at the customer's address. Requiring these businesses to advertise a worst-case number would make ordinary businesses look far more expensive than they actually are. The Alliance requests an exception for customer-dependent pricing.
3. One-time charges folded into recurring prices. Requiring initiation fees, installation charges, and other one-time costs to be rolled into an advertised monthly rate overstates what customers actually pay month after month. The clearer approach — and the one customers already understand — is to disclose recurring prices and one-time charges separately and prominently.
4. Impacts on restaurants using delivery platforms. If third-party delivery platforms must fold their own fees into a restaurant's advertised item prices, small restaurants' food will appear far more expensive than it is — even though merchants have no control over platform fees. The hardest hit would be small, locally owned restaurants and retailers.
5. Onerous recordkeeping and an inverted burden of proof. As drafted, the rule requires businesses to retain documentation justifying every fee, indefinitely and in no defined format — and treats a missing record as a presumption that a fee was deceptive. That turns a bookkeeping gap into evidence of wrongdoing. The Alliance asks DCWP to strike the presumption, define the records actually required, and set a reasonable retention period.
6. No cure period and no implementation runway. The rule allows a business to be fined for a first, honest mistake with no opportunity to fix it, and provides no delay between finalization and effective date — a significant burden for small businesses without compliance teams or in-house counsel.
The Alliance's comments were signed by Lisa Sorin, President & CEO of the Bronx Chamber of Commerce; Randy Peers, President & CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce; Jessica Walker, President & CEO of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce; Linda Baran, President & CEO of the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce; and Thomas Grech, President & CEO of the Queens Chamber of Commerce.
The full comment letter is available here.
About the Five-Borough Chamber Alliance
The Five-Borough Chamber Alliance brings together the Chambers of Commerce of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Staten Island, and Queens to advocate with one voice for New York City's small business community. Collectively, the Alliance represents most of the city's 200,000 small businesses, which together account for the majority of New York City's employment.