Hotels across North America have begun hiking prices to astronomical levels as they prepare for the FIFA World Cup in 2026.
Next year’s World Cup will take place in host cities in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. With the tournament’s first matches set to begin in less than six months, hotels are trying to take full advantage of one of the world’s largest sporting events.
A Wednesday report from The Athletic detailed just how outrageous the price increases have been:
Across the 96 hotels we examined, the average per-night rate around an opening game was $1,013, compared to $293 for the same hotels 21 days earlier. The prices at the hotels increased, on average, by 328 per cent.
It is not unusual for hotel prices to rise around mega events. At the Paris Olympics in 2024, the French capital saw a year-over-year room rate increase of 141 per cent during the Olympic event period, according to Smith Travel Research. Yet the scale of the increases across the United States, Canada and Mexico immediately after the World Cup schedule was confirmed appears to be much more sizeable.
The worst offender, the report noted, was from a hotel in Mexico City. For late May 2026, the hotel is charging $157 per night. Just a few weeks later when the tournament begins, that rate jumps up to a mind-boggling $3,882.
