Ontario Begins Enforcement of Its Hardline Ticket-Scalping Ban, the Most Aggressive Ticket Resale Law In North America

Ontario’s ban on resale-for-profit is now the most aggressive ticket resale law in North America, overtaking Maine’s 10% resale price cap that passed in June 2025. The Canadian province now joins Ireland, Denmark, Italy, and France in banning ticket resale-for-profit, while the UK and select states in the US only have proposed caps.

The Ontario government has successfully enacted a ban on ticket resale above the original face value. Just two months after Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced the reform, the government has begun enforcement ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which starts on June 12th in Toronto.

The reform passed as part of the Ontario government’s latest budget bill, which received royal assent on April 24th. Schedule 16 of the bill amends the Ticket Sales Act, 2017 to require that “a ticket may not be made available for sale on the secondary market for an amount that exceeds the total price paid when the ticket was purchased from the primary seller, plus any applicable fees, service charges and taxes charged by the secondary seller or operator of a secondary ticketing platform.”

This significant amendment to the Ticket Sales Act comes seven years after a failed reform bill which proposed capping resale price at 50% above face value.

The Ontario government has taken swift action to ensure that ticketing platforms comply with the new regulation, including sending notices to vendors of upcoming inspections.

Additional enforcement may include fines up to $250,000, phone calls, and site visits. Last month, Ticketmaster began delisting tickets for events in Ontario that no longer complied with the new face value resale ban. Ticket sellers were notified via email about their listings’ removal. The notice stated, “Effective April 23, 2026, tickets in Ontario cannot be resold above the total original cost, including service fees and taxes. To comply with the new law, your resale listing will be removed today.”

While Ticketmaster has taken public action, government officials have flagged the availability of inflated resale tickets on StubHub for events including a Toronto Blue Jays game. In response, Canadian officials have stated that they will be enforcing the law and taking enforcement action against resellers.

While Ontario’s timely action may help hopeful attendees of the World Cup, differing ticketing regulations across provinces could also cause difficulty for Canadian ticket buyers.

The effects of Ontario’s new law on neighboring provinces have already started to develop. Since Ontario passed its resale-for-profit ban, officials from British Columbia’s provincial government have stated that they are also exploring secondary ticketing regulation. BC’s existing Ticket Sales Act offers strong consumer protections, requiring that platforms display the total ticket price and providing remedies “if the ticket does not match its description as advertised or as represented to the ticket purchaser.”

In March, B.C. Consumer Protection officials reached an agreement with StubHub Canada to refund fans who purchased undisclosed obstructed view tickets for The Eras Tour in Vancouver in December of 2024. However, with Ontario now enforcing a ban on resale-for-profit, B.C.’s Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport Anne Kang announced that the province would start “exploring potential avenues to regulate the secondary ticket market.”

As broken down in a recent DMN Pro Report, the landscape of ticketing reform in the US has also become increasingly chaotic. Reform efforts have fractured across federal, state, and local lines, leaving artists and fans with a confusing patchwork of regulation.

At the federal level, two consumer protection bills, the TICKET Act and the MAIN Event Ticketing Act, are currently under consideration. The TICKET Act, which cleared the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on April 29th, would require that ticket sellers display all-in pricing and clearly disclose the ticket’s face value and fees. The MAIN Event Ticketing Act bolsters enforcement of the existing Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act to fight scalpers.

Both of these laws have been slow to progress, despite a new study of voters nationwide from the Music Artists Coalition (MAC) demonstrating that a majority of Americans strongly support concert ticketing reforms “aimed at improving fairness, transparency, and consumer protection.” These stalled federal laws focus on bolstering consumer protections, but states and manicipalities are going ahead with more aggressive resale price cap proposals.

Maine is currently the only state that has successfully passed a resale price cap, although 78% of voters polled by the MAC’s survey support one.

As of June 2025, tickets in Maine can’t be resold above “10% of the total price of the original ticket, including taxes and fees.”

Other state actions are rumbling. California legislators have followed Maine’s lead for a 10% resale cap and proposed the California Fans First Act (AB 1720), which recently cleared the Assembly’s Appropriations Committee on May 14. In New York, legislators hope to go further and match Ontario’s law with a face value-resale cap. New York’s proposed “Affordable Concerts Act” (S8221A) was reported and committed to the Senate’s Finance Committee on May 12th.

Beyond California and New York, the pace of state action shows no signs of slowing down, with Vermont, Washington, and Washington D.C. also considering their own resale cap bills. But this emerging patchwork may cause confusion for consumers and artists and nationwide tours have already started to contend with the splintering regulatory landscape.

Across the Atlantic in the UK, music industry groups are criticizing the Labour government’s failure to prioritize a face value resale ban as primary legislation, despite Prime Minister Keir Starmer promising an imminent crackdown on ticket touting.

A face value resale ban and other ticketing reforms were announced in the King’s Speech on May 13th. However, the law was introduced as draft legislation, which subjects it to a lengthier Parliamentary process.

Advocates for a resale cap were especially disappointed by this de-prioritization since Starmer wrote a letter to the public this month which promised a “crackdown on ruthless ticket touts preying on music fans by selling tickets for exorbitant and unaffordable prices.”