StubHub Canada fined $20K under ticket cap law, company to appeal penalty

TORONTO – The Ontario government has fined ticket reseller StubHub Canada Ltd. $20,000 under a recent law that caps the sale of seats at face value.

The province’s Consumer Beware List on Monday showed a $10,000 fine for allegedly making a ticket available for sale above face value and another $10,000 for allegedly facilitating a transaction without having proof of the original price.

The website said both fines were issued to StubHub on Sept. 9 but did not say what events the penalties were linked to.

StubHub would not provide any specifics about the fine but said it will push for the penalty to be overturned.

“The fact is we are upholding our responsibility as best we can despite the law’s silence on some core issues, like how a marketplace should verify the original price of a ticket,” spokesperson Jack Sterne said in an email.

He claimed the government has acknowledged this gap and will fix it through regulation, but in the meantime, said the company will “continue to engage in productive conversation to address these matters, while we defend our rights through the appeals process.”

Giulia Paikin, a spokesperson for the Ontario Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery Stephen Crawford, did not answer questions about the nature of StubHub’s fines.

She sent a statement that repeated verbatim what the province has previously said about price cap violations.

“All ticket sellers in Ontario must comply with our legislation that prohibits the resale of tickets above face value,” the statement said. “Any seller who breaks those rules could face fines of up to $250,000 and be publicly identified on the Consumer Beware List. We will not hesitate to hold bad actors who break the rules accountable.”

StubHub has been on notice since the spring, when the province sent 27 ticket resale websites letters announcing the businesses would be inspected for non-compliance with the new law. 

It later added StubHub and SeatGeek Canada to the consumer beware list, fining SeatGeek Canada $25,000 in August for allegedly flouting the price cap law.

The legislation was implemented earlier this year, ahead of World Cup soccer matches being held in Toronto. It was meant to tackle soaring resale ticket prices and scalpers profiting off their ability to score seats to the hottest concerts and games. Along with the World Cup, last year’s playoff run by the Toronto Blue Jays and Taylor Swift concerts in 2024 became flashpoints in the debate over resale prices.

But since the legislation came into effect, fans have complained tickets are still selling for above face value and resale websites have framed compliance as difficult.

StubHub, for example, has said it’s hard for the website to obey the legislation because there’s no way to confirm what buyers originally paid for tickets. 

The company argues some tickets, like those purchased as a package for a season, don’t have prices on them, and also that receipts can easily be doctored by resellers wanting to list tickets for more than face value.  

To confirm the prices and comply with the law, StubHub has said it would need data from the original platform a ticket was purchased from.  

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 21, 2026.