Ticket sales and hotel bookings in U.S. host cities for the 2026 World Cup are running below industry expectations ahead of the tournament, which the United States will co-host with Mexico and Canada starting in mid-June 2026. FIFA has canceled a large number of hotel rooms across some of the host cities, and the volume of those cancellations caught the hotel industry by surprise.

FIFA is selling tickets through lotteries and multiple seating categories, and the governing body has said it is seeing "unprecedented demand for tickets to the World Cup." Demand for tickets in the first half of the tournament has been softer than expected, according to Jan Freitag, National Director for CoStar Group. Hotels have also reported that bookings are not running as high as the industry had expected, and the sector has not yet seen the number of overseas travelers it had projected.

"Oh, airfares are high. Oh, ticket prices are high. Maybe it's sort of a little bit of everything." Freitag said.

For Ty Malugani, a fan based in Alabama, the prices have put attendance out of reach for his family. The cheapest match featuring the United States team would cost his family almost $1,600 for nosebleed seats, while attending the U.S. opening game would cost more than $6,700 for seats.

"Hopefully things can turn around and things can maybe, maybe work out. But as of right now, it just feels like it's a missed opportunity," Malugani said.

It is common for FIFA to overbook hotel rooms before tournaments, but the scale of the recent cancellations was unexpected. Rosanna Maietta, who leads the American Hotel & Lodging Association, said she was hopeful that bookings would pick up as the tournament approaches. The 2026 World Cup is scheduled to feature Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo among the players competing in North America.