World Cup 2026 fever sends hotel prices into the stratosphere

By Maxwell Kumoye 

 

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is still months away, but the tournament has already produced its first shocker and it’s not on the pitch. It’s in the hotels.

Across the United States, Mexico, and Canada, accommodation prices have exploded the moment the match schedule dropped, turning the world’s biggest football party into the most expensive hotel hunt in sports history.

In the U.S., the numbers are wild. Houston leads the madness with a 457% price jump, followed by Kansas City (364%), Atlanta (344%), and the Bay Area (342%). 

Near New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, where Brazil vs Morocco is set to light up the group stage, rooms that once went for under $300 are now over $1,500 per night. 

And for the final? Some hotels have ripped past $3,500, up from around $600 just weeks ago.

Mexico isn’t escaping the frenzy. Mexico City, host of the opener between Mexico and South Africa, has seen prices rocket into absurd territory. 

One hotel jacked its rate from $157 to $3,882, a jaw-dropping 2,373% surge. Six hotels near the stadium have collectively jumped from an average of $172 to $1,572 for the same period.

Canada offers the only hint of calm0 but not everywhere. Vancouver is already scorching wallets with World Cup match nights going for $879, a 258% rise. 

Toronto, meanwhile, is the rare outlier, with modest increases of just 20–30%.

With the 2026 tournament being the first spread across three countries and featuring an expanded 48-team format, experts say millions more fans are set to flood North America. And with demand at an all-time high, hotel rooms are suddenly as valuable and as hard to find as match tickets.

If the early signs are anything to go by, the competition for beds might be almost as fierce as the battle for the trophy.