SB 606: Florida's New Operations Charge Disclosure Rules

Since July 1, 2026, SB 606 has required any non-exempt operations charge collected by a restaurant to be disclosed on menus, written contracts, ordering websites and apps, bills, and receipts. An exemption exists for dining plans, packages, and fixed-price meals where the total price is disclosed before purchase.

SB 606 amends F.S. 509.214. It defines an "operations charge" as "an automatic fee or charge, other than a government-imposed tax, that a customer is required to pay in addition to the cost of the food and beverage purchased." The list is non-exhaustive. Auto-gratuities on large parties, percentage-based service charges, credit card surcharges, and delivery fees all fall within the statutory language.

DBPR's June 26 industry advisory confirms that the rule applies across all five surfaces. It also confirms that each menu, contract, website, and app notice must meet the applicable font-size rule.

What the statutory definition covers

The statutory definition of "operations charge" covers any automatic fee beyond the listed menu price and tax. The statute captures the category, not just the four named examples.

Operators who assumed their fee fell outside a narrower reading of Chapter 509 because it was labeled an "appreciation" or "hospitality" charge are directly exposed. DBPR's authority under Chapter 509 extends to any violation of F.S. 509.214 regardless of the label applied to the charge.

Five disclosure points

The statute requires disclosure in five places, each with specific formatting:

• Menus. The notice must state both the amount or percentage and the purpose of the charge. Font size must equal or exceed the font used for menu item descriptions. Counter-service restaurants and food trucks without printed menus must post the notice on a menu board or a sign by the register.

• Websites and apps where customers place food and beverage orders. The notice must state the amount or percentage and purpose, in type at least as large as the online menu item descriptions.

• Written contracts for banquet, catering, or event services. The notice must state the amount or percentage and purpose, in type at least as large as the contract's general provisions.

• The face of the bill. The notice must clearly state the percentage or amount.

• Every customer receipt. Gratuity, the operations charge, and sales tax must each appear as separate line items. If the operations charge includes an automatic gratuity, that gratuity must be broken out separately on the receipt.

Receipt templates that combine gratuity and service charge on a single line, or that roll both into a "service" total, fall outside the separate-line-item requirement. POS configurations common in 2025 treat auto-gratuity and service charge as a single field. SB 606 separates them.

Five surfaces show fee disclosures: menu, website, contract, bill, receipt. Enforcement gaps are likeliest where one of them is missed. Operators who updated printed menus but left their online ordering platform's fee descriptor unchanged, or who revised POS receipt templates but not banquet contract boilerplate, satisfy four of five requirements and remain out of compliance on each occasion the fifth point is used. DBPR's advisory does not explain how the agency will check websites, apps, or contracts. Keep dated screenshots and copies of each live surface so you can show what customers saw.

Amount, percentage, and purpose

The statute requires the notice to state the amount or percentage and the purpose. A disclosure such as "18% automatic gratuity for parties of 6+" states both elements on its face. A disclosure such as "Additional fee" states neither the rate nor the purpose, and does not meet the statutory requirement.

Menu descriptors in wide use before SB 606, including "Kitchen Appreciation Fee," "Service Charge," "Health & Wellness Fee," and "Operations Fee," state the purpose in branded form but omit the percentage. These descriptors on their own fall short of the statutory two-element requirement.

The same test works across fee types. These descriptors pass:

• "3% operations fee applied to every check"
• "18% automatic gratuity for parties of 6 or more"
• "$2.00 kitchen support fee per table"
• "5% delivery fee on all online orders"

These fail:

• "Operations fee"
• "Automatic gratuity"
• "$2.00 additional fee"
• "Delivery fee"

Rate and purpose must appear together on the same surface.

The cost of updating a single menu PDF or printed insert to add a percentage is nominally zero to a few hundred dollars in print costs. A single administrative complaint under s. 509.261 carries a fine ceiling of $1,000 per offense.

What DBPR's advisory settles

On June 26, DBPR published Industry Advisory 2026-01. It restates the statutory requirements and says the notices on menus, contracts, websites, and apps must each meet the font comparator. That closes any doubt that the formatting rule reaches digital ordering surfaces.

The advisory does not define "purpose," provide model language, or create a safe-harbor template. The operative test remains the statute itself: amount or percentage and purpose on each menu, contract, website, and app; the amount or percentage on the bill; and separate receipt lines.

Enforcement

The statute does not create a dedicated penalty for operations charge violations or an express private cause of action (subsection 5). Enforcement runs through DBPR's existing Chapter 509 authority, which includes administrative complaints, fines up to $1,000 per offense under s. 509.261, and license action. Rule 61C-1.005, which sets the DBPR fine schedule, still does not list operations charge violations. How inspectors will assess non-compliance, and what penalty they will seek below the statutory ceiling, remain undefined. For the broader Chapter 509 enforcement pattern, see the Florida DBPR enforcement report.

The advisory does not add inspection mechanics or penalty bands. Until DBPR publishes them or enforcement orders establish a pattern, the safest evidence is a dated copy of every disclosure surface and the POS configuration behind the bill and receipt.

The highest-risk ambiguity is the "purpose" disclosure requirement. The statute says each notice must state the purpose of the charge but does not define "purpose." Published legal analysis diverges on whether a generic descriptor ("service charge") satisfies the test or whether disclosure of how the charge is distributed (to the house, to staff, or split) is implied. Until DBPR publishes guidance or an administrative complaint tests the question, disclosures that identify both a distribution and a rate carry the lowest interpretive risk.

Dining plans and fixed-price meals are exempt

Subsection 6 exempts "the purchase of a dining plan or package or fixed-price meal for which the price of the plan or package or meal is disclosed to the customer before purchase." Where a pricing model fits that language, the disclosure requirements don't apply. Where it doesn't fit squarely, the disclosure requirements apply.

Tasting menus, banquet packages, and wedding packages with a single all-in price disclosed on the contract sit inside the exemption. À la carte dining with an auto-gratuity above a party size, service charges on regular tabs, and delivery fees on online orders sit outside it. Hybrid models (a package for food plus a separate auto-gratuity) retain disclosure obligations for the non-package components.

Multi-site BBQ or sports-bar operators running loyalty or bundled dining programs should map each program individually against subsection 6 now. A program that qualifies as a "dining plan" at one price point may not qualify at another if the all-in price is not disclosed before purchase at each tier.

Where the rule lands across the operation

SB 606 now requires every applicable fee to appear on each relevant disclosure surface in the form the statute prescribes. Our July 1 alert is the short audit version.

Four operator-side systems commonly fall short of that standard: menu files that list a charge without a percentage, POS receipt templates that combine gratuity with service charge on one line, third-party ordering platforms (Toast, Square, DoorDash, Uber Eats) that use their own fee descriptors, and banquet contracts with inherited boilerplate. Each is a separate change, and each is tied to a different vendor or internal owner.

Give each of the four systems a named owner. A general instruction to "update fee disclosures" does not prove that menus, POS templates, ordering platforms, and contracts all changed. Record the owner, completion date, and evidence for each surface.

The statute applies to each licensed premises individually. Multi-site operators with differing fee structures between locations face the disclosure test per location. A disclosure template covering one location's fees doesn't satisfy the requirement at another location with different charges.

The predecessor version of F.S. 509.214 already required restaurants to notify customers of an automatic gratuity charge. SB 606 widens that duty to every operations charge and adds the five disclosure points. Our Florida employment compliance resources cover the records and deadline tracking around SB 606.