Glossary

No-show fee

What is a no-show fee?

A no-show fee is a per-guest charge applied to the card on file when a party misses its reservation without notice. Operators report typical amounts of $10 to $25 per head in casual rooms and $50 or more in fine dining. The fee only works when three conditions hold: it was disclosed at booking, a card actually secures the reservation, and callers are waived. Watch who takes a cut: OpenTable applies a 2% service fee to no-show charges since 2026, and resOS adds 2% plus Stripe fees; on TableHelm the charge runs on the restaurant's own Stripe account with zero platform take.