What a Timeshare Actually Costs Over Ten Years

The purchase price is the small number

Every timeshare sales table talks about the price. It is the wrong number to focus on, and the industry’s own research says so without meaning to.

The Ernst & Young study conducted for the American Resort Development Association puts the average US transaction price at $23,160 in 2024, down from $24,170 in 2023, on $10.5 billion of total sales volume. The same study puts the average maintenance fee at $1,480 per weekly interval equivalent in 2024, up from $1,260 in 2023.

Ten years of that fee, at zero escalation, is $14,800. That is a second timeshare, purchased in installments, that you never get to sell.

And escalation is not zero.

The four costs, in order of how much they hurt

Purchase price. $23,160 on average. Often financed, frequently at rates nobody would accept on a credit card, which adds interest on top.

The annual maintenance fee. $1,480 on average in 2024. Perpetual. The FTC’s buyer guidance is explicit that these fees typically increase at rates that equal or exceed inflation, and that you have to pay the fees and taxes even if you do not use the timeshare. It also tells buyers to ask whether their plan has a fee cap, which tells you plainly that most do not.

Special assessments. One-off charges the resort levies when reserves fall short. NerdWallet notes owners may face special assessments to cover repairs or damage from natural disasters. There is no schedule for these. There is no average you can plan around. That is the point.

Exchange and club charges. If your product lets you trade your week or your points for a stay somewhere else, the FTC tells buyers to find out whether there is an extra charge for booking a property through the exchange, or additional charges for different types of properties. The trade is a separate product with a separate price.

Against those four costs sits the asset value. The FTC’s assessment of that: the timeshare market is overcrowded and it might be hard, if not impossible, to sell a timeshare, and the value of a timeshare is in its use as a vacation destination, not as an investment. Nolo’s version is shorter. Most timeshares have very little resale value.

The worked ten-year total

Here is the arithmetic on an average-priced week bought today, held for ten years, and sold at the end for what the FTC’s language implies most people should expect.

Sourced inputs: purchase price $23,160 and year-one maintenance fee $1,480, both the 2024 US averages from the ARDA study.

Stated assumptions, because these are not in anyone’s data set: paid in cash, so no financing interest. Fee escalation of 5 percent a year. No special assessment. No exchange fees. Resale value of $0 at year ten.

Every one of those assumptions makes the timeshare look better than a typical case, not worse.

The fee escalation number needs a word of defense. Five percent is deliberately conservative. The FTC’s guidance says these fees typically rise at rates that equal or exceed inflation, so 5 percent sits above a normal inflation assumption. It also sits far below the single observed year in the industry data, where the average went from $1,260 to $1,480, a 17.5 percent jump, though the trade press summary of that report notes part of the increase reflects a change in the pool of resorts reporting rather than pure fee growth. So: above inflation, well below the one real year we can see.

At 5 percent a year, the fee runs $1,480, $1,554, $1,632, $1,713, $1,799, $1,889, $1,983, $2,083, $2,187, and $2,296.

Ten years of fees: $18,615. Plus the purchase price: $23,160. Ten-year total: $41,775. Resale value: $0.

That is $4,178 a year for one week of vacation, before you pay for a flight, a rental car, or a meal.

Run it at 3 percent escalation instead and the fee total is $16,967, for a ten-year cost of $40,127. Run it flat, which does not happen, and it is $14,800 in fees for $37,960 total. The purchase price is doing less work in this number than anything else on the page.

Add one $1,000 special assessment somewhere in the decade and you are at $42,775. Add exchange fees and it climbs again. Finance the purchase and it climbs a lot.

The comparison nobody at the presentation runs

$4,178 a year buys a week at most places people actually want to go, booked when you want, at a property you can change your mind about, with no obligation in year eleven.

That is not an argument that a timeshare is always the wrong purchase. Some owners genuinely use theirs every year, love the resort, and are fine with the trade. It is an argument that the comparison is the purchase price against a decade of hotel bills, which is the comparison the sales table makes, and that the real comparison is the total above against the same decade of hotel bills. Those two comparisons produce different answers, and only one of them is honest.

The one thing that is not a defense of the purchase is calling it an investment. The FTC’s language is unambiguous: sales staff may tell you a timeshare is a solid financial asset, but the value is in its use as a vacation destination, not as an investment.

What this math is for

If you are still inside the cancellation window, this number is the argument for using it. Every dollar of it is reversible for a few more days. Read the rescission page and send the letter today.

If you already own, this is the number to hold against every proposed exit. An exit that costs you $3,000 and ends a $2,000-and-rising annual fee pays for itself in under two years. An exit that costs $15,000 might not pay for itself at all, which is why the free routes come first and why the exit company red flags matter before you sign anything.

And if there is a purchase loan attached, price that separately. It is unsecured consumer debt, its rate is usually terrible, and it can be refinanced this month whether or not you have decided anything about the ownership.

This is general information, not legal advice, and the figures above are national averages rather than a statement about your contract. Your fee, your assessments, and your exit options are set by documents we cannot see, so have an attorney licensed in your state read the ones that govern you before you act on any of it.