China fines Trip.com US$765 million after antitrust investigation

China’s market regulator has fined online travel giant Trip.com 5.18 billion yuan ($765 million) for abusing its dominant market position, forcing hotels to enter into exclusive agreements and comply with price parity requirements.

SAMR (State Administration for Market Regulation) said on Saturday (Jul 25, 2026) that Trip.com has used platform rules, traffic allocation and technology since 2020 to restrict competition in China’s online hotel booking market.

The penalty includes the confiscation of 1.66 billion yuan ($250 million) and a fine of 3.52 billion yuan ($520 million), equivalent to 7.5% of Trip.com’s sales in China in 2025. The company was also ordered to refund 122 million yuan ($18 million) in deposits that the regulator said were forcibly deducted from hotel operators.

The investigation, which began in January, found that Trip.com encouraged high-performing hotels to join an exclusive program, offering them increased customer flow and other benefits, while preventing them from cooperating with competing platforms, according to SAMR.

The company also required hotels that sell rooms on multiple platforms to offer the Trip.com platform the lowest available online price. When the company found a lower price elsewhere, it used automated tools and manual intervention to reduce the room rate on its own platform.

Trip.com monitored hotel compliance and imposed penalties, including reduced traffic, removal of preferred customer status, and deductions from reservation deposits.

These practices restricted hotels’ ability to operate across different platforms, interfered with their right to set prices and harmed consumers, the regulator said. They also intensified destructive price competition in the travel industry.

In a statement, Trip.com said it accepted the decision and would implement the necessary changes. The company said it would publish specific rectification measures and submit to public oversight.

The fine is close to the maximum limit allowed under China’s Anti-Monopoly Law, which provides for penalties of 1% to 10% of the company’s sales in the previous year, in addition to the confiscation of illicit profits.

The regulator stated that Trip.com held a dominant position in online hotel bookings, with a 56.8% market share by revenue in 2025.

“Trip.com has previously been the target of regulatory investigations for alleged anti-competitive practices in Hong Kong and South Korea”said Liu Xu, a researcher at the National Strategy Institute of Tsinghua University.

“Authorities from several regions in mainland China, including Sichuan and Guizhou, called the company for negotiations in 2021 and 2025, but it has not implemented the necessary changes”said Liu to Caixin. “This may have contributed to the more severe penalty.”he declared.

This report was originally published in English by Caixin Global on July 27, 2026. It was translated and republished by Poder360 under mutual content sharing agreement.