The World Cup Is Coming. So Is A New Kind Of Tax.

When governments host global events, they tend to make the same promise: the world will come, and the economics will work.

FIFA World Cup 26 is testing that assumption in real time.

In New Jersey, a dispute is unfolding over a proposed set of tax increases tied to the matches at MetLife Stadium. The plan would raise the sales tax in the Meadowlands district to 9.625%, add a 2.5% hotel surcharge, and impose transportation-related fees during a five-week window surrounding the tournament. State officials have framed this as a targeted tourism measure designed to offset roughly $300 million in security and logistical costs.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer has pushed back, arguing that the plan does not meaningfully distinguish between visitors and residents. A tax that applies to purchases at local stores, restaurants, and everyday businesses does not operate as a tourism fee in practice. It operates as a location-based tax, and the people most likely to encounter it are the ones who live and work there.

That disagreement may sound familiar. It shows up whenever governments try to fund large public obligations through narrowly framed taxes. But this situation is different in one important respect. New Jersey is not simply choosing how to fund an event. It is trying to recover costs within a structure that limits its ability to tax the event itself.

To secure World Cup matches, host jurisdictions typically agree to a set of conditions that protect FIFA’s commercial interests. Those conditions often include restrictions or exemptions tied to ticketing, sponsorships, and other core revenue streams. The logic is straightforward. If you want the event, you accept the terms.

What follows is less straightforward.

Once the costs of hosting become clear, governments look for ways to close the gap. Direct taxation of the event is constrained, so the solution shifts outward. Taxes are applied to the surrounding geography, to adjacent industries, to the broader ecosystem that forms around the event. They are labeled as tourism measures, but their reach is wider.

That is what makes the Meadowlands proposal worth paying attention to beyond New Jersey. It reflects a structural tension that is becoming harder to ignore. Governments are asked to commit public resources upfront, often with limited control over the most lucrative parts of the event, and then must justify how they recoup those costs afterward.

The current dispute also highlights a second layer of complexity: the allocation of costs across jurisdictions. The World Cup matches will be played in New Jersey, but they are being marketed globally as part of the New York metropolitan region. New York City stands to benefit from the influx of visitors, branding, and economic activity. New Jersey bears the direct burden of hosting.

At the same time, public officials are pressing FIFA to absorb a greater share of specific expenses, including tens of millions of dollars in transportation costs tied to moving fans to and from the stadium. Reports of sharply increased train fares have only intensified that pressure. The optics are difficult to ignore. On one hand, governments are being told that the event will generate extraordinary private revenue. On the other, they are being asked to underwrite the infrastructure required to make it possible.

Taken together, these dynamics raise a broader question about how mega-events are financed in the United States.

If a tax is described as targeting visitors but predictably falls on residents, is it still a tourism tax? If public entities are constrained from taxing the core revenue streams of a private organization, what does that mean for the balance of risk and reward? And if multiple jurisdictions benefit from an event, how should the costs be distributed among them?

These are not abstract concerns. They go directly to how governments structure deals with global organizations and how those deals are explained to the public.

There is still time for New Jersey to refine its approach, just as there is time for FIFA and regional stakeholders to revisit how costs are shared. But the underlying issue will remain. The challenge is not simply funding the World Cup. It is designing a system in which the financial responsibilities are aligned with the economic benefits.

For now, the debate in the Meadowlands offers a clear window into what happens when that alignment is missing.

---

Michael J. Epstein, a Harvard Law School graduate, is a trial lawyer and managing partner of The Epstein Law Firm, P.A., a law firm based in New Jersey.