When the Biden administration enacted regulations last year slashing credit card late fees, government analysts calculated that the rule would save millions of customers an average of $220 per year.

Overall, they found that the new limit would save American households about $10 billion annually, mostly in avoided bank penalties.

But now that the Trump administration has abandoned the rule, the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting initiative spearheaded by Elon Musk, claims the opposite — that the reversal will save Americans $9.5 billion.

DOGE promotes the purported savings on an “Agency Deregulation Leaderboard,” posted this month, where it claims that the Trump administration has saved Americans $29.4 billion as a result of reversing regulations in health insurance, bank fees, appliance efficiency standards and other areas.

But many of those regulatory reversals will actually pile more costs on to individual Americans in the form of higher bank fees, electric and water bills, and health insurance payments, according to experts and government analyses. The New York Times examined 10 of the largest claims on the leaderboard and concluded that several did not show evidence of savings to households.

The leaderboard, for instance, claims that the Energy Department’s proposals to reverse 16 efficiency standards on appliances like dishwashers and microwaves will save Americans a combined $4 billion. But government scientists’ own accounting says that appliance efficiency standards saved the average American household about $576 in 2024 on water and gas bills.