Failure-to-rescue after elective surgery is associated with increased healthcare costs. These costs are poorly understood and have not been reported for colorectal surgery. The purpose of this study was to assess the incremental costs of failure-to-rescue after elective colorectal surgery. This was a retrospective study of adult patients identified in the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) from 2016 to 2019 who underwent an elective colectomy or proctectomy. Patients were stratified into four groups: uneventful recovery, successfully rescued, failure-to-rescue, and died without rescue attempts. "Rescue" was defined as admissions with ≥1 procedure code ≥1 day after the initial procedure. The primary outcome was total admission costs. Of 451,490 admissions for elective colorectal resection, 94.6% had an uneventful recovery, 4.8% were successfully rescued, 0.4% were failure-to-rescue, and 0.3% died without rescue attempts. The median total hospital cost for the uneventful recovery cohort was $16,751 (IQR $12,611-23,116), for the successfully rescued cohort was $42,295 (IQR $27,959-67,077), for the failure-to-rescue cohort was $53,182 (IQR $30,852-95,615), and for the died without attempted rescue cohort was $29,296 (IQR $19-812-45,919). When comparing cost quantiles by regression analysis, failure-to-rescue patients had significantly higher costs compared to the successfully rescued patients for the last three quantiles (fifth quantile (90th percentile): $163,963 vs. $106,521, p<0.001). Across a nationally representative cohort, the median total hospital costs for patients who failed to be rescued were $10,887 more than for those who were successfully rescued. These findings emphasize the importance of shared decision-making and medical futility and highlight opportunities for resource optimization following postoperative complications.