Data study · fee and investment benchmarks · annual refresh
The median initial franchise fee is $39,475
Asking "how much does a franchise cost" gets you a teaser number. The filings give a better one: across 3,959 brands that disclose an initial franchise fee, the median is $39,475 — and the fee is the small part. The median minimum initial investment across 4,717 disclosing brands is $179,200. We publish medians, not averages: a few resort-scale outliers would drag any average up and mislead you.
Key figures
Self-contained and anchored — quote the sentence, link the anchor.
The median initial franchise fee across 3,959 US franchise brands with a disclosed fee is $39,475 (as of 2026-05).
The median minimum initial investment across 4,717 disclosing brands is $179,200 — roughly 5 times the fee itself. Budget for the investment range, not the fee.
Entertainment & Recreation carries the highest median initial franchise fee of any industry tracked: $65,000 across 9 disclosing brands.
Event Services has the lowest median initial franchise fee: $17,825 across 10 disclosing brands.
The median minimum ongoing royalty is 6% of revenue, computed over the subset of brands that disclose a royalty rate. Royalty disclosure is far thinner than fee disclosure — check the per-industry Ns in the table.
Fees and investment by industry
| Industry | Median franchise fee | Median min. investment | Median royalty | Brands (fee disclosed) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entertainment & Recreation | $65,000 | $1,523,608 | 5.5% | 9 of 16 |
| Pet Services | $57,000 | $302,583 | 6.5% | 22 of 25 |
| Home Services | $50,000 | $117,350 | 6.8% | 219 of 245 |
| Sports & Recreation | $50,000 | $208,117 | 7.5% | 23 of 31 |
| Lodging & Leisure | $46,100 | $6,234,337 | 5% | 139 of 221 |
| Health & Fitness | $45,000 | $190,400 | 6% | 595 of 895 |
| Education & Arts | $43,300 | $98,175 | 6.5% | 43 of 48 |
| Professional Services | $37,163 | $87,350 | 6% | 1,180 of 1,750 |
| Food & Beverage | $35,000 | $285,900 | 5% | 1,244 of 1,822 |
| Retail | $35,000 | $165,400 | 5% | 161 of 256 |
| Auto & Travel | $30,000 | $184,850 | 6% | 120 of 192 |
| Event Services | $17,825 | $37,375 | 7% | 10 of 13 |
| Uncategorizedno industry label in the source | $41,500 | $225,025 | n/d | 194 of 205 |
| All industries | $39,475 | $179,200 | 6% | 3,959 |
"Brands (fee disclosed)" is each row's own N — medians are computed over disclosing brands only, never padded with zeros. Missing medians print as n/d, not as a guess.
Methodology
- Source class
- FDD-derived disclosures from a commercial aggregation of US franchise filings, snapshot dated 2026-05. Fee = the low end of the disclosed initial franchise fee; investment = the low end of the disclosed initial investment range (Item 7 style); royalty = the disclosed minimum ongoing royalty percent.
- Median, not mean
- All figures are medians over disclosed values. Means are not published: lodging and entertainment concepts with seven-figure entry costs would pull any mean far above what a typical brand charges.
- Missing data
- A $0 or corrupt figure is treated as missing, never as a real zero. 3,959 of 5,719 profiled brands disclose a fee; 4,717 disclose a minimum investment; 4,759 disclose at least one of the two. Royalty coverage is thinner, and each industry row prints its own N.
- What this table is not
- Not an earnings benchmark — no earnings data exists in this dataset. Not an all-in cost: the minimum investment excludes working capital many franchisors recommend on top. Per-brand pages carry the full disclosed range with every "not disclosed" cell left visible.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure across this site traces to a specific class of franchise disclosure — the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) each US franchisor must give a buyer before any signing or payment — not a brochure or a sales page. The numbered items we read:
- FDD Item 5 — Initial franchise fee:
- the one-time entry fee.
- FDD Item 6 — Ongoing fees:
- royalty and ad-fund percentages.
- FDD Item 7 — Initial investment:
- the low-to-high range to open one unit.
- FDD Item 12 — Territory:
- whether a protected area is granted — negotiated per agreement, not a field we hold.
- FDD Item 19 — Financial performance:
- the only lawful earnings representation — our dataset holds none, so no page here makes an earnings claim from our data.
- FDD Item 20 — Unit history:
- openings, closures, terminations, and transfers by year.
- FDD Item 3 — Litigation:
- the count of disclosed franchise-related lawsuits.
Those items are compiled from a commercial aggregation of US FDD filings and public brand-disclosure listings, a snapshot dated 2026-05. We clean, date, and gap-mark every figure; we do not audit the underlying filings, and the current FDD from the franchisor is the authority you sign against.
Verify any of this independently
You don't have to take our word for the framework. These are the primary, authoritative sources — verify independently at:
- U.S. FTC — Franchises & Business OpportunitiesThe federal Franchise Rule (16 CFR Part 436) and the FDD requirement itself.
- FTC — A Consumer's Guide to Buying a FranchiseThe government's plain-language walkthrough of what to check before you sign.
- U.S. SBA — Franchise DirectoryBrands reviewed for SBA-loan eligibility, checked by lenders during underwriting.
- NASAA — State franchise registration & resourcesThe umbrella for the state regulators that register FDDs in registration states.
- International Franchise Association (IFA)The industry body — useful context, not a regulator; read it as such.
Links open on the source's own site. We link them so you can check the rules yourself; we don't control or endorse their content.
Cite this data
Anchors: #median-franchise-fee · #median-initial-investment · #fee-table. Anchors are stable across the annual refresh.
Put the numbers to work
The other half of the picture
Fees tell you the cost to get in. Unit histories tell you what happened to the people who did.