Franchising in Brazil: statistics from public records and network declarations

This page summarizes the statistics of Franquias em Dados, an observatory by Marktech, a technology startup for digital marketing. The full content, with method, sources and CSV files (CC BY 4.0), is available in Portuguese at /franquias/. The Yearbook of franchising in Brazil 2026 (PDF, in Portuguese) brings together the indicators of this edition by topic.

The figures come from public records and from what the networks declare on their own pages, and the calculation date appears on this page. Investment, royalty, payback and revenue values declared by the networks are statements made by the networks, not verified findings. The observatory does not recommend networks and does not broker franchise sales. The binding document of each offer is the disclosure document (Circular de Oferta de Franquia).

Brazilian bodies and terms are kept under their original names. Receita Federal is the federal tax authority and maintains the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry). INPI is the national industrial property institute, IBGE the national statistics institute, CVM the securities regulator, STJ the Superior Court of Justice, CADE the competition authority, ABF the Brazilian franchising association, BNDES the national development bank and MDIC the ministry responsible for foreign trade. The consumidor.gov.br platform is the federal public service for consumer complaints, CNAE is the national classification of economic activities, ISS is the municipal service tax, CEP is the postal code, MEI is the individual microentrepreneur regime and Simples Nacional is the simplified tax regime for small companies.

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• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the R$ 135,000 ceiling for microfranchises is 24.6% below the criterion of three times GDP per capita, which would yield R$ 179,062 based on IBGE data for 2025.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, hotels spent 8.24% of their expenses on royalties in 2024 and supermarkets 0.11%, according to the annual trade and services surveys of IBGE.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the franchise contract certificates issued by INPI fell from 156 in 2023 to 7 through September 2026.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the median royalty in 573 franchise filings registered at INPI is 5.5% of sales or gross revenue, with half of the cases between 5% and 6%.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the CNAE class of franchisors comprised 9,282 local units and 38,625 employed persons in 2024, 19% more than in 2022, according to the CEMPRE business register of IBGE.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the median registry adherence of 497 franchise networks is 61%, between CNPJs (Brazilian company registry) with the brand in the trade name and the addresses each network lists on its own website (Receita Federal, full base of October 2026).
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 12 publicly traded companies declared 12,136 units in Brazil as of June 30, 2026, of which 58.9% were franchised, based on documents filed with CVM and the SEC.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, two of the ten franchise networks with the most active CNPJs (Brazilian company registry) have an active account on consumidor.gov.br, which recorded 3,909,371 closed complaints from October 2025 to September 2026.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, São Paulo has 21.6% of the population and from 32% to 38% of the units of each of the seven franchise networks with public addresses, in September 2026.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the units of Cacau Show, Kopenhagen and Brasil Cacau correspond to 16.1% of the 35,493 active CNPJs (Brazilian company registry) in confectionery retail, or 24.8% of the base excluding individual microentrepreneurs, MEI (Receita Federal, 2026).
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, franchisors based in Rio declared R$ 603.4 million in royalties and fees in 2025, 54% above 2019, and paid R$ 12.5 million in ISS (municipal service tax).
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the R$ 301.7 billion in revenue that ABF published for 2025 equals 2.37% of the year's nominal GDP, compared with 2.32% in 2024.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 509 franchise networks opened 7,466 establishments and deregistered 3,624 in 2025, 2.1 openings for each deregistration, the lowest ratio since 2015, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 64.8% of the establishments opened in 2025 by the 509 franchise networks measured were outside state capitals, compared with 59.5% in 2015, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 21.2% of the active establishments of the 509 franchise networks measured have an address in a shopping center, a share that reaches 43.4% in fashion and accessories, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 68.3% of the active establishments of the 509 franchise networks measured belong to companies under Simples Nacional (simplified tax regime), and 20.5% to companies with more than one unit of the same network, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 14,993 trademark applications filed at INPI in 2024 included franchise services in the specification, 3.29% of all applications and almost 18 times the number in 2010.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 72.8% of the units opened from 2015 to 2020 by the 483 franchise networks measured were still active five years later, compared with 63.4% of other establishments in the same activities, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the 509 franchise networks measured have an active establishment in 45.5% of Brazilian municipalities, home to 88.0% of the population, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal and the population estimates of IBGE.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 47.8% of the 607 active franchisors that publish their CNPJ have CNAE class 77.40-3 as their primary activity, and 70.0% have it as primary or secondary, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, service invoices issued in Belo Horizonte under the franchise code totaled R$ 110.7 million in ISS (municipal service tax) calculation base in 2024, according to the open data of the City of Belo Horizonte.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, among the 509 measured, the typical franchise network has 61 active establishments in 14 states, and 122 are present in 20 or more states, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 52.7% of the active establishments of the measured franchise networks opened in the last five years, compared with 42.8% of other establishments in the same activities, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, municipalities in the top quintile of GDP per capita have 38.6 establishments of the measured franchise networks per 100,000 inhabitants, compared with 6.9 in the bottom quintile of GDP per capita, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal and data from IBGE.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 1,500 establishments were opened in 2025 with the CNAE class of franchisors as their primary activity, 4.6 times the number in 2010, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 2.12% of the companies that operate active units of the tracked franchise networks contracted BNDES credit from 2015 to August 2026, compared with 1.51% expected for companies of the same activity, size and age, according to the open data of BNDES and Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the CNAE class of franchisors paid an average monthly wage of 5.2 minimum wages in 2024, compared with 2.8 across the Cadastro Central de Empresas of IBGE.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 32.8% of the 622 franchisors with a published CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) hold a trademark registration in force for franchise services, according to the open trademark data of INPI.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, franchise networks with 30 or more active units take a median of 5.6 years from the second to the tenth unit, according to the opening dates in the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the five largest franchise networks account for 14.5% of the 58,378 active units of the 509 networks measured in the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 68.4% of the units of the 274 franchise networks with an identified headquarters are outside the franchisor's state, at a median distance of 487 km, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 73 merger filings with franchise networks among the applicants were published by CADE from 2015 to 2026, 1.1% of the notices in the period, 47 of them from 2021 onward.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, franchise network establishments in Belo Horizonte have a median area of 68 m² on the municipal operating permit, in 955 valid cases from 324 networks, and 31.5% of the 178 establishments of 21 networks that disclose a minimum area declare an area below that minimum.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the 45,529 companies that operate establishments of 528 franchise networks declare a median registered capital of R$ 60,000, compared with R$ 30,000 for other companies in the same CNAEs and opening periods, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal of October 2026. Registered capital does not equal the investment in the franchise.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the 509 franchise networks measured went from 50,145 active CNPJs (Brazilian company registry) in May 2023 to 58,186 in October 2026, a change of +16.0%, according to the records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 49.9% of the 958 networks that state a format on their own page offer one beyond the store, as declared by the networks, with kiosks at 17.3% and home-based at 14.4%, as read on October 30, 2026.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, residents in Brazil acquired US$ 421.9 million in franchise contracts from abroad from 2014 to 2018, 87.3% from the United States, according to the discontinued Siscoserv series (MDIC).
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 321 rulings of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) address franchise contracts, 129 of them on taxes and 28 on arbitration, in the court's database of ruling summaries through September 2026, with a precision of 28 out of 30 in the sample read.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the median of the lowest initial investment declared by the networks on their own pages is R$ 180,000, in 813 franchise networks, with half between R$ 90,000 and R$ 300,000, as read on October 30, 2026.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 98.3% of the companies behind franchise units opened in 2025 are limited liability companies, single-member ones included, compared with 86.0% in 2019, and sole proprietors fell from 10.4% to 1.6%, excluding MEI (individual microentrepreneurs), according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 85.5% of the units of the 477 franchise networks measured belong to companies with no other unit of the same network under the same CNPJ root, and 14.5% to companies with two or more, a figure that is a floor, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal of October 2026.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the United States accounts for 83.8% of the 1,213 franchise filings with a foreign licensor at INPI and for 59.5% of the network brands identified, and domestic licensors account for 17.3% of the total.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, franchise contracts recorded at INPI have a median stated term of 9.5 years, 77.8% of filings provide for payment in dollars and the median initial fee in dollars, per unit, is US$ 45,000.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 11 legislative proposals on business franchising were pending in Congress on October 30, 2026, 5 of them on taxes, and Complementary Law 214/2025 does not mention the franchise contract, based on the APIs of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate and on the text published by the Presidency (Planalto).
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 48 franchise networks of Brazilian origin have a presence abroad, as declared by the networks on their own pages, in 25 countries, with the United States in 19 networks and Portugal in 18, as read on October 30, 2026.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 8.5% of the 97,276 establishments of the measured franchise networks are classified as inapt in the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry), 99% of them for failure to file returns, compared with 14.1% of other establishments of the same activities and ages, according to Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the networks that publish these figures on their own page advertise, at the median, payback in 19 months and monthly revenue of R$ 100,000, as read on October 30, 2026, figures declared by the networks in commercial advertising and not a verified result.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the royalty declared by the networks on their own websites has a median of 5.25% of gross revenue, in 87 networks, and 16.3% of those that report the item declare an exemption, as read on October 30, 2026.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the median royalty on sales or gross revenue in franchise contracts recorded at INPI went from 5% in the 2009 to 2013 period to 6% in the 2019 to 2023 period, an effect of the composition of the set of filings, since without KFC and Pizza Hut the median remains at 5%.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 1.6% of the establishments of the measured franchise networks drop the brand name each year and remain active under another name, compared with 5.7% per year of deregistrations, between May 2023 and October 2026, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, franchise networks open 20% more units per business day in September than the annual average and 23% fewer in January, based on the start-of-activity date of 62,266 CNPJs (Brazilian company registry) opened from 2015 to 2025, in the records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, of the 1,789 franchise networks with a page read on October 30, 2026, 46.7% publish the initial investment, 18.2% the royalties and 2.9% the contract term.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, fashion and accessories networks share the same postal code (CEP) 3.7 times more often than expected, and 83.5% of co-occurrences between franchise networks happen in a shopping center or commercial center, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal, reference month October 2026.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the CNPJs of the 509 franchise networks measured were deregistered with a median lifespan of 3.6 years from 2021 to 2025, compared with 6.1 years in the same activities. With the same age structure, the networks record 92 deregistrations for every 100 expected, with a 95% interval from 85 to 99, which excludes 100, and a difference concentrated in the first two years, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal, reference month October 2026.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 69.9% of the 1,513 franchise pages read on October 30, 2026 had a form, and 61.5% of networks with a form published some commercial condition on their own page.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the stock of active CNPJs (Brazilian company registry) in laundry changed by +152.9% from May 2023 to October 2026, the largest change among 23 comparable franchise categories, compared with +16.0% across the measured networks, according to the records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, São Paulo is the municipality with the most franchise network units, with 4,759 active CNPJs (Brazilian company registry) of the 509 networks measured, followed by Rio de Janeiro, with 3,263, and Brasília, with 1,850 (Receita Federal, open CNPJ data, October 2026).
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the franchise fee equals, at the median, 20.1% of the lowest investment declared by the networks and working capital 15.0%, in 220 and 79 networks where the composition is comparable, on October 30, 2026.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the franchise fee declared by the networks has a median of R$ 40,000, and the royalty, of 5.25% of gross revenue, in 75 networks, as read on October 30, 2026.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the investment declared by the networks has a median of R$ 5,800 per square meter, with half between R$ 3,267 and R$ 12,500, in 161 franchise networks with value and area of the same model, as read on October 30, 2026.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 5-year survival of units has a median of 90.0% in networks with investment declared by the networks above R$ 400,000 and of 68.8% in those up to R$ 100,000, in 164 measured networks, an association that persists with segment and network age controlled and does not indicate cause.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 15 of the 21 state capitals whose rule was read on an official website through October 30, 2026 apply to franchises the maximum ISS (municipal service tax) rate, of 5%, and the set of 42 municipalities read ranges from 2% to 5%.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, at least 40.2% of the 1,649 franchise networks read on October 30, 2026 had an ad tag in their website's HTML, and 58.9% used Google Tag Manager. The share is a floor, because a tag loaded by Google Tag Manager does not appear in the HTML.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, population, GDP per capita, state and metropolitan position explain 87% of the variation in franchise network units across the 682 municipalities with 50,000 inhabitants or more, with a median error of 27.8%, and Niterói (RJ) has 2.91 times the expected number (Receita Federal, CNPJ, October 2026; IBGE). The measure describes the presence of networks and does not indicate a business opportunity.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 3,033 of the 5,570 Brazilian municipalities have no active establishment of the 509 networks measured in the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records (October 2026), with 12.2% of the population in the 2022 Census, and 228 received their first unit since January 2023. Absence from the records does not prove real absence and does not indicate a business opportunity.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 63.6% of the 1,494 active franchise networks with at least 5 CNPJs had their first unit identified from 2010 onward, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal, reference month October 2026. The set does not include defunct networks.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 28.4% of the 2,037 franchise brands in the universe have at least one English word in their name, by a published list of 403 forms. By the same reading rule and excluding network proper names, the share is 21.6% in the networks and 10.1% in other establishments of the same activities, in a sample of the records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the 5-year survival of units has a median of 70.6% in networks with a payback declared by the networks of up to 18 months and of 85.7% in those of more than 24 months, in 146 measured networks. The relationship is indistinguishable from zero once investment is controlled, and the association neither indicates cause nor verifies the advertised period.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 121 of the 509 franchise networks measured have 10 or more units in municipalities of up to 50,000 inhabitants, a range that holds 11.8% of the active CNPJs of these networks and 30.5% of the population (Receita Federal, open CNPJ data, October 2026; IBGE).
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, of the 1,579 franchise networks read on October 30, 2026, 83.9% pointed to an Instagram profile on their website, 67.3% to Facebook and 16.3% to TikTok.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 44.6% of the 648 franchise networks that publish the franchisor's CNPJ are headquartered in the state of São Paulo, which has 21.6% of the population, and 49.0% of the active units of the measured networks are in a region other than the headquarters, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal, reference month October 2026.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, in 8 of 12 franchise categories with a robust confidence interval, units opened from 2015 to 2020 remain active at five years in a larger share than other establishments in the same activities, among networks existing today, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, networks with both dates declared by the networks take a median of 7.5 years between founding and the start of franchising, in 78 networks, as read on October 30, 2026.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, the 509 franchise networks measured opened 6,319 CNPJs and deregistered 3,710 from October 2025 to September 2026, with a change of -19.0% in openings and +4.4% in deregistrations over the previous 12 months, and of -16.5% in openings across the whole universe of 1,904 networks, according to the CNPJ (Brazilian company registry) records of Receita Federal, reference month October 2026.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, active CNPJs (Brazilian company registry) with the brand name equal, at the median, 50% of the units declared by the networks and the network's own locator, 91%, in October 2026. The difference may stem from different counting criteria, and the data do not allow these causes to be separated from outdated information or error.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 76.0% of the head-office CNPJs (Brazilian company registry) of the measured franchise networks remain without deregistration 5 years after opening and 60.4% 10 years after, compared with 73.1% and 58.3% in other establishments of the same activities, with an interval of -0.5 to +4.5 points, which includes zero at 10 years, according to the CNPJ base of October 2026.
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, 3.29% of active establishments that never opted for MEI (individual microentrepreneur regime), in 18 markets with their own CNAE subclass, carry the brand of a measured network, compared with 3.06% in May 2023, gaining share in 11 markets and losing in 4 (Receita Federal, open CNPJ data, October 2026; count by trade name).
• According to the Franquias em Dados observatory, by Marktech, of the 440 franchise networks with at least 30 active CNPJs (Brazilian company registry) in May 2023, 33.6% grew by more than 10% through October 2026, 26.4% remained stable and 16.6% shrank by more than a third, by trade name in the CNPJ base.