Where the units are and who operates them
2.12% of the companies behind franchise units have contracted BNDES credit since 2015, above what their profile predicts
Share of the companies behind active network units with at least one BNDES credit operation contracted from 2015 to August 2026
See the full table (10 rows)
| Segment | Companies behind active units | With an operation since 2015 | Share | Expected by activity, size and age |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Education | 3,636 | 98 | 2.70% | 1.10% |
| Tourism and hospitality | 491 | 13 | 2.65% | 1.90% |
| Fashion and accessories | 8,211 | 199 | 2.42% | 1.93% |
| Health, beauty and wellness | 10,860 | 249 | 2.29% | 1.38% |
| Food | 11,604 | 261 | 2.25% | 1.58% |
| Food, retail and distribution | 5,919 | 127 | 2.15% | 1.58% |
| Services and other businesses | 11,673 | 187 | 1.60% | 1.48% |
| Gyms and sports | 2,138 | 24 | 1.12% | 0.77% |
| All networks | 54,517 | 1,155 | 2.12% | 1.51% |
| Franchisors with a published CNPJ | 409 | 46 | 11.25% | 3.66% |
BNDES (the national development bank) publishes as open data the financing operations it contracts, directly or through on-lending banks, with the client's CNPJ (Brazilian company registry), the date, the amount and the credit line. The indicator matches these operations with the companies that operate the units of the networks tracked by the observatory and with the franchisors that publish their CNPJ, and compares the result with that of companies in the same CNAE (national classification of economic activities) subclass, size and age in the registry of Receita Federal (the federal tax authority).
From 2015 to August 2026, 1,155 of the 54,517 companies behind active units contracted at least one operation, 2.12% of the total, compared with 1.51% expected from their profile, equivalent to 1.4 times the expected value. The most frequent line is the credit line for small and medium-sized enterprises of BNDES Automático, and the median amount contracted per company is R$ 120,000. The difference is largest in education, with 2.70% against 1.10%, and smallest in services and other businesses, with 1.60% against 1.48%.
Among franchisors with a published CNPJ, 46 of the 409 contracted credit in the period, 11.3%, compared with 3.7% expected, with a predominance of machinery and equipment financing from BNDES Finame. The comparison is descriptive and does not separate the companies' demand from the lending criteria of the on-lending banks.
How we calculate
We read the datasets of automatic indirect operations and of non-automatic operations from the BNDES Open Data Portal, with the contracts signed from 2015 to August 2026, and counted the companies, by the eight-digit CNPJ root, with at least one operation. Non-automatic operations include the full CNPJ. Automatic indirect operations include the masked CNPJ and the client's legal name, and matching with the Receita Federal registry requires the same visible digits and the same normalized legal name, accepting only single matches, which covers 87.7% of the automatic operations and 94.2% of the amount. The companies behind the units are the roots of the active establishments that the observatory's census attributes to the networks, excluding franchisors and MEI (individual microentrepreneur regime). The expected value from the profile applies to each company the share observed among active companies in the same CNAE subclass, size and age band, and sums the result.
What this figure does not show
- The company is counted by its CNPJ root, and the operation may have been made for another establishment or another activity of the same company.
- The credit may have been taken by a holding company or another group company that does not appear in the census, and the CNPJ that the network publishes is not always that of the company that concentrates the investment.
- Companies that changed their legal name after contracting are not matched in automatic operations, and the loss affects the networks and the reference group by the same criterion. In the check of the matching, the state and the CNAE division diverge at the same time in 4.0% of the pairs, a ceiling for mismatched pairs.
- The Cartão BNDES (the bank's business credit card) has no open dataset by client and is left out.
- The amount contracted is concentrated in a few companies with many units, and for this reason the page highlights the share of companies and the amount contracted by companies with up to nine units of the network.
Frequently asked questions
Can franchisees get BNDES credit?
In the tracked networks, 2.12% of the companies behind active units have contracted at least one operation with BNDES (the national development bank) since 2015, mainly under the credit line for small and medium-sized enterprises of BNDES Automático, compared with 1.51% expected for companies with the same profile.
Do franchisors use BNDES financing?
Of the 409 franchisors with a published CNPJ (Brazilian company registry), 46 contracted credit from BNDES (the national development bank) from 2015 to August 2026, or 11.3%, mainly through BNDES Finame.
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Where the units are and who operates themOther indicators in the same group
Maintained by Marktech, which serves franchise networks and franchises. The brands cited belong to their owners and are mentioned here only to identify the network the data refers to.