Brazil's Federal District has 61.5 active franchise network establishments per 100,000 inhabitants, 2.3 times the national average

Density by state relates the number of franchise network establishments in each state to the resident population, in establishments per 100,000 inhabitants, a measure that removes the effect of each state's size. Version 2.0 calculates this density through two independent measures, the active CNPJs (Brazilian company registry) of the 503 measured networks in the records of Receita Federal (the federal tax authority), reference month October 2026, and the 79,072 addresses that 984 networks list in the store locator on their own websites.

In the CNPJ records, the country has 27.1 active establishments of these networks per 100,000 inhabitants. The Federal District has 61.5 per 100,000 inhabitants, equivalent to 2.3 times the average, and the next highest densities are those of Santa Catarina, with 43.5, and Mato Grosso, with 42.3. Ceará has the lowest density, with 13.0, and the ratio between the two extremes is 4.7. By region, density in the records ranges from 42.0 in the Center-West to 17.0 in the Northeast, and density in the locators from 47.3 in the South to 19.8 in the Northeast. The state of São Paulo holds 21.6% of the population, 26.3% of the active CNPJs of the measured networks and 32.7% of the listed addresses, a concentration that version 1.0 already recorded in the seven networks it measured, with 32% to 38% of each network's units in the state.

The two measures agree on the general ranking of states. The rank correlation between the two densities is 0.91, the Federal District also has the highest density in the locators, with 65.5 addresses per 100,000 inhabitants, and 23 of the 27 states are on the same side of the national average in both measures. Among the exceptions, Espírito Santo, Rondônia and Tocantins are above the average in the records and below it in the locators, and Rio Grande do Sul is in the opposite situation. In the 336 networks that have both measures, active CNPJs equal 61.9% of the addresses listed in the country, ranging from 51.5% in São Paulo to 88.0% in Tocantins. The difference between states reflects how the trade name is filled in, the points of sale without a CNPJ of their own, such as kiosks and operations inside other establishments, and how up to date the lists are, factors that the indicator does not separate.

How we calculate

In the open CNPJ data of Receita Federal (the federal tax authority), reference month October 2026, we counted the active establishments that the observatory's census attributes to the 503 networks with at least 30 identified establishments, by the brand expression in the trade name and the CNAE (national classification of economic activities) subclasses of the network profile, and summed them by the state of the registered address. One establishment with an address abroad is included in the national total and left out of the rows by state. These counts use the same set of networks and the same reference month as the state pages and the indicator of presence in municipalities. The second measure sums the addresses that 984 networks in the universe list in the store locator on their own websites, read by the observatory between September and November 2026 in compliance with robots.txt, excluding units announced as upcoming, networks with fewer than 5 listed addresses and those that leave more than a quarter of their addresses without an identified state. The denominator of both measures is the 2025 population estimate from IBGE (the national statistics institute), SIDRA table 6579, summed by state.

The comparison between the measures uses the Spearman rank correlation between the densities of the 27 states and, in the 336 networks that have both, the ratio between active CNPJs and listed addresses in each state. This is the relationship that the registry adherence indicator calculates network by network, here summed by state and restricted to the networks with both measures. Density by segment uses the segment in each network's profile, and a cell with fewer than 5 establishments is not published, with secondary suppression when the difference from the total would reveal it.

Version 1.0, dated September 7, 2026, measured seven networks that published the address of all their units in open format and calculated the density of each network separately, without adding different networks together. Version 2.0, dated November 8, 2026, sums the networks in each measure, extends the reading of locators to 984 networks and adds the CNPJ records as a measure independent of the websites. Of the seven networks in the previous version, five remain in the locator measure, and in the other two the locator is no longer available for reading, which removes the network from the collection. The denominator remains the IBGE population estimate for 2025. The version 1.0 file remains available in Open data.

Calculated on November 8, 2026. Method version 2.0. Sample: 503 networks in the CNPJ records and 984 with a locator read, 27 states. Corrected on October 30, 2026 (in Portuguese).

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