RANKED · 389 BRANDS QUALIFY · FDD FILINGS 2024–2026 · NONE OLDER THAN TWO YEARS
Which franchises disclosed the highest Item 20 exit rates?
Ranked by exit rate — terminations, non-renewals, and "ceased operations — other reasons" divided by franchised outlets at the start of the year — as each franchisor reported them in its latest FDD Item 20. Exits are not the same as failures: they include non-renewals, conversions, relocations and system restructurings, and the FDD does not say why each outlet left.
Exit rate = (terminations + non-renewals + ceased operations, other) ÷ franchised outlets at start of the fiscal year, from Table 3 of each brand's latest FDD Item 20 (no more than two years old) as extracted by us, descending. Transfers to new owners and franchisor reacquisitions are not counted. Systems with fewer than 50 franchised units at the start of the year and systems reporting zero units at year end are excluded. A rate of 50% or more is used only when the same filing's unit counts corroborate it (start + opened − exits − reacquired lands within 15% of the reported year-end count) or we have checked it against the PDF — the same rule every page on the site applies. There is no official franchise "failure rate"; an exit is not a failure, and a high rate can reflect a restructuring, a conversion of units to another format, or an extraction error. Figures can contain errors — check the linked FDD and tell us if one is wrong.
Universe: every brand tracked here whose latest filing is a machine extraction from a public FDD (state regulator portals, chiefly Minnesota CARDS), filed 2024–2026. Filings more than two years old and sample/seed data never enter a ranking. Each row's “FDD” link is the official document the figure came from; each brand link leads to the full sourced profile. See the site methodology for extraction and confidence rules.
A broker is usually paid by the franchisor to place you. I'm paid only by you, never by a franchisor you're considering — and the job is pressure-testing the numbers, including talking you out of a bad deal.