Food & Beverage
Burger King Franchise
A flame-grilled-burger quick-service chain and the flagship U.S. brand of Restaurant Brands International (RBI). Predecessor BK Corporation was founded in 1954 as Burger King of Miami, Inc.; a 2022 internal reorganization made Burger King Company LLC the current franchisor of record. Franchised outlet count fell sharply across the three years shown (-352 in 2023, -1,116 in 2024, -6 in 2025) -- the 2024 drop is not attrition but a real corporate event: RBI's May 2024 acquisition of Carrols Restaurant Group converted 1,023 Carrols-owned franchised restaurants into company-owned ones overnight, which is also why company-owned outlets jumped from 138 to 1,177 that same year.
Every franchisor has to file a document called an FDD before they can legally sell you a franchise. Buried in it are the two things a sales rep won't volunteer: what you'll actually spend to open, and whether existing locations are opening or closing. That's what's below, pulled straight from Burger King's own filing.
What it costs to open
From the filing's investment breakdown -- not a "starting at" number a sales rep quoted you.
Franchise fee
$50,000
Total to open
$2,039,200–$4,730,600
Ongoing royalty
4.5% of gross sales
What you'd actually spend, over time
The upfront cost is only part of it. Plug in what you expect a location to bring in, and see the real total once royalties over a few years are added on top.
Defaulted to a rough food & beverage industry average, not a figure from Burger King's own FDD -- change it to your own estimate.
Total cost of ownership over 5 years
$2,264,200 – $4,955,600
Startup investment
$2,039,200–$4,730,600
Royalty per year (4.5%)
$45,000
Total royalty, 5yr
$225,000
When would you break even?
Revenue alone doesn't tell you this -- it depends on what's left after rent, labor, and everything else. Burger King's FDD doesn't disclose a reliable profit figure (most franchisors don't), so this starts from a typical food & beverage profit margin (~8%) and applies it to the revenue you entered above -- adjust the percentage to your own realistic estimate.
Defaulted to a general food & beverage industry benchmark, not a figure from Burger King's own filing -- this is a starting point to adjust, not a promise about what franchisees actually make.
At that profit, you'd break even in about
25.5–59.1 years
Weigh that payback period against what you already know: Burger King is currently losing locations. A long payback period on a shrinking brand is a very different bet than the same payback period on a growing one.
Is Burger King actually growing?
Franchisors have to report, every year, how many locations opened, closed, or changed hands. Most franchise sites never show you this. Here it is:
Locations opened vs. closed, by year
ShrinkingFrom Item 20 of Burger King's FDD, the section franchisors use to disclose real openings and closings.
| Year | Franchised units, start | Franchised units, end | Net change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 6,992 | 6,640 | -352 |
| 2024 | 6,640 | 5,524 | -1116 |
| 2025 | 5,524 | 5,518 | -6 |
Most recent year (2025): lost 6 franchised units, ending the year at 5,518 total.
What you're actually signing up for
The cost and growth numbers above are only part of the picture. These three FDD items are the ones a prospective franchisee tends to weigh most heavily once they're past the sticker price.
Training & ongoing support (Item 11)
New-franchisee training, travel, and living expenses run $7,500-$25,000 per Item 7; franchisees also pay a Service Desk Fee ($750-$1,200/year) for centralized IT support and can qualify for reduced royalty/advertising rates under time-limited multi-unit development incentive programs BKC may offer.
Territory protection (Item 12)
You will not receive an exclusive territory. You may face competition from other franchisees, from outlets BKC owns, or from other channels of distribution or competitive brands BKC controls.
Renewal & termination terms (Item 17)
Standard Franchise Agreement term is 20 years for a freestanding restaurant (may be shorter for non-traditional locations). There is no automatic renewal right -- only an option to obtain a successor Franchise Agreement (up to 20 years) if the franchisee is in compliance, has secured property control, and meets BKC's then-current successor requirements; no successor option is available for Big-Box Program or Delivery Restaurant franchisees.
How Burger King compares to other Food & Beverage franchises
Across the 28 food & beverage franchises we've hand-verified so far, the typical range to open runs $837,269–$2,125,953, with royalties averaging around 5.7% of gross sales (based on the 25 of them that charge a flat %-of-revenue royalty).
$617,800–$2,170,000 · 6% royalty
Slim Chickens$1,188,900–$4,944,000 · 5% royalty
Ziggi's Coffee$315,830–$2,093,361 · 6% royalty
Crumbl$848,566–$1,472,533 · 8% royalty
Little Caesars$376,500–$1,769,200 · 6% royalty
Jamba$480,850–$941,300 · 6% royalty
Tropical Smoothie Cafe$300,000–$720,500 · 6% royalty
Playa Bowls$188,675–$636,458 · 6% royalty
Kona Ice$114,730–$228,601 · non-%-of-revenue royalty
Firehouse Subs$166,671–$950,351 · 6% royalty
Wingstop$310,400–$1,048,500 · 6% royalty
Jersey Mike's Subs$436,176–$1,162,228 · 6.5% royalty
Dunkin'$532,400–$1,832,500 · 5.9% royalty
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen$1,222,045–$3,923,245 · 5% royalty
Del Taco$1,461,200–$3,313,500 · 5% royalty
Blaze Pizza$757,000–$1,297,100 · 5% royalty
Church's Texas Chicken$1,202,400–$1,886,300 · 5% royalty
MOD Pizza$924,732–$1,220,633 · 5% royalty
Twin Peaks$2,959,000–$5,734,000 · 5% royalty
McDonald's$1,470,500–$2,642,000 · 5% royalty
Subway$263,000–$630,000 · 8% royalty
Taco Bell$1,859,750–$4,312,200 · 5.5% royalty
Domino's Pizza$231,450–$743,500 · 5.5% royalty
KFC$2,107,575–$4,155,000 · 5% royalty
Chick-fil-A$317,521–$3,463,155 · non-%-of-revenue royalty
Penn Station$507,500–$858,750 · non-%-of-revenue royalty
Nekter Juice Bar$243,155–$647,160 · 6% royalty
Keep going
- Burger King and KFC are both food & beverage franchises; Burger King's total investment starts about $68,375 lower than KFC's. KFC Franchise
- Burger King and Taco Bell are both food & beverage franchises; Taco Bell's total investment starts about $179,450 lower than Burger King's. Taco Bell Franchise
Where this came from: Burger King only files a Net Worth/Experience Exemption notice, not a full FDD, with California DFPI, so this entry is sourced from Minnesota's CARDS registry instead: Clean FDD issued March 26, 2026, as amended 9/2026 (MN File No. 10533, filed 9/2/2026, effective in Minnesota 9/11/2026). Item 5: standard franchise fee is $50,000 for a 20-year term (prorated down to a $15,000 minimum for shorter terms) -- an earlier automated pass on this filing mis-picked a $25,000 figure from the Item 7 training-fee line as the franchise fee; corrected here from the FDD's own Item 5 text. Item 6: royalty is 4.5% of monthly Gross Sales plus an advertising contribution of up to 4.5% -- an earlier automated pass mis-read this as 2.0%; corrected from the Item 6 fee table. Item 7: $2,039,200-$4,730,600 TOTAL for a Traditional (freestanding) facility -- separate, lower ranges apply to Non-Traditional formats (in-line, food-court, co-brand, etc.). Item 20 Table 1 franchised/company-owned rows above, with the FDD's own footnote confirming the 2024 Carrols acquisition as the cause of that year's outlet-count shift. You can pull the same filing yourself from the California DFPI's public franchise search. Filed 2026-09-11. None of this is investment advice -- get the franchisor's current FDD and talk to a real attorney or accountant before you sign anything.
If you see a different unit count elsewhere: franchisors only have to refile their FDD annually, so the numbers here can run 6–18 months behind a franchisor's own real-time marketing claims -- which often aren't independently verified, and sometimes count signed-but-not-yet-open locations. A gap isn't necessarily an error on either side; it's two different snapshots in time from two different sources.