Senior Care
Home Instead Franchise
A non-medical in-home senior care franchise providing companionship, personal care, and specialized dementia/Alzheimer's care services. Incorporated in Nebraska in 1994, one of the earliest and largest brands in the in-home senior care category (alongside fellow Omaha-headquartered rival Right at Home, also in this dataset), now part of Honor Technology's combined Home Instead/Honor home-care platform. Both franchised and company-owned unit counts grew every year in the FDD's three-year window.
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 Home Instead'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
$54,000
Total to open
$92,640–$350,550
Ongoing royalty
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 senior care industry average, not a figure from Home Instead's own FDD -- change it to your own estimate.
Total cost of ownership over 5 years
$267,640 – $525,550
Startup investment
$92,640–$350,550
Royalty per year (5%)
$35,000
Total royalty, 5yr
$175,000
When would you break even?
Revenue alone doesn't tell you this -- it depends on what's left after rent, labor, and everything else. Home Instead's FDD doesn't disclose a reliable profit figure (most franchisors don't), so this starts from a typical senior care profit margin (~12%) and applies it to the revenue you entered above -- adjust the percentage to your own realistic estimate.
Defaulted to a general senior care industry benchmark, not a figure from Home Instead'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
1.1–4.2 years
Weigh that payback period against what you already know: Home Instead is opening more locations. A long payback period on a shrinking brand is a very different bet than the same payback period on a growing one.
Is Home Instead 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
GrowingFrom Item 20 of Home Instead's FDD, the section franchisors use to disclose real openings and closings.
| Year | Franchised units, start | Franchised units, end | Net change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 614 | 616 | +2 |
| 2024 | 616 | 619 | +3 |
| 2025 | 619 | 626 | +7 |
Most recent year (2025): gained 7 franchised units, ending the year at 626 total.
How Home Instead compares to other Senior Care franchises
Across the 7 senior care franchises we've hand-verified so far, the typical range to open runs $112,135–$249,899, with royalties averaging around 4.8% of gross sales (based on the 7 of them that charge a flat %-of-revenue royalty).
Home Instead Franchise FAQ
How much does it cost to franchise a Home Instead?
Based on Home Instead's own FDD, total initial investment to open one location runs $92,640–$350,550, including the $54,000 franchise fee. Home Instead only files a Net Worth/Experience Exemption notice with California DFPI (DFPI Regulated Entity ID 654302, all filings are exemption notices, no full registration/marked-FDD on file), so this entry is sourced from Minnesota's CARDS registry instead, matching this dataset's established practice for exemption-only franchisors: Clean FDD, Issuance Date April 29, 2026 (MN File No. 10807, document 36339-202604-13, filed 4/29/2026). Item 5: $54,000 initial franchise fee (20% VetFran discount to $43,200; a Deposit Agreement lets you reserve a market for $27,000, applied toward the fee). Item 6: royalty is a flat 5% of Gross Sales. Item 7: $92,640-$350,550 TOTAL. Item 20 Table No. 1, fiscal years 2023-2025 -- fetched directly from cards.commerce.state.mn.us and read from the PDF; company-owned outlets (a small, separate handful) also grew, from 3 to 8, over the same window.
What is the Home Instead franchise fee and royalty rate?
The initial franchise fee is $54,000, and the ongoing royalty is 5% of gross sales, per the filing on record.
Is the Home Instead franchise growing or shrinking?
Growing. Across 2023–2025, Home Instead added a net 12 franchised locations, per its own annual FDD filings.
Keep going
- Home Instead and Right at Home are both senior care franchises; Home Instead's total investment starts about $1,690 lower than Right at Home's. Right at Home Franchise
- Home Instead and BrightStar Care are both senior care franchises; Home Instead's total investment starts about $8,824 lower than BrightStar Care's. BrightStar Care Franchise
Where this came from: Home Instead only files a Net Worth/Experience Exemption notice with California DFPI (DFPI Regulated Entity ID 654302, all filings are exemption notices, no full registration/marked-FDD on file), so this entry is sourced from Minnesota's CARDS registry instead, matching this dataset's established practice for exemption-only franchisors: Clean FDD, Issuance Date April 29, 2026 (MN File No. 10807, document 36339-202604-13, filed 4/29/2026). Item 5: $54,000 initial franchise fee (20% VetFran discount to $43,200; a Deposit Agreement lets you reserve a market for $27,000, applied toward the fee). Item 6: royalty is a flat 5% of Gross Sales. Item 7: $92,640-$350,550 TOTAL. Item 20 Table No. 1, fiscal years 2023-2025 -- fetched directly from cards.commerce.state.mn.us and read from the PDF; company-owned outlets (a small, separate handful) also grew, from 3 to 8, over the same window. You can pull the same filing yourself from the California DFPI's public franchise search. Filed 2026-04-29. 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.