Food & Beverage

Pizza Hut Franchise

A quick-service and delivery pizza chain, one of the largest in the world, serving pizza, wings, pasta and sides for dine-in, carryout and delivery. Pizza Hut, Inc. (originally Pizza Hut of San Diego, Inc.) has operated and franchised Pizza Hut restaurants since 1958 and 1959 respectively; a May 2016 merger consolidated the U.S. franchise system into the current franchisor entity, Pizza Hut, LLC, a subsidiary of YUM! Brands. Franchised unit count fell every year of the FDD's three-year window, with the decline accelerating from -2 in 2023 to -258 in 2025; in November 2025 YUM! Brands announced it is exploring a sale or separation of the Pizza Hut brand.

Losing locationsFounded 1958HQ: Plano, TX

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 Pizza Hut'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

$25,000

Total to open

$846,000–$2,130,000

Ongoing royalty

6% 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.

Your estimated annual revenue

Defaulted to a rough food & beverage industry average, not a figure from Pizza Hut's own FDD -- change it to your own estimate.

Years of ownership

Total cost of ownership over 5 years

$1,146,000 – $2,430,000

Startup investment

$846,000–$2,130,000

Royalty per year (6%)

$60,000

Total royalty, 5yr

$300,000

When would you break even?

Revenue alone doesn't tell you this -- it depends on what's left after rent, labor, and everything else. Pizza Hut'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.

Estimated profit margin (% of revenue)

%≈ $80,000/year

Defaulted to a general food & beverage industry benchmark, not a figure from Pizza Hut'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

10.6–26.6 years

Weigh that payback period against what you already know: Pizza Hut 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 Pizza Hut 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

Shrinking

From Item 20 of Pizza Hut's FDD, the section franchisors use to disclose real openings and closings.

-2

-86

-258

202320242025

Year	Franchised units, start	Franchised units, end	Net change
2023	5,302	5,300	-2
2024	5,300	5,214	-86
2025	5,214	4,956	-258

Most recent year (2025): lost 258 franchised units, ending the year at 4,956 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)

Item 11: a required Initial Training Program for each Qualified Operator, a full set of Brand Standards furnished at no charge, and plan/lease review before construction; Pizza Hut also reserves the right to prescribe or suggest maximum retail prices in some markets.

Territory protection (Item 12)

Item 12: no exclusive territory -- only a 500-yard Protected Radius around each restaurant's Location within which Pizza Hut won't develop another restaurant of the same format, while reserving the right to operate other System Restaurant Concepts inside that same radius.

Renewal & termination terms (Item 17)

Item 17: 10-year initial term from the restaurant's opening date, with up to two consecutive 5-year Renewal Franchise Agreements available if the franchisee meets then-current requirements.

How Pizza Hut compares to other Food & Beverage franchises

Across the 50 food & beverage franchises we've hand-verified so far, the typical range to open runs $882,585–$2,162,912, with royalties averaging around 5.6% of gross sales (based on the 46 of them that charge a flat %-of-revenue royalty).

Dave's Hot Chicken

$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

Burger King

$2,039,200–$4,730,600 · 4.5% 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

Jimmy John's

$366,200–$733,500 · 6% royalty

Sonic Drive-In

$1,485,200–$2,522,900 · 5% royalty

Papa John's

$281,485–$890,267 · 5% royalty

Hungry Howie's Pizza & Subs

$238,982–$697,322 · 5.5% royalty

Jack in the Box

$1,909,500–$4,041,500 · 5% royalty

Wendy's

$1,523,957–$2,992,000 · 4% royalty

Marco's Pizza

$286,477–$811,186 · 5.5% royalty

Chicken Salad Chick

$777,000–$998,500 · 5% royalty

Teriyaki Madness

$392,667–$1,121,405 · 6% royalty

Cold Stone Creamery

$390,675–$680,775 · 6% royalty

Scooter's Coffee

$1,163,650–$1,345,750 · 6% royalty

Nothing Bundt Cakes

$475,200–$994,100 · 6% royalty

Five Guys

$977,850–$1,375,750 · 6% royalty

Tim Hortons

$427,500–$3,312,500 · 6% royalty

7 Brew

$940,500–$2,283,500 · non-%-of-revenue royalty

Swig

$608,400–$1,718,000 · 7% royalty

Culver's

$3,406,350–$10,294,100 · 4% royalty

Dairy Queen

$1,516,200–$2,543,050 · 4% royalty

Paris Baguette

$727,515–$1,860,550 · 5% royalty

Jollibee

$1,614,568–$4,589,057 · 5% royalty

Smoothie King

$329,850–$683,215 · 6% royalty

Keep going

Pizza Hut and Crumbl are both food & beverage franchises; Pizza Hut's total investment starts about $2,566 lower than Crumbl's. Crumbl Franchise
Pizza Hut and Chicken Salad Chick are both food & beverage franchises; Chicken Salad Chick's total investment starts about $69,000 lower than Pizza Hut's. Chicken Salad Chick Franchise

Where this came from: Pizza Hut only files a Net Worth/Experience Exemption notice with California DFPI (dfpi id 368504, Traditional Franchise Program), so this entry is sourced from Minnesota's CARDS registry instead: MN File No. 7939 (Traditional Franchise Program; a separate MN File No. 7940 covers the smaller Express/non-traditional format and is not used here), Clean FDD issued March 25, 2026, filed 3/25/2026, effective 4/10/2026. hqLocation is corrected from the FTC boilerplate Washington, DC address the automated parser picked up -- Item 1 gives the real principal business address as 7100 Corporate Drive, Plano, Texas. Item 5: $25,000 initial franchise fee. Item 6: the Monthly Service Fee (functionally the royalty) is 6.0% of Gross Sales (6.5% under certain circumstances) -- the automated parser's 9.5% figure was wrong, possibly conflating this with the separate 4.75% System Advertising Fund Contribution (the ad fund; IPHFHA member dues are credited against it). Item 7 Total for the standard "RBD and DBR Dine-In/Delivery/Carryout" restaurant format: $846,000-$2,130,000; a second FCD-format table in the same filing is not used here. Item 20 Table No. 1 confirmed. You can pull the same filing yourself from the California DFPI's public franchise search. Filed 2026-04-10. 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.