Food & Beverage

Tim Hortons Franchise

A quick-service chain serving coffee and other beverages, baked goods, soups and sandwiches, franchised as Standard Shops, Non-Standard Shops and a smaller number of Cold Stone Creamery Co-Branded Restaurants. Affiliate The TDL Group Corp. began franchising Tim Hortons in Canada in January 1965; Tim Hortons USA Inc.'s predecessor opened the first U.S. shop in 1984 and resumed U.S. franchising in 1993, and the brand is now part of Restaurant Brands International alongside Burger King, Popeyes and Firehouse Subs. Franchised U.S. unit count dipped slightly in 2024 before jumping by 29 in 2025.

Opening more locationsFounded 1965HQ: Miami, FL

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 Tim Hortons'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

$427,500–$3,312,500

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 Tim Hortons's own FDD -- change it to your own estimate.

Years of ownership

Total cost of ownership over 5 years

$727,500 – $3,612,500

Startup investment

$427,500–$3,312,500

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. Tim Hortons'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 Tim Hortons'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

5.3–41.4 years

Weigh that payback period against what you already know: Tim Hortons 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 Tim Hortons 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

Growing

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

-2

+29

202320242025

Year	Franchised units, start	Franchised units, end	Net change
2023	636	642	+6
2024	642	640	-2
2025	640	669	+29

Most recent year (2025): gained 29 franchised units, ending the year at 669 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 (up to 4 owners/employees, about 5 weeks, $500 per person per week), equipment/fixtures/signage supplied by Tim Hortons or approved vendors, and ongoing Restaurant Technology charges ($450-$1,400/month).

Territory protection (Item 12)

Item 12: no exclusive territory under a Franchise Agreement, Operator Agreement, or Development Agreement -- Tim Hortons explicitly reserves the right to establish other outlets or sell through other channels at any location regardless of proximity to or impact on an existing franchisee's Shop.

Renewal & termination terms (Item 17)

Item 17: 20-years-less-one-day initial term from the restaurant's opening for Standard Shops (generally 5-10 years less a day for Non-Standard Shops depending on format), with no contractual right of renewal.

How Tim Hortons 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

Pizza Hut

$846,000–$2,130,000 · 6% 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

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

Tim Hortons and Jersey Mike's Subs are both food & beverage franchises; Tim Hortons's total investment starts about $8,676 lower than Jersey Mike's Subs's. Jersey Mike's Subs Franchise
Tim Hortons and Teriyaki Madness are both food & beverage franchises; Teriyaki Madness's total investment starts about $34,833 lower than Tim Hortons's. Teriyaki Madness Franchise

Where this came from: Tim Hortons only files a Net Worth/Experience Exemption notice with California DFPI (dfpi id 340469), so this entry is sourced from Minnesota's CARDS registry instead: MN File No. 6441, Clean FDD issued March 13, 2026, filed 3/13/2026, effective 3/20/2026. Item 5: $50,000 initial franchise fee for a Standard Shop ($25,000 for a Non-Standard Shop) -- the automated parser's $20,000 figure did not match either disclosed fee and appears to be an extraction error. Item 6: royalty is generally 6% of Gross Sales for franchisees with property control (as low as 4.5% for some franchisees under other arrangements); Advertising Contribution is 4% of Gross Sales. Item 7: Standard Shops are built under three different sub-formats with separate totals ("New Model" $988,000-$3,312,500, "Within Petro Locations" $427,500-$1,573,500, and "Other" $913,000-$3,013,500) rather than one combined table; this entry uses the FDD's own cover-page combined Standard Shop range, $427,500-$3,312,500, rather than picking one sub-format. The automated parser's total ($695,500-$1,914,400) was actually for the Co-Branded Restaurant format, not a standard Tim Hortons Shop. Item 20 Table No. 1 hand-corrected: the automated parser picked up a much smaller table elsewhere in the same combined filing (16->13->9->8) instead of the real Systemwide Outlet Summary; the correct three-year table is 2023: 636->642 (+6), 2024: 642->640 (-2), 2025: 640->669 (+29). foundedYear uses the earliest year the FDD's Item 1 explicitly discloses (January 1965, when affiliate TDL Group Corp. began franchising Tim Hortons in Canada); the FDD does not separately date the brand's actual first restaurant. You can pull the same filing yourself from the California DFPI's public franchise search. Filed 2026-03-20. 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.