Texas, Florida and New York Gain the Most In Franchise Development Interest
By: Michael Alston for Franchise Insights
October 22, 2025 – In a year-over-year analysis, interest in franchises migrated southward and selectively eastward according to new data from FranchiseInsights.com. By comparing quarterly shares by state of inquiries about franchises for the third quarter of 2024 to the third quarter of 2025, there were shifts in the mix of where aspiring franchisees were expecting to locate franchises – from north to south, and west to east.
In the color-scaled map above, highest increases in state shares in that period are shown in green, and decreasing shares are shown scaled to red, ranging in values of about one percent in either direction (-0.75% loss from California to 1.18% growth in Texas).
These changes somewhat continue franchise development trends (southward and eastward) from a year ago, further reversing the declines in franchise interest seen in Texas and Florida in the first quarter of 2024 compared to 2023.
Note that the state locations shown are where prospects were searching to buy franchises, which in most cases is the prospect’s current state of residency. This proprietary data is drawn from the Franchise Ventures lead generation platform of franchise investment inquiries in the United States.
Texas, gaining 1.18%, and California, losing 0.55%, had the two largest absolute changes in percentage share of franchise prospects among all 50 states between the two quarters a year apart. Among the states with the largest increases in share, joining Texas were east coastal states Florida, New York, New Jersey and North Carolina. Adjoining states Tennessee and Alabama made the top ten, along with Arizona and Minnesota.
Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina returned to the top growth states, rebounding from the effects of Hurricane Helene last year.
The chart below shows the percentage change for the states with the largest Q3 2025 overall franchise interest, where California was the only state in the top 5 that did not show growth over the prior year. Notice that Florida, Georgia and North Carolina returned to the top six states, as opposed to back in Q3 2023 when they showed declines, likely due to the devastation and aftermath of Hurricane Helene. The storm made landfall in Florida on September 26, 2024, and cut a path of devastation and fatalities through Georgia and North Carolina.
Fires burned over 720,000 acres in California in Q3 2024, perhaps explaining some of last year’s decrease in franchise interest, but substantially fewer acres burned in July-September 2025.
Note that In this analysis we did not look at in-state migration – from larger to smaller cities with more affordable homes and less traffic, or the reverse, for example.
Franchise Ventures is the leading franchise lead-generation platform for potential franchisees to thousands of growing franchise systems in the United States and Canada. Its franchise lead generation brands include Franchise.com, Franchise Solutions, Franchise Gator, Franchise Opportunities, Franchise For Sale, SmallBusinessStartup.com and BusinessBroker.net, and together they provide the largest aggregation of prospective franchise buyers in the U.S.
Interested in more insights from our proprietary data set? Subscribe here to make sure you hear about them first.
Contact Franchise Ventures to get your share of today’s aspiring franchise owners.
Published on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2025.