Franchise Systems of All Sizes Revised and Grew Expansion Plans in 2025
By: Michael Alston for Franchise Insights
February 2, 2026 – Some franchises across all size ranges grew beyond expectations in 2025, but the 201-500 unit segment was most active in modifying plans to take advantage of what they saw as opportune market conditions, according to the 2025-2026 Franchise Lead Sources Survey conducted by FranchiseInsights.com.
But looking at franchise development plans by system size for U.S. units, 50% of the 201-500 unit segment said they “increased their expansion plans beyond expectations” for U.S. units in 2025. Another 20% cut plans back some, and 10% reduced them significantly. Only 20% stuck to their original plans, making them the most adaptive among size cohorts in 2025.
When asked about how business conditions impacted their expansion plans in 2025, 79% of franchise development teams said they either stuck to their plans or expanded them beyond expectations. This is significantly higher than the 58% in 2024 and 58.3% in 2023 who reported sticking with their original franchise development plans over these prior years.
Overall, 18.5% of franchise system respondents reported increasing beyond their original expansion budgets during the year.
Fifty percent of franchise systems with 201-500 US units said they “increased their expansion plans beyond expectations” in 2025.
Of franchise systems with 76-200 U.S. units, 17.7% raised their goals and budgets as the year unfolded, slightly above systems with 1-75 units at 16% expanding their plans. Only 10% of the largest franchise systems (more than 500 U.S. units) chose to expand their plans during the past year.
While 60.5% of all franchise development teams “stuck to their plans” in 2025, fully 79% of those with 1-10 units did not change their plans.
On the other hand, 14.8% of all franchise development teams reduced their plans somewhat, and 6.2% reported that they “cut back significantly.”
The survey, conducted in late December 2025 and early January 2026 by FranchiseInsights.com represented a cross-section of franchise development teams, from emerging systems to well-established franchises with thousands of units.
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Published on Monday, February 2nd, 2026.