Jackson Hewitt discloses $86,880 on 2,663 offices, Liberty Tax $139,486 on 1,411. What the best tax preparation franchises really cost and earn.
Quick answer Jackson Hewitt discloses an $86,880 median on 2,663 franchised offices, the fifth-largest Item 19 sample among the 573 brands we track that publish a median. Liberty Tax reports $139,486 on 1,411 offices. Both sit far below the $727,462 all-brand median, for a business that earns in four months.
573 franchise brands in our database publish a median revenue figure in Item 19. The median of those 573 medians is $727,462. Jackson Hewitt’s is $86,880.
That gap is the category in one line. Jackson Hewitt discloses on 2,663 franchised offices, the fifth-largest Item 19 sample of any brand that publishes a median at all. The only four samples bigger belong to Dunkin’, Burger King, Great Clips, and Sonic. Liberty Tax, filed under the legal name JTH Tax, LLC, ranks 17th with 1,411 offices. Thirteen brands out of 573 report a median lower than Jackson Hewitt’s.
A sample that size is worth something real. A 2,663-office median cannot be cherry-picked down to a flattering top quartile the way a 40-unit disclosure can, and it survives a bad year in one region. What you get in exchange for that reliability is a number most buyers find deflating. Our tax preparation franchise industry guide covers the market backdrop; this is the disclosure read.
| Jackson Hewitt | Liberty Tax (JTH Tax) | Toro Taxes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| FDD year | 2025 | 2026 | 2026 |
| Franchised offices | 2,744 | 1,537 | 192 |
| Item 7 range | $14,900 to $43,500 (kiosk); $71,050 to $105,000 (standard) | $49,700 to $71,400 | $17,835 to $79,150 |
| Franchise fee | $25,000 ($0 on kiosks) | $25,000 | $40,000 |
| Royalty | 3% ramping to 15% | 14% of gross receipts | 10% of bank-product sales or $30 per return |
| Ad fund | 6.5% | 5% | 2% to 5% |
| Item 19 sample | 2,663 offices | 1,411 offices | 192 outlets |
| Disclosed median | $86,880 | $139,486 | $42,598 |
| What the median counts | all gross volume | prep fees only | total gross sales |
Read past the headline and those 2,663 offices split into two formats that share almost nothing.
Standard offices, meaning standalone storefronts: 1,525 of them, average gross volume of business $160,361, median $133,435, range $450 to $1,396,455. Kiosk offices, typically sited inside another retailer: 1,138 of them, average $60,438, median $49,630, range $403 to $371,055. The blended $86,880 describes a business no operator actually runs.
Only 36.5% of all offices reached or beat the blended average, the usual signature of a long right tail. Within the standard cohort it is 39.1%.
Liberty Tax’s 2026 FDD reports on 1,411 franchise-operated offices for tax season 2025: average net prep fees $164,860, median $139,486, high $1,145,331, low $5,306. The median office transmitted 494 federal returns, which works out to roughly $282 of prep fees per return.
Then read the definition. Prep fees are the amounts related to preparing and transmitting returns, and Liberty explicitly excludes revenue from financial product incentive, check printing, bookkeeping, and credit repair. Its own royalty runs on Gross Receipts, a wider base. The 1,411 offices also exclude processing centers and seasonal offices, and represent 83.2% of the 1,696 franchise locations counted on February 15, 2025.
So the real comparison is not $139,486 against $86,880. It is Liberty’s $139,486 of prep fees at storefronts against Jackson Hewitt’s $133,435 of total gross volume at standard offices: a 4.5% nominal gap measured on a narrower revenue definition, which likely reverses once Liberty’s excluded lines are added back. Anyone reading the headline medians as a 60% Liberty premium is comparing formats. Our three-way brand comparison handles the operational differences; the disclosure footnotes are what move the numbers.
Our own extraction got Toro Taxes wrong, and the error is worth showing. The database carried $75,272 as Toro’s franchise median. That figure is the 2024 median total gross sales for its company-owned outlets, of which there were twelve.
The franchisee numbers sit in the same Item 19. For calendar 2025, 192 operational franchise outlets reported average total gross sales of $63,874 and a median of $42,598, against a high of $501,603 and a low of $300. The 2024 cut on 155 outlets came in at a $42,099 median. Toro also discloses that 33 franchise outlets ceased operations during 2025 and were excluded from the table.
Toro Taxes is the bilingual play in this category, Latino-owned and built around Spanish-language service and ITIN work in Hispanic markets. Item 7 runs $17,835 to $79,150. The $40,000 franchise fee drops to $25,000 if you pay it in full at signing, and the low end of Item 7 assumes you finance it with $5,000 down. Royalty is 10% of gross sales on bank product transactions or $30 per non-bank-product return, subject to a minimum tax season royalty.
At a $42,598 median, this is the disclosure where the segment definition matters most. That number is the middle of the entire operational franchise base, young offices included, and it is roughly a third of Liberty Tax’s.
Jackson Hewitt’s fiscal year runs May 1 to April 30, and its FDD states plainly that in a typical year the bulk of gross volume is generated during tax season, January 2 through April 15. Rent does not observe that schedule.
Liberty Tax’s Item 7 budgets $3,000 to $6,000 of rent, $5,000 to $7,000 of payroll, and $3,000 to $4,500 of additional funds covering three months. Jackson Hewitt’s standard-office table carries $3,000 to $12,000 of additional funds for three and a half months. Neither line funds an off-season. A median Liberty office collects its $139,486 across roughly 494 returns, banks most of it by mid-April, and then pays rent, insurance, and a software subscription through December.
Underwrite that second number, not the opening cost. Our guidance on how much working capital to hold applies with a heavier hand here, and the seasonal revenue planning mechanics are the same ones pool-service and ice-cream operators run.
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Jackson Hewitt’s Item 7 is two tables. A standard office for a new franchisee runs $71,050 to $105,000. A kiosk runs $14,900 to $43,500, with a $0 initial franchise fee.
The kiosk is cheap for structural reasons. There is no leasehold improvement line at all. Equipment and signs run $6,000 to $15,000 rather than $30,000 to $35,000. Lease payments of $4,800 to $14,000 buy counter space inside a host retailer instead of a storefront, and Jackson Hewitt operates kiosks in more than 2,600 Walmart stores.
Now read Note 2 of that same Item 7. The Franchise Agreement requires you to open and continuously operate the offices listed on your Schedule A, “with at least two such offices being standard offices, and two such offices being kiosks.” The $14,900 is the cost of one of four required units. It is a line item, not a ticket price. Buyers working through franchises under $5,000 and similar low-capital lists routinely mistake the two.
The royalty ramp is the other kiosk-specific mechanic. Kiosks under the Existing Franchisee Expansion Program pay 3% of gross volume in the first reporting year, then 6%, then 9%, then 15%. Storefronts under the same program pay 7%, then 12%, then 15%. The 6.5% advertising fee runs from day one, so a mature unit carries 21.5% before rent.
Jackson Hewitt is a multi-unit business by construction. Two standard offices at the $133,435 median plus two kiosks at $49,630 is about $366,000 of gross volume across four locations, run off one seasonal hiring cycle and one manager. That is the deal the Schedule A requirement actually produces, and modeling it as a single storefront will mislead you in both directions: the capital requirement is higher, the labor cost per office is lower.
Liberty Tax pushes the opposite way, and its minimum royalties are the reason to model the downside carefully. Royalty is 14% of gross receipts subject to dollar floors: no minimum in year one, $5,000 in year two, $8,000 in year three, $11,000 in years four and five. An office doing $35,000 of prep fees in its third year pays the $8,000 floor, an effective 23%. The floors are harmless at the median and punishing below it, and 869 of Liberty’s 1,411 offices came in below the average.
Tax prep hands you better data than almost any category on this site and asks you to accept a lower ceiling, a four-month earning window, and at Jackson Hewitt a four-unit commitment. Weigh that trade against the rest of the low-capital field in our cheapest franchises report before you decide the disclosure quality pays for the numbers it discloses.
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best tax preparation franchisestax franchise costJackson HewittLiberty Taxseasonal franchiseItem 19
About this analysis The franchise data in this article is drawn from VetMyFranchise's structured analysis of 2,300+ Franchise Disclosure Documents filed with U.S. state regulators. See our data & methodology.
Between roughly $14,900 and $105,000 across the three brands we track with disclosed revenue. Jackson Hewitt splits Item 7 into a kiosk table ($14,900 to $43,500, with no initial franchise fee) and a standard-office table ($71,050 to $105,000 for a new franchisee). Liberty Tax runs $49,700 to $71,400 on a $25,000 franchise fee. Toro Taxes runs $17,835 to $79,150 on a $40,000 fee that drops to $25,000 if paid in full at signing.
Jackson Hewitt's 2,663 disclosing offices reported a median gross volume of business of $86,880, with standard offices at $133,435 and kiosks at $49,630. Liberty Tax's 1,411 offices reported a $139,486 median in net prep fees. Toro Taxes franchisees reported a $42,598 median in total gross sales on 192 outlets. All three are revenue figures, not owner earnings.
It depends entirely on whether your capital plan funds the off-season. Jackson Hewitt's FDD says the bulk of gross volume comes during a tax season running January 2 to April 15, and every FDD in the category budgets three to three and a half months of additional funds. Rent, insurance, and software run twelve months. The buyers who struggle are the ones who underwrite the opening and not the eight months after the season ends.
The headline medians say Liberty Tax by 60%, and that reading is wrong. Compare like formats and revenue definitions instead: Liberty's $139,486 covers prep fees at storefront offices, while Jackson Hewitt's standard offices posted $133,435 in total gross volume, a broader dollar. The nominal 4.5% gap narrows or reverses once Liberty's excluded revenue lines are added back.
No. None of these brands require a CPA license from the owner, and all of them train and certify preparers internally. What the FDDs do require is a seasonal hiring and training cycle that starts in the fall, plus enough working capital to run it before any revenue arrives. Owners who are also CPAs typically use the franchise as a client feeder for a year-round practice.
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