Yes, Domino's is a franchise: about 96% of US stores are franchisee-owned. The 2026 FDD fee is $0 to $10,000, and Item 1 requires 12 months as a GM.
Quick answer Yes. About 96% of Domino's US stores are franchised, 6,974 of 7,236 outlets as of December 28, 2025. The 2026 FDD charges an initial fee of $0 to $10,000, a 5.5% royalty, and a 4% advertising fund. The catch sits in Item 1: you need 12 months as a store general manager to qualify.
Item 1 of the 2026 Domino’s disclosure document sets the entry requirement before it sets a price. A franchise applicant “must have been a Store general manager for at least 12 months to be eligible for a single Store franchise and must also have attended certain classes on operating a Store.” Multi-unit franchises go to candidates who have been a successful store supervisor or above for at least 12 months, at the franchisor’s sole discretion. The document then closes the obvious loophole: those requirements apply whether you are building a new store or buying one that already exists, company-owned or franchised.
So the answer to “is dominos a franchise” is yes, and about 96% of the US system is franchisee-owned. What makes the brand structurally unusual is that the qualifying step is a job rather than a wire transfer. Domino’s recruits its franchisees out of its own management ranks, which is why the fee is small and why the system rarely loses stores.
Item 5 puts the initial franchise application processing fee at a range of $0 to $10,000, and reports that the fees actually collected during the year ending December 28, 2025 spanned that same range. Building a store carries a fee of up to $10,000. Refranchising a closed store carries up to $10,000. Buying an existing store carries a $1,500 transfer fee instead. Training is capped at $1,250 per session.
Third-party articles quote the $10,000 as a flat price. It is a ceiling, and the franchisor states it generally does not bill the fee until you are operating the store.
| 2026 FDD term | Figure |
|---|---|
| Initial fee | $0 to $10,000 |
| Royalty | 5.5% of weekly royalty sales |
| Advertising fund | 4% of weekly royalty sales |
| Advertising cooperatives | 1% to 4% |
| Transfer fee | $1,500 |
| PULSE initial license fee | $4,200 |
| Annual software enhancement fee | $819.25 per store |
| Technology transaction fee | $0.385 per digital order |
| Agreement term | 10 years, renewable for 10 |
The floor is 9.5% of royalty sales. Add a cooperative at the top of its range and the commitment reaches 13.5% before food, labor, rent, or the note on the build. Royalty sales are defined as total receipts excluding sales taxes, coupon discounts, and beverage container deposits, so promotional pricing lands on your side of the calculation, not the franchisor’s.
Item 7 splits into two formats, and the low number circulating online belongs to the wrong one.
| Item 7 line, traditional store | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Initial fee | $0 | $10,000 |
| Leasehold improvements | $67,000 | $350,000 |
| Furniture, fixtures, equipment | $105,000 | $145,000 |
| Signage | $8,200 | $35,000 |
| Three months rent | $6,000 | $25,000 |
| Security deposit | $1,000 | $10,000 |
| Opening inventory and supplies | $4,750 | $6,500 |
| Opening advertising | $0 | $3,000 |
| Training expenses | $1,000 | $4,000 |
| Insurance | $25,000 | $75,000 |
| Miscellaneous opening costs | $3,500 | $7,000 |
| Additional funds, three months | $10,000 | $73,000 |
| Total | $231,450 | $743,500 |
A non-traditional store, meaning the carry-out counters in office buildings, malls, stadiums, toll roads, airports, and convenience stores, runs $107,450 to $709,500. That $107,450 is the figure aggregators print as the Domino’s entry price. It buys a kiosk, not a delivery store.
Two lines deserve a second look. Insurance is an annual premium of $25,000 to $75,000 for a traditional store, and the footnote warns it may be significantly higher depending on state coverage rules, location, and your loss history. And footnote 3 states plainly that the franchisor does not require you to purchase or lease delivery cars, so those costs are not in the Item 7 estimate at all. A delivery business quoting an investment range that excludes the delivery fleet is a footnote worth reading twice.
Pull the full Domino’s Pizza Franchising LLC data sheet if you want Items 5, 7, and 19 side by side rather than a recruitment page.
Domino’s discloses average and median weekly unit sales for 2020 through 2024, then a set of EBITDA margins sorted by sales band. Franchised stores averaged $26,467 a week in 2024 against a median of $25,160. Company-owned stores averaged $26,120, and their midpoint was $26,264, higher than the franchised base. That direction is worth noting, because it is the opposite of what most large systems disclose.
| 2024 average weekly unit sales | Stores | EBITDA as % of royalty sales | Share hitting or beating it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under $15,000 | 490 | 1.7% | 48.6% |
| $15,001 to $20,000 | 1,135 | 6.7% | 50.4% |
| $20,001 to $25,000 | 1,426 | 10.1% | 53.1% |
| $25,001 to $30,000 | 1,350 | 12.1% | 51.6% |
| $30,001 and above | 1,861 | 14.7% | 49.3% |
The table is built from 6,262 franchisee profit and loss statements out of 6,699 franchised stores open at the end of 2024. The franchisor excluded 256 stores that submitted nothing or submitted incomplete statements and 181 that were not open the full year.
Three things about reading it honestly. EBITDA sits before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, so the debt service on a $231,450 to $743,500 build is not deducted anywhere in this table. Manager salary is inside total cash fixed costs, which means an owner who runs the store is already paid before the EBITDA line. And roughly half the stores in every band fall short of their own band’s figure, which is the least flattering and most useful sentence in the whole item.
The median store at $25,160 a week annualizes to about $1.31 million of royalty sales. At the 12.1% band margin that is roughly $158,000 of EBITDA before any loan payment. Compare that against what Marco’s Pizza discloses and against the rest of the category in our ranking of pizza franchises, because the capital at risk differs more than the margins do.
The franchisor is Domino’s Pizza Franchising LLC, a Delaware limited liability company organized on March 2, 2007. It is a direct wholly-owned subsidiary of Domino’s Pizza Master Issuer LLC and an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Domino’s Pizza LLC, all sitting under Domino’s Pizza, Inc., public since its July 2004 offering. The franchisor entity exists because of a securitization financing that closed in April 2007, and Domino’s Pizza LLC now provides the support services and acts as franchise sales agent under a management agreement.
Your counterparty is a financing vehicle, and the servicer can be replaced if it fails to perform. Item 1 states that the franchisor remains accountable for every service promised regardless of who performs it. That is the right disclosure, and it is still a more layered structure than the single operating company most buyers assume they are signing with.
Traditional franchised outlets went from 6,751 to 6,948 during 2025. The system opened 214. It recorded 9 terminations, 2 non-renewals, 2 stores reacquired by the franchisor, and 4 that ceased operations for other reasons. That is 17 exits against a base of 6,751, about a quarter of one percent.
Company-owned stores fell from 292 to 262, and the reason is in Table No. 4: 37 company stores were sold to franchisees during 2025, 36 of them in Maryland. Refranchising, not retreat. Development agreements grew from 323 to 356, and the franchisor projects 188 new franchised outlets and 7 company outlets for the year ending January 3, 2027, with 29 agreements already signed and unopened.
Two more things to use. Transfers between owners totaled 490 traditional stores in 2025, down from 550 in 2024, so resale volume is real if you want an operating store instead of a build. And Item 20 confirms the franchisor has no confidentiality clauses preventing franchisees from discussing their experience, which makes the 103 former franchisees and 59 former developers listed in Exhibit B-2 worth calling.
Item 15 requires the store to be under the on-premises supervision of you or your controlling person at all times, and bars that person from financial or operational involvement in any outside business without written approval. This is a full-time job with a franchise agreement attached. Item 17 sets a 10-year term with a 10-year renewal that requires signing the then-current agreement and refurbishing or relocating on the franchisor’s call.
If the general manager requirement rules you out, the other national pizza systems price and qualify differently. Our three-way comparison of Domino’s, Papa John’s, and Marco’s reads all three off their filed documents rather than their recruitment sites, and the Domino’s data sheet carries the Item 5, 7, and 19 figures above in one place.
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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.
The 2026 FDD estimates $231,450 to $743,500 for a traditional store and $107,450 to $709,500 for a non-traditional store. The initial fee is only $0 to $10,000 of that, with leasehold improvements at $67,000 to $350,000 and equipment at $105,000 to $145,000 doing most of the work. Item 7 footnote 3 states that delivery cars are not required by the franchisor and therefore are not included in the estimate, so budget vehicles separately.
Effectively yes. Item 1 of the 2026 FDD states that a franchise applicant must have been a store general manager for at least 12 months to be eligible for a single store franchise, and must also have attended certain classes on operating a store. Multi-unit franchises go to candidates who have been a successful store supervisor or above for at least 12 months, at the franchisor's sole discretion. The requirement applies whether you build a new store or buy an existing company-owned or franchised one.
Item 19 reports EBITDA as a percentage of royalty sales rather than dollars of profit. Stores averaging under $15,000 in weekly sales showed 1.7%, the $20,001 to $25,000 band showed 10.1%, and stores above $30,001 showed 14.7%. Franchised median weekly unit sales for 2024 were $25,160. The figures come from 6,262 franchisee profit and loss statements and sit before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, and any debt service on the build.
About 96% of the US system. As of December 28, 2025 the 2026 FDD counts 7,210 traditional stores, of which 262 are company-owned and 6,948 are franchisee-owned, plus 26 non-traditional stores that are all franchised. Company-owned units are concentrated in six states and shrank by 30 during 2025 because 37 of them were sold to franchisees.
Ten years, with a 10-year renewal if you meet the conditions in Item 17. Renewal requires written notice, no material default, substantial compliance, signing the then-current form of agreement, keeping possession of the store or securing approved substitute premises, and completing refurbishment or relocating if the franchisor decides the site should move.
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