Is Hertz a franchise? Partly. 390 of 2,946 US outlets were franchised at the end of 2025. The 2026 FDD asks $879,300 to $16,249,000 and has no Item 19.
Quick answer Partly. Hertz franchises in the United States, but only 390 of its 2,946 US outlets were franchised at December 31, 2025, against 2,556 company-owned. The 2026 FDD asks $879,300 to $16,249,000 to open one, charges 9% of gross receipts at airports and 7% off-airport, and contains no Item 19.
Rent a car inside a major airport terminal and the counter almost certainly belongs to the company. Rent one in a small city, at a body shop referral desk or a highway location, and there is a real chance you are dealing with someone who signed a franchise agreement and bought the fleet parked outside.
That split has numbers behind it. At December 31, 2025 the US system held 390 franchised outlets and 2,556 company-owned outlets, 2,946 in total, per the 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document. Roughly one location in eight is franchised.
The fee schedule writes the same split into the contract. Item 6 sets the ongoing franchise fee at 9% of gross receipts for an airport rental location and 7% for a non-airport location. Hertz charges two percentage points more where the traffic is, which tells you which locations the franchisor considers worth its own capital.
Hertz System, Inc. is the franchisor, a Delaware corporation formed on January 19, 1925 and headquartered in Estero, Florida. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Hertz Corporation, which sits under Rental Car Intermediate Holdings and ultimately Hertz Global Holdings.
Item 1 states plainly that the franchisor does not operate any businesses of the type being offered. Its parent and affiliates do. You are buying a trademark license and a reservation pipe from an entity whose only business is franchising, while competing against corporate locations run by its own parent.
Two counts look contradictory until you read the territory language. Item 1 reports 36 licenses issued and outstanding at the end of 2025, one covering cars and trucks and 35 covering cars only. Item 20 reports 390 franchised outlets. A franchisee holds a territory and runs multiple rental locations inside it, so a few dozen operators cover several hundred storefronts. This is a system of large regional holders, not single-store owners.
The parent side dwarfs it. As of December 31, 2025 the parent and its affiliates operated more than 9,276 vehicle rental businesses worldwide, and affiliate DTG Operations held 221 corporate Thrifty and 196 corporate Dollar locations in the US.
Item 20 is the most revealing table in the filing.
| Outlet type | End 2023 | End 2024 | End 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Franchised | 384 | 400 | 390 |
| Company-owned | 3,331 | 3,085 | 2,556 |
| Total | 3,715 | 3,485 | 2,946 |
Company-owned locations fell by 246 in 2024 and by another 529 in 2025, a 23% cut to the corporate footprint in two years. Where did they go? Nowhere. The company-owned status table records 39, 255, and 533 outlets closed across 2023, 2024, and 2025, and zero outlets sold to a franchisee in any year. Hertz closed them rather than refranchising them.
The franchised side moved separately. Franchisees opened 16 outlets in 2023, 40 in 2024, and 13 in 2025. Departures are logged as ceasing operations for other reasons, 21 then 24 then 23, with zero terminations, zero non-renewals, and zero outlets reacquired across all three years. A franchisor that terminates nobody and reacquires nothing is either running a very clean system or is not policing it. Ask which.
Hertz has said it is adding new franchisees in the US and Canada for a limited time. The document’s own pipeline is thin: Table 5 projects one new franchised outlet in the next fiscal year, in Montana, and lists zero franchise agreements signed but not yet opened at December 31, 2025. Recruiting talk and disclosed pipeline are two different things, and the pipeline is the one that was filed under penalty.
| Item 7 line | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Initial franchise fee | $25,000 | $500,000 |
| Passenger cars | $750,000 | $15,000,000 |
| Courtesy vehicles, per location | $55,000 | $350,000 |
| Computer system, hardware and software | $11,500 | $250,000 |
| Insurance deposit | $5,000 | $45,000 |
| Equipment and supplies | $5,000 | $25,000 |
| Additional funds, 3 months | $20,000 | $50,000 |
| Total excluding real estate | $879,300 | $16,249,000 |
The range is that wide because it spans a 30 car opening fleet and a 300 car one. Item 7 prices current model cars at $25,000 to $75,000 each and requires a minimum fleet every month for the life of the agreement. The trademark is the cheap part; you are underwriting a depreciating fleet and a yard.
Real estate is not in the total at all. Item 7 declines to estimate it, then lists what the site needs: roughly 175 square feet of parking per idle car, a 512 square foot wash bay, and a fuel island with a 3,000 gallon minimum tank if you fuel on site. It also notes that airports usually charge a concession fee of at least 10%, with a minimum guarantee. On an airport deal that concession sits on top of the 9% franchise fee.
Working capital is the line to argue about. The filing budgets $20,000 to $50,000 for three months of staffing, rent, deposits, supplies, and fuel on a business carrying up to $15 million of vehicles.
Pull the full Hertz System data sheet
Item 19 of the Hertz 2026 filing is boilerplate plus one sentence: the franchisor makes no representations about a franchisee’s future financial performance or the past performance of company-owned or franchised outlets. There is no table, no sample, and no average anywhere in it.
That is not a Hertz quirk. Both of the other car rental brands whose current documents we hold say exactly the same thing.
| 2026 filings | Hertz | Avis | Budget |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initial fee | $25,000 minimum, to $500,000 | $45,000 for 50,000 population, plus $5,000 per 5,000 more | $45,000 for 50,000 population, plus $5,000 per 5,000 more |
| Total investment | $879,300 to $16,249,000 | $625,500 to $1,588,400 (30 car fleet) | $625,500 to $1,588,400 (30 car fleet) |
| Ongoing fee | 7% to 9% of gross receipts | 7.5% of gross revenue | 7.5% of gross revenue |
| Franchised outlets, end 2025 | 390 | 189 | 173 |
| Company-owned outlets, end 2025 | 2,556 | 1,823 | 1,177 |
| Item 19 | none | none | none |
Three brands, more than 700 franchised outlets between them, and not one disclosed revenue figure. Our guide to what a missing Item 19 means covers how to work around one. Car rental makes you work around three at once, which leaves franchisee interviews and, on a resale, the actual records the franchisor may hand over for that location.
The Hertz filing also warns that some current and former franchisees may have signed provisions restricting their ability to speak openly about the system. Validation calls here come with a caveat printed in the document.
Avis and Budget read as the tighter comparison for a first-time buyer. Their totals top out near $1.6 million on a 30 car fleet, and the fee is arithmetic you can check against a census number rather than a negotiation. Avis also kept growing its own side in 2025, from 1,714 company-owned locations to 1,823, while adding three franchised outlets.
Item 12 opens with the sentence buyers should read twice: you will not receive an exclusive territory. The franchisor keeps the right to use and to license others to use the marks inside your territory, and reserves alternative distribution including the internet, with no obligation to pay you for reservations taken from inside your area.
The territory can also be a treadmill. If Hertz decides an additional location is needed inside it, you get 60 days to state your intent and 180 days from the notice to open. Miss that and the franchisor may operate, or franchise someone else to operate, in your area. There is no right of first refusal on additional franchises in the territory or contiguous areas.
Item 15 requires a manager who devotes full time to the business. Item 17 lets you walk only with 180 days notice plus an early termination fee calculated by multiplying your minimum annual franchise fee by the years left on the term. Renewal costs $5,000 to $25,000, and a transfer can carry a fee of 5% of the trailing three-year average gross sales.
If the appeal was the Hertz name, look at what the name currently buys: reservation flow into markets the parent has been retreating from, at a royalty two points cheaper off-airport than on it, under an agreement that reserves the internet for the franchisor.
If the appeal was the business, car rental is fleet finance wearing a franchise logo. Nobody in the category discloses earnings, the capital runs into millions, and a resale is where the only real numbers live. A mobile or van-based franchise puts vehicles to work for a fraction of that and usually comes with an Item 19 attached. The rival that does not franchise here at all is covered in our post on Enterprise.
VetMyFranchise reads the filed disclosure document, Items 5, 7, and 19 included, rather than a brand’s recruitment page. For Hertz that means telling you the earnings section is empty instead of filling it in.
Not sure which franchise fits you yet?
Take our free 2-minute quiz. Tell us your capital, experience, and goals; we surface the brands worth researching. When you've narrowed your list, our full FDD reports are $49.
Take the free quiz Curious what you get? See a sample report →
Take the Hertz numbers with you.
We'll email you the Hertz FDD data sheet: a one-page PDF with the Item 7 investment range, initial franchise fee, royalty, and the Item 19 revenue headline. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
✓ Check your inbox
The Hertz data sheet is on its way.
The only franchise report written entirely for the buyer. 12 sections covering financial risks, legal obligations, and a personalized recommendation.
Browse Franchise Library See a real sample report →
$49 per brand · $99 for a 3-brand pack
is hertz a franchisecar rental franchiseHertz System IncAvis franchiseitem 19franchise disclosure documentHospitality and Travel franchise
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.
Partly. Hertz operates a hybrid system in which company-owned locations and franchised locations run under the same brand. The 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document filed by Hertz System, Inc. counts 390 franchised US outlets and 2,556 company-owned US outlets at December 31, 2025. Franchised territories skew toward smaller markets, while the large airport operations are overwhelmingly corporate. Hertz System, Inc. itself franchises but does not operate rental businesses; its parent and affiliates run the company side.
The 2026 FDD estimates $879,300 to $16,249,000 to open, excluding real estate and improvements. The initial franchise fee is a minimum of $25,000 for a new franchisee and is estimated to reach $500,000, scaled to a starting fleet of 30 to 300 rental cars. Passenger cars alone account for $750,000 to $15,000,000 of the total, with courtesy vehicles adding $55,000 to $350,000 per location. Buying an existing company-owned location from the parent can carry a franchise fee of several hundred thousand dollars or more.
The filing does not say. Item 19 of the 2026 Hertz FDD states that the franchisor makes no representations about a franchisee's future financial performance or the past performance of company-owned or franchised outlets. Avis and Budget say the same thing in their 2026 filings. If you are buying an existing outlet, Hertz may provide that outlet's actual records, which makes a resale the only route to real numbers in this category.
The franchise fee runs 7% to 9% of gross receipts, set at 9% for airport rental locations and 7% for non-airport locations, and it is subject to a minimum annual amount the franchisor calculates before you sign. Gross receipts are defined broadly and include damage waiver charges, insurance products, vehicle licensing fees, prepaid fuel, drop charges, and equipment rentals. Reservations made through the Hertz system add $3.84 to $6.30 per passenger car reservation on top.
Hertz has said it is adding new franchisees in the US and Canada for a limited time, and the 2026 FDD is a live offering document dated March 20, 2026. The disclosed pipeline is thin. Item 20 projects one new franchised outlet in the next fiscal year, in Montana, and lists zero franchise agreements signed but not yet opened as of December 31, 2025.
This page is part of VetMyFranchise. View all pages: llms.txt · llms-full.txt