Yes, RE/MAX is a franchise. The 2026 FDD: $8,750 to $35,000 fee, $37,100 to $336,500 investment, 1% Broker Fee, 2,994 US offices, no Item 19.
Quick answer Yes. Every RE/MAX office in the United States is franchised, 2,994 of them at the end of 2025, and the franchisor has operated zero company-owned offices for three straight years. The 2026 FDD prices one office at $37,100 to $336,500 with an initial fee of $8,750 to $35,000 set by market density. There is no Item 19.
Item 20 of the 2026 RE/MAX disclosure document walks the US office count down three years: 3,477 at the start of 2023, 3,358 at the end of it, 3,149 a year later, and 2,994 on December 31, 2025. The company-owned column beside it reads zero for all three years, and Table 5 projects zero for the year ahead.
That makes the answer a plain yes, and a more complete yes than most brands can give. Keller Williams still runs 16 company-affiliated market centers next to its 735 franchised ones. RE/MAX runs none, so there is no company store to point at when a franchisee asks what a healthy office looks like.
The 2025 detail: 111 offices opened, 22 were terminated, 88 were not renewed, none were reacquired, and 156 ceased operations for other reasons. Meanwhile 107 offices changed hands, against 91 in 2023, so the resale market is busier than the opening pipeline. Outside the US the brand looks nothing like this, with 921 franchised offices in Canada and more than 4,700 open internationally.
Most brands file one FDD. RE/MAX files several, and geography decides which one reaches you. RE/MAX, LLC owns the brand and sells directly in most states. In Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin, the seller is RE/MAX Integrated Regions, LLC, a wholly-owned subfranchisor. In ten further territories, sales run through the three independent subfranchisors that remain from the master-franchise era, each with its own document.
The filing behind this analysis is the RE/MAX Integrated Regions one, issued April 2, 2026, and it carries two sets of Item 20 tables. Its own nine-state count went 502, then 494, then 475, then 450, shrinking faster in percentage terms than the national system. Check which entity is on your receipt page before you compare these numbers to a competitor’s.
Item 5 prices the franchise by how many people live in the market the franchisor assigns you:
Finance the fee and it rises to $37,500, $19,000, $9,500, or $27,000 for those same tiers, with a 50% down payment. The franchisor also reserves the right to reclassify your market at renewal, which can move you up a tier without you moving at all.
What franchisees actually paid in 2025 is softer than the schedule. Item 5 discloses $0 to $17,500 in markets under 30,000 people and $0 to $35,000 in markets of 30,000 or more, discounted for conversions and for existing franchisees expanding. A converting independent brokerage has room to negotiate the fee toward zero, and the document says so rather than leaving it to the development call.
| Item 7 line | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Initial franchise fee | $8,750 | $35,000 |
| Office space improvements | $3,500 | $97,000 |
| Rent or mortgage | $1,250 | $6,000 |
| Exterior office signage | $500 | $25,000 |
| Furniture, fixtures and equipment | $3,000 | $20,000 |
| Information technology systems | $1,800 | $23,000 |
| Inventory and supplies | $500 | $5,000 |
| Education expenses | $4,000 | $9,000 |
| Insurance | $2,000 | $10,000 |
| Professional services | $500 | $6,000 |
| Permits and licenses | $300 | $3,000 |
| Security deposits and utilities | $500 | $7,500 |
| Grand opening advertising | $500 | $10,000 |
| Additional funds, 3 months | $10,000 | $80,000 |
| Total | $37,100 | $336,500 |
The spread is nine to one, unusual for a single format, and the footnotes explain it. The low column is a conversion of a brokerage that already has furniture, signage, and a lease. The high column is a new 1,000 square foot office built from nothing. Footnote 11 says the additional funds line should read $15,000 to $80,000 for a new office, so the $10,000 floor belongs to conversions only. The education line is travel rather than tuition, since the four-day initial program in Denver is free of charge.
Pull the full RE/MAX data sheet. VetMyFranchise reads Items 5, 6, and 7 out of the filed document rather than the franchise development deck.
The Broker Fee is 1% of Revenue, genuinely low for franchising. It is also the least of what you owe, because the rest of the stack is priced per agent per month:
Take the ends of those disclosed ranges and one agent costs the office $270 to $310 a month, so $3,650 to $4,130 a year once the dues land. None of it depends on that agent closing anything, and Item 6 is explicit that you owe the fees “whether or not you collect corresponding dues or fees from your Sales Associates.” A technology fee of up to $35 per agent per month sits unused in the same item, available on 12 months’ notice.
That is the RE/MAX model written as a fee schedule. Item 1 describes a high commission concept in which a Sales Associate keeps a very high percentage of commissions, typically 95%, and pays the office monthly fees plus a share of overhead instead. Your revenue is those agent fees, not a commission split, so an unproductive recruit is a bill you carry until they produce or leave.
Keller Williams sets its termination trigger in dollars of gross commission. RE/MAX sets its in headcount, and the requirement escalates through the term.
| Minimum agents required | Months 12 to 24 | Months 25 to 36 | Month 37 onward |
|---|---|---|---|
| High-density market | 7 | 15 | 20 |
| Medium-density market | 5 | 8 | 12 |
| Low-density market | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| Commercial franchise | 2 | 3 | 4 |
Only agents who have not been affiliated with the RE/MAX network in the prior three months count toward the requirement, so recruiting from the office across town does not clear it. Offices carrying 100 or more Sales Associates are exempt entirely.
Then comes the clause that turns a recruiting target into cash. The Continuing Franchise Fee and the Marketing Fee are both billed on the greater of your actual agent count or your Minimum Agent Count. A high-density office in month 37 must hold 20 agents. If it holds 12, it pays for 20, and those eight nonexistent agents cost $25,920 to $29,760 a year at the ends of the disclosed ranges.
Miss the count and the franchisor can impose a performance improvement plan of up to 12 months at your expense. Failing that plan is a default with a 30-day cure period. The Special Risks box names “Minimum Agent Count Requirement” as one of only two highlighted risks, the other being a clause sending every dispute to Colorado.
Item 19 runs 238 words and contains no figures. The operative sentence: “We do not make any representations about a franchisee’s future financial performance or the past financial performance of company-owned or franchised outlets.” Half of that is decorative, since there are no company-owned outlets. Our comparison of the brokerage franchisors covers how uniformly this category declines to publish earnings.
Item 12 is blunter than most. You receive no exclusive territory at all. The franchise covers one approved address, and the franchisor reserves the right to open another RE/MAX office, or convert an existing brokerage into one, in close proximity to yours, with no compensation owed to you.
The term is five years, renewable once for another five on six months’ notice and a fee of $3,000 to $14,000. Transfers cost $2,500 plus the franchisor’s legal costs. Item 15 does not require you personally on site, but somebody holding a real estate broker license must devote full time to managing the office, and neither you nor that manager may hold an interest in a competing brokerage during the term.
| 2026 FDD, per Sales Associate | RE/MAX | Keller Williams |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly fixed fees | $270 to $310 | $72 |
| Annual dues | $410 | none disclosed |
| Variable charge | 1% of Revenue | 6% of GCI, capped at $3,000 per year |
| Cost of an agent who closes nothing | $3,650 to $4,130 | $864 |
| Item 19 | none | none |
The two systems fail in opposite directions. A RE/MAX office full of part-time licensees bleeds fixed fees regardless of production, which is exactly what the Minimum Agent Count obliges you to keep doing. A Keller Williams market center carries the same roster cheaply, then gives up 6% of everything until each agent clears $50,000 of gross commission income. Neither document tells you which roster you can recruit, and neither publishes what a broker-owner earns.
Read the full RE/MAX FDD analysis before you take a franchise development call. We pull Items 5, 6, 7, 12, and 19 straight from the filed document, including the fee clauses that only appear in the footnotes.
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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 $37,100 to $336,500 for a standard office, and $29,350 to $302,500 for a Team Franchise. The initial franchise fee inside that total is $8,750 in a market under 20,000 people, $17,500 between 20,000 and 70,000, and $35,000 at 70,000 or more. A commercial-only franchise pays $25,000 and a Team Franchise pays $1,000. Financing the fee raises it to $9,500, $19,000, $37,500, or $27,000 respectively. During 2025, actual fees paid ranged from $0 to $35,000 because conversions and expansion deals were discounted.
No. Item 19 of the 2026 FDD contains no figures and states that the franchisor makes no representations about a franchisee's future financial performance "or the past financial performance of company-owned or franchised outlets." Since RE/MAX operates no company-owned offices at all, half of that sentence describes nothing. The FTC Franchise Rule makes an Item 19 optional, and Keller Williams, Century 21, and Coldwell Banker all decline in their 2026 filings too.
It is a contractual floor on how many Sales Associates your office must carry, and it escalates. A new high-density franchisee needs 7 agents from the 12-month anniversary through month 24, 15 during months 25 to 36, and 20 from month 37 to the end of the term. Medium-density offices need 5, then 8, then 12. Low-density offices need 2, then 3, then 5. Offices with 100 or more Sales Associates are exempt. Failing the count can put you on a performance improvement plan of up to 12 months, and failing that plan is a default with a 30-day cure period.
It depends entirely on how productive your agents are. RE/MAX charges a 1% Broker Fee on revenue plus roughly $270 to $310 per agent per month in fixed fees plus $410 in annual dues, so an agent who closes nothing still costs the office $3,650 to $4,130 a year. Keller Williams charges 6% of gross commission income capped at $3,000 per agent per year plus a $72 monthly access fee, so an agent who closes nothing costs $864. High producers are cheaper under RE/MAX, part-timers are far cheaper under Keller Williams.
RE/MAX, LLC owns the brand and the franchise system, and it sits under RMCO, LLC, which sits under RE/MAX Holdings, Inc., a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange as RMAX. RE/MAX, LLC has franchised in the US since August 9, 1974 and internationally since 1980. It has never operated a RE/MAX office. Nine states are served by a wholly-owned subfranchisor, RE/MAX Integrated Regions, LLC, and ten more territories by three remaining independent subfranchisors.
This page is part of VetMyFranchise. View all pages: llms.txt · llms-full.txt