Yes. The UPS Store is a franchise: 5,487 franchised centers vs 16 company-owned, a $39,950 fee, 8.5% in ongoing fees, and an Item 19 built on gross sales.
Quick answer Yes. The UPS Store, Inc. is a franchisor owned by UPS, and 5,487 of its 5,503 US centers were franchised at the end of 2025, or 99.7%. The 2026 FDD prices a new traditional center at $222,368 to $606,081 with a $39,950 franchise fee and 8.5% of sales going out in ongoing fees.
The UPS Store’s franchisor ran just 16 locations itself on December 31, 2025, against 5,487 operated by franchisees, which puts 99.7% of the US system in franchisee hands. Item 20 of the 2026 FDD tracks the climb year by year: 5,138 franchised outlets at the start of 2023, then 5,232, then 5,350, then 5,487.
The 16 corporate stores have a backstory. Thirteen appeared in Texas during 2024 as reacquisitions from franchisees, and a fourteenth followed in 2025. The other two, one in California and one in Georgia, have been company-run since before 2023.
The UPS Store, Inc. is the franchisor, a Delaware corporation headquartered in San Diego, and United Parcel Service, Inc. is its parent entity. It was named Mail Boxes Etc., Inc. until October 1, 2012, and UPS bought the Mail Boxes Etc. assets on April 30, 2001. Franchises for this business have been sold since June 11, 1980. What you buy is a retail counter selling packing, printing, mailbox rental, and notary services, with shipping as the traffic driver. You are not buying into the delivery network. The competing counter is not for sale at any price, because every FedEx Office location is company operated.
Franchise directories quote The UPS Store starting at $57,120. The number is real. It does not describe a storefront. Item 7 of the 2026 Traditional FDD, issued April 23, 2026, prices four different scenarios.
| Scenario, 2026 Traditional FDD | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| New or relocation traditional center | $222,368 | $606,081 |
| Remodel of an existing traditional center | $97,047 | $281,271 |
| New or relocation under the Rural Program | $175,266 | $546,655 |
| Remodel under the Rural Program | $85,925 | $270,149 |
None of them starts at $57,120. That figure lives in the separate Non-Traditional FDD, which prices a new or relocation Access Model center at $57,120 to $299,758. Non-Traditional sites are hotels, military bases, universities, convention centers, self-storage facilities, and airports. An Access Model center is a service counter inside somebody else’s building, so it skips the storefront lease, the vanilla shell preparation, and most of the build-out. Setting it next to a strip-center store is setting a kiosk next to a building.
Two lines in the traditional build deserve a slow read. Leasehold improvements, construction, signage, and fixtures run $68,146 to $361,729, and the FDD notes the high end includes $186,600 of vanilla shell preparation on a space the landlord delivered as is. A footnote then warns that some projects may run 10% to 40% higher on tariffs, labor, and related construction costs. Additional Funds covers three months at $40,000 to $70,000. Your lease has to run at least 10 years, and Item 11 states the franchisor does not lease sites to franchisees, so the real estate exposure is yours alone.
The initial franchise fee is $39,950 for your opening center and $19,950 for a second or later center held at the same time. The Rural Program cuts it to $14,950. Three 2026 discount programs run off the $39,950 base and cannot be combined: a Believe Program at $29,950 for buyers new to the brand, VetFran at $19,950 for veterans, and a First Responder Program at $19,950. The franchisor is also waiving the fee outright for the first 10 veterans who commit to a new traditional center during 2026.
See the full The UPS Store data sheet
Listings show a 5% royalty and stop. Item 6 carries three separate percentage fees on Subject to Royalty sales.
| Ongoing fee | Amount |
|---|---|
| Royalty | 5% of STR |
| The UPS Store marketing fee | 1% of STR |
| National advertising fee | 2.5% of STR |
| DMA advertising collaborative dues | $100 to $500 per month |
| Annual technology development and support fee | $2,868 |
That is 8.5% of sales committed before rent, payroll, or cost of goods. The national advertising piece carries a cap, currently $27,734 a year, so the 2.5% stops climbing once sales pass roughly $1.1 million. The busiest stores get relief there and everyone below that line pays full freight. Collaborative dues are set by a vote of the franchisees in your DMA and can be raised to 3% of sales if 51% of them agree.
The base those percentages apply to matters more than the rates. STR is gross sales plus gross commissions, and the FDD states that “Gross Sales includes UPS shipping costs that a franchisee receives from its customers.” You pay royalty on carrier charges you collect and pass along.
There is an Item 19, and the 2025 sample holds 5,058 centers, which is among the largest financial performance representations any franchisor files. It reports adjusted gross sales. It reports nothing about profit.
| Franchised traditional centers | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Centers in the sample | 5,058 | 4,931 | 4,825 |
| Average adjusted gross sales | $724,293 | $719,842 | $721,245 |
| Number above that average | 2,263 (45%) | 2,199 (45%) | 2,161 (45%) |
| Top 10% average | $1,248,208 | $1,225,942 | $1,224,355 |
| Bottom 10% average | $345,790 | $353,236 | $357,306 |
Three readings come straight off the table. Only 45% of centers cleared the average in each of the three years, which puts the median below $724,293 and tells you the top decile is dragging the mean upward. The distance between the top 10% and the bottom 10% is 3.6x inside a single brand running a single playbook. And the system has been flat: $721,245 in 2023 to $724,293 in 2025 is 0.4% of nominal movement over two years, a decline once you adjust for inflation.
The disclosure names what it omits. TUPSS lists eleven expense categories the sales figures do not reflect, among them labor, shipping costs, cost of goods sold, rent, and the royalties above. Non-Traditional centers are excluded outright, 267 of them for 2025, along with 183 traditional centers that did not report a full year. One sentence deserves a second look: the franchisor discloses that effective May 2024, one large corporate client reduced the compensation rate it pays for certain transactions running through the centers. That revenue line gets renegotiated above your head, and you find out afterward.
Anyone quoting a UPS Store income figure is not quoting this document. Our guide to the costs that never appear in an FDD covers where the rest of the operating statement usually hides.
Item 20 counts 237 transfers between franchisees during 2025, against 187 new franchised openings. In 2024 it was 268 transfers to 192 openings, and in 2023, 340 transfers to 141 openings. Entry into this system happens mostly through purchases of operating centers rather than ground-up construction.
Departures were modest. 2025 produced 5 terminations, no non-renewals, one center reacquired by the franchisor, and 44 that ceased operations for other reasons, which is 50 exits against 5,350 starting units, or under 1%.
A resale changes the diligence entirely. You get trailing sales for a specific address instead of a system average, and you inherit the seller’s remaining term. If the transfer closes within 3.5 years of that term expiring, you owe a full Laser Lite remodel within 11 months of closing, priced at $97,047 to $281,271. Transfers also carry a $6,000 transfer fee plus a $6,000 processing fee, cut to $1,500 if a finder’s fee goes to the franchisor.
The remodel obligation is the expensive one. Every renewing franchisee must remodel to the Laser Lite design within 11 months of the renewal date. Terms run 10 years, so a 20-year hold means budgeting for that twice.
Territory is not exclusive. Item 12 says so in those words, and it reserves the right to place Non-Traditional centers inside your territory, subject to a right of first refusal you have to be ready to fund on short notice.
You do not have to work the counter. Item 15 requires a full-time on-premises Primary Operator who has completed the training program, which spans a five-day In Store Experience in two parts, a five-day University Business Course, and three days of print services training. That operator can be an employee. The salary sits nowhere in Item 19.
Item 3 is not empty, and the pattern in it matters. Two of the listed cases are notary-fee class actions, in Kentucky and Massachusetts, alleging that centers charged more than the statutory maximum for notarizations. In the Kentucky matter the court added every Kentucky franchisee as a defendant, and under the settlement finally approved on June 7, 2021, the franchisee defendants absorbed the vouchers issued to class members and paid $250,000 toward administrative costs. Franchisees set the notary price and franchisees paid the bill.
The 2026 FDD is more detailed than most, and the Item 19 sample is large enough to be statistically meaningful. It still measures the wrong thing for someone underwriting a purchase. Weigh it against what other B2B service franchises disclose and against the going rate for opening any franchise before deciding the brand name justifies the fee stack.
Read the full The UPS Store FDD breakdown
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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.
Item 7 of the 2026 FDD prices a new or relocation traditional center at $222,368 to $606,081, including a $39,950 initial franchise fee. A remodel of an existing traditional center runs $97,047 to $281,271. Under the Rural Program the figures drop to $175,266 to $546,655 for a new center and $85,925 to $270,149 for a remodel. The much lower $57,120 figure quoted in franchise directories comes from a separate Non-Traditional FDD covering counters inside hotels, airports, universities, and self-storage facilities.
The FDD does not disclose it. Item 19 reports adjusted gross sales and explicitly excludes labor, shipping costs, cost of goods sold, rent, royalties, and seven other expense categories. Across 5,058 franchised traditional centers, 2025 average adjusted gross sales were $724,293, with only 45% of centers above that line. The top 10% averaged $1,248,208 and the bottom 10% averaged $345,790. None of those numbers is profit, and anyone quoting a UPS Store income figure is not quoting this document.
Yes. United Parcel Service, Inc. is the parent entity of The UPS Store, Inc., the franchisor. The franchisor was named Mail Boxes Etc., Inc. until October 1, 2012, and UPS acquired the Mail Boxes Etc. assets on April 30, 2001. Franchisees are independent retailers selling packing, printing, mailbox, and notary services. They are not part of the UPS delivery network and do not employ drivers.
No. Item 15 states that the franchisor typically does not require you to be the on-premises operator, but day-to-day operations must be supervised full-time by an on-premises Primary Operator who has completed the training program. That person can be a supervisory employee who owns no part of the business. A semi-absentee structure is permitted, and the manager's salary is a cost the Item 19 sales figures say nothing about.
It is a stable one, which is a different claim. Exits in 2025 totaled 50 units out of 5,350, under 1%, and the Item 19 sample of 5,058 centers is among the largest any franchisor publishes. The weaknesses are visible in the same document: system-wide average sales moved 0.4% between 2023 and 2025, territories are not exclusive, and every renewal triggers a mandatory remodel priced at $97,047 to $281,271.
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