Valvoline franchise cost: $192,375 to $3,483,550 per center with a $30,000 first-center fee. See the royalty math and the $1,704,870 franchisee median.
Quick answer A Valvoline Instant Oil Change center costs $192,375 to $639,550 if you lease the land and $1,773,750 to $3,483,550 if you buy it, per the FDD issued December 26, 2025. The first-center license fee is $30,000. Franchisee-operated centers posted a $1,704,870 median net sales across 891 centers in fiscal 2025.
The low end of Valvoline’s Item 7 budgets $10,000 for equipment and $12,500 for three months of rent. No ground-up oil change center gets built for that. The $192,375 figure describes a franchisee who leases a site and moves into a working lube bay, while the $3,483,550 high end describes one who buys roughly 15,000 square feet of land and builds from the slab up.
The document behind these numbers is the 2025 franchise disclosure document from Valvoline Instant Oil Change Franchising, Inc. (VIOCF), issued December 26, 2025 and covering the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2025. It is the newest Valvoline FDD on file with us. We have no 2026 document, so every Valvoline franchise cost figure below is from that 2025 vintage.
VIOCF does not split Item 7 into conversion and ground-up tables. It splits by whether you lease or buy the real property and the signage. The conversion versus ground-up distinction lives inside the equipment line, which runs from $10,000 to $350,000.
| Item 7 line | Lease path low | Lease path high | Purchase path low | Purchase path high |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| License fee | $30,000 | $30,000 | $30,000 | $30,000 |
| Land and improvements | $12,500 | $24,500 | $1,550,000 | $2,750,000 |
| Grand opening advertising | $7,500 | $10,000 | $7,500 | $10,000 |
| Training | $5,000 | $10,000 | $5,000 | $10,000 |
| Security deposits | $500 | $11,500 | $500 | $11,500 |
| Insurance, 3 months | $10,000 | $15,000 | $10,000 | $15,000 |
| Start-up supplies | $22,000 | $30,000 | $22,000 | $30,000 |
| Initial Valvoline product inventory | $28,750 | $62,050 | $28,750 | $62,050 |
| Equipment and service systems | $10,000 | $350,000 | $10,000 | $350,000 |
| Signage | $1,125 | $1,500 | $45,000 | $120,000 |
| Point-of-sale system | $15,000 | $30,000 | $15,000 | $30,000 |
| Additional funds, 3 months | $50,000 | $65,000 | $50,000 | $65,000 |
| Total | $192,375 | $639,550 | $1,773,750 | $3,483,550 |
The full Item 7 table and fee schedule are on the Valvoline Instant Oil Change dossier.
Three exclusions matter. The lease path counts only three months of rent, and the notes say your actual rent could run higher. Structural work to make a sign visible from the road sits outside the signage line. And Item 7 states flatly that the cost of acquiring an existing center “can vary substantially and VIOCF cannot estimate those costs.” Between $73,750 and $122,050 of the total is paid to the franchisor or an affiliate, mostly for oil inventory and the POS system.
Your first center carries a $30,000 license fee, half at signing and half when the first royalty is due. A second ground-up center is $20,000, a second conversion is $5,000, and any third center is $5,000. Development agreements run $2,500 to $5,000 per center plus a $5,000 development fee each, with a three-center minimum. Buying a center from an existing franchisee costs $5,000 in license fees. One line in Item 5 tells you more than the fee schedule: VIOCF collected $1,250 to $5,000 per center last fiscal year. Nobody paid $30,000, which tells you who is opening Valvoline centers right now.
The royalty steps up. You pay 2% of adjusted gross revenue in the first year, 3% in the second, and 6% from the third year on. Exhibit A-8 offers a graduated schedule to franchisees whose combined centers clear $1,000,000 a year, sliding from 5.5% at $1 million down to 4% at $5 million. Under that amendment, a center that reaches $1.5 million in trailing revenue before its second anniversary loses the reduced early rates right away.
Here is the cost on the franchisee median of $1,704,870, treating net sales as a stand-in for adjusted gross revenue, since both strip out discounts and fleet pricing:
| Fee | Rate | Annual dollars |
|---|---|---|
| Royalty, standard schedule | 6% | $102,292 |
| General System Fund | up to 2%, capped | $7,344 |
| Local advertising minimum | 3% | $51,146 |
| Total, standard schedule | about 9.4% | $160,782 |
| Total at the 4% graduated rate | about 7.4% | $126,685 |
The cap on the General System Fund is $7,344 per center for centers opening in fiscal 2026, never above $7,500. Item 19 notes that 95% of franchise centers paid 4% royalty last year. That tells you the system is dominated by operators with $5 million or more in combined revenue, and a single-center owner at the median would sit on the 5.25% tier at best. The gap between 6% and 4% on this center is $34,097 a year. The FDD also flags a possible national advertising fund starting in fiscal 2027, on top of everything above.
Item 19 has two revenue sections, and the number most directories carry comes from the wrong one.
Section A covers 785 company-operated centers that ran the full fiscal 2025. Their median gross sales were $1,894,490. Their median net sales, after coupons, discounts, fleet pricing and refunds, were $1,599,409. Section A also gives a median center profit line: $516,049 in contribution before royalty, but with operating leases, market overhead, corporate overhead and depreciation left out. Company stores pay no royalty and no rent in that view.
Section B is the franchisee figure. Across 891 franchisee-operated centers open the full fiscal year, median net sales were $1,704,870 and the average was $1,844,172, with a low of $397,215 and a high of $5,728,187. Exactly 386 centers landed at or above the average. The section excludes 172 centers that were not franchise-operated for the full year, and the trend is up: the franchisee median was $1,552,103 in fiscal 2023 and $1,609,279 in fiscal 2024.
What Section B omits is everything below the revenue line. It has no labor, product cost, rent or contribution figures for franchisees. You get oil changes per day (48.0 median) and average ticket ($116.67 median), which is enough to test a pro forma’s volume assumptions and not enough to know what an owner keeps. The Take 5 vs Valvoline comparison covers why both brands’ headline medians describe company stores. The fiscal 2023 to 2025 breakdown sits on the Valvoline financials page.
Table 1 of Item 20 puts franchised centers at 827 at the start of fiscal 2023, then 879, 962, and 1,063 at the end of fiscal 2025. Company-owned centers went from 767 to 844, 913, and 976. The system ended fiscal 2025 at 2,039 centers.
The franchised status table does not tie to that summary. Its fiscal 2025 total row ends at 1,071, eight more than Table 1, and Item 19 uses 1,063. Ask VIOCF which count is right before you rely on either.
Churn is low. Across three years the franchised table shows 2 terminations, 11 centers reacquired by the franchisor, 3 ceased for other reasons and zero non-renewals. Transfers between franchisees ran 23, 26 and 11. Item 20 projects 97 new franchised centers and 79 company centers in fiscal 2026, with only 6 signed agreements for centers not yet open.
The real cost question at Valvoline is where the building comes from, and the parent company is supplying some of the answer. Item 20 shows company centers sold to franchisees going from 0 in 2023 to 28 in 2024 and 39 in 2025. Valvoline Inc.’s audited statements, attached to the FDD, describe those 67 stores as refranchising transactions that produced pre-tax gains of $41.8 million and $73.9 million. Ten more company stores went to a franchisee in October 2025. Those buyers paid a business price that Item 7 cannot estimate, so if you are looking at a corporate package, our guide to buying a refranchised corporate location covers what to ask for.
Valvoline is also buying. The statements report a definitive agreement for Breeze Autocare, mostly Oil Changers stores, with 207 stores coming in and 45 to be divested under an FTC order, closing expected December 1, 2025. Item 12 matters here: your territory is a 2-mile radius, but VIOCF and its affiliates may buy other quick lubes inside it and run them under different marks without paying you.
For new builds, Item 10 describes a Bank of America loan program with terms up to five years and a balloon, at 8.25% as of September 29, 2025. VIOCF guarantees a separate pool of Growth Loans capped at $25 million and earns up to 1% on them. The Bounty incentive pays at least $10 per projected annual oil change on new ground-up or converted centers, so a site projected at 15,000 oil changes would draw at least $150,000. It comes as a 15-year promissory note that is forgiven unless you default, and it is trued up against actual volume after 18 to 36 months.
The FDD states no net worth or liquidity minimum, and the franchise site lists none. Item 15 lets you hire a manager to run the center, provided that manager finishes SuperPro training. The fee schedule points to the real buyer profile: existing operators adding conversions and development-agreement sites at $5,000 or less per center.
On the other two quick-lube brands, Take 5’s 2025 FDD charges 7% royalty plus 5% to its marketing funds on gross sales, against Valvoline’s 6% plus a capped fund and a 3% local minimum. The Jiffy Lube franchise cost post walks through its Item 7, and the auto repair franchise list covers the wider category. For how a quick lube’s capital compares with other franchises, see how much it costs to open a franchise.
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About this analysis The franchise data in this article is drawn from VetMyFranchise's structured analysis of 2,400+ Franchise Disclosure Documents filed with U.S. state regulators. See our data & methodology.
Between $192,375 and $3,483,550 for one center, per the FDD issued December 26, 2025. Leasing the land and signage puts you at $192,375 to $639,550. Buying the land and signage puts you at $1,773,750 to $3,483,550. Both totals include the $30,000 license fee and three months of operating funds.
The median franchisee-operated center posted $1,704,870 in net sales in fiscal 2025, across 891 centers open the full year. The average was $1,844,172 and the range ran from $397,215 to $5,728,187. Section B gives no cost or profit data for franchisees.
It depends on the land. Valvoline's leased-land path starts at $192,375, but that budget carries only $10,000 for equipment and three months of rent, so it describes a conversion of a working shop. Compare the specific build path, not the headline range, and see our Jiffy Lube cost post for its Item 7.
The franchisor is Valvoline Instant Oil Change Franchising, Inc., a Delaware corporation formed in 1988 and based in Lexington, Kentucky. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Valvoline US LLC, which is owned by Valvoline Inc. Valvoline Inc. sold its Global Products lubricants business to Aramco on March 1, 2023.
Yes. Item 5 sets the license fee at $5,000 for a first center bought from an existing franchisee and $2,500 for each additional center from the same seller. Item 7 says the franchisor cannot estimate the purchase price of an existing center, and Item 20 shows 11 franchisee-to-franchisee transfers in fiscal 2025.
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