Dunkin' franchise: what it costs
A free-standing Dunkin' restaurant takes $532,400 to $1,832,500 to open, based on the 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD), the paperwork a brand must hand you before you buy.
Cost items for a Dunkin' franchise
- Full opening cost
- $532,400 to $1,832,500 Item 7, 2026 FDD
- Franchise fee you pay one time at the start
- $40,000 to $90,000 Item 5, 2026 FDD
- Royalty, your ongoing payments to the brand
- 5.9% taken from gross sales Item 6, 2026 FDD
- Marketing fund, which covers shared advertising
- 5% drawn from gross sales Item 6, 2026 FDD
- Figures on sales or earnings
- $1,372,069 a year on average across 7,010 locations it counts, before costs Item 19, 2026 FDD
- Location count as 2025 ended
- Franchise owners ran 8,744 and the company ran 36 Item 20, 2026 FDD
Every figure above was copied by us from the 2026 Dunkin' Franchise Disclosure Document, which Dunkin' Donuts Franchising LLC filed at the Minnesota Department of Commerce; its date is March 26, 2026. Each small label points to the numbered part of the FDD where that figure sits.
Inside the Dunkin' FDD: earnings and sales numbers
Item 19 is where Dunkin' shares figures, the FDD section where a brand may report sales or earnings for its locations. Average yearly sales of $1,372,069 are the headline number, covering 7,010 franchised US restaurants, traditional and non-traditional, that operated for all of 2025. It is money the store takes in, not profit, because rent, wages and every other cost get paid from it.
Let our guide walk you through an Item 19 first, before you count on any figure in it.
Other coffee franchises beside Dunkin'
The middle coffee franchise starts at $672K, and Dunkin' is cheaper to open than most of the ones compared here.
| Brand | Total cost to opentotal, lowest to highest | Upfront feeone-time fee | Royaltyongoing, usually a % of sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dunn Brothers Coffee | $449K to $728K | $30,000 | 5% |
| PJ's Coffee | $523K to $899K | $15,000 to $40,000 | 5% |
| Dunkin' | $532K to $1.83M | $40,000 to $90,000 | 5.9% |
| Ziggi's Coffee | $587K to $1.76M | $40,000 | 6% |
| The Human Bean | $672K to $1.53M | $35,000 | None |
| Caribou Coffee | $898K to $1.51M | $30,000 | 5% |
| 7 Brew | $941K to $2.28M | $35,000 | 4.5% to 7% |
| Tim Hortons | $988K to $3.31M | $50,000 | 4.5% to 6% |
| Scooter's Coffee | $1.16M to $1.35M | $40,000 | 6% |
Before you buy, a brand has to hand over its Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD); the brand's latest one is where every figure comes from. After opening, you keep paying the brand either a share of sales or a set amount as the royalty. A K stands for thousand, an M for million. Every one of the 9 brands includes sales or earnings figures in its FDD (choose a brand to view them). Each FDD shown here was filed with the Minnesota Department of Commerce in 2026.
All coffee franchises, side by side
Count of Dunkin' locations
Item 20 reports 8,780 Dunkin' locations across the United States as 2025 ended; franchise owners ran all 100% of them. In that same part of the FDD, you get phone numbers for owners still running stores and ones who left. Your best way to learn how these costs play out in real life is to call a few of them.
Get the Dunkin' FDD read by a franchise attorney
Before you sign, one franchise attorney can go through the Dunkin' FDD and franchise agreement with you.