Franchise Opportunities in Texas: Where Franchisors Plan to Open Next

The short version. Franchisors filing disclosure documents over the past ten months project 2,363 new franchised outlets in Texas, the highest of any state. They also report 2,603 franchise agreements already signed for Texas outlets that haven't opened yet, also the most of any state. About 46% of all brands in our data (612 of 1,329) plan at least one new Texas opening. Texas holds roughly one of every ten planned franchise openings in the country.

This article shows where that growth is concentrated, what kinds of businesses are behind it, and how to read the numbers without over-reading them.

Where these numbers come from

Every franchisor has to hand prospective buyers a Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) and file it with state regulators. Item 20 of that document contains two tables that matter here:

• Projected openings. The franchisor's own estimate of how many new outlets it expects to open in each state over the next fiscal year, split into franchised and company-owned.
• Signed but not yet open. Outlets where a franchisee has already signed an agreement but the location is not trading yet.

We read both tables from the most recent filing of each of 1,329 brands, received between December 2025 and September 2026, and total them by state. A brand that filed more than once is counted once, using its latest filing.

Texas is the biggest pipeline in the country

Three things stand out:

1. The top three are in a league of their own. Texas, Florida and California each project more than 2,200 openings. The fourth state, Georgia, projects 952.
2. Texas leads on contracts, not just forecasts. Its 2,603 signed-not-open outlets are the most of any state, about 17% more than Florida's 2,220 and about 15% more than California's 2,268. Projections are a franchisor's estimate. A signed agreement is a commitment from a franchisee.
3. Signed outlets exceed projected openings in Texas (2,603 vs 2,363, a ratio of 1.10). Two readings are possible, and the filings don't tell us which applies: franchisors may be forecasting conservatively, or some signed outlets will take more than a year to open.

Why Texas

The filings show what franchisors plan, not why. The outside context is consistent with the pattern:

• Texas added 391,243 residents between July 2024 and July 2025, the largest numeric gain of any state for the third year running, according to Census Bureau estimates. Since 2020 the state has added almost 2.5 million people (Census Bureau).
• The growth is concentrated in a few counties. Harris County (Houston) added 48,695 residents, the most of any U.S. county, followed by Collin County north of Dallas at nearly 43,000 and Montgomery County north of Houston at over 30,000 (KXAN, citing Census estimates).
• The industry's own forecast agrees. The IFA and FRANdata 2026 outlook ranks Texas as the fastest-growing state for franchising, ahead of Florida (IFA).

More people means more demand for food, haircuts, fitness, health care and home services, which is where the pipeline is concentrated.

What is being built: the industries

Food and beverage dominates. Three in ten projected openings (711) are in food and beverage, and it holds 38% of all signed-not-open outlets (995 of 2,603). 155 separate brands plan at least one Texas opening in this category.

Fitness and recreation is the second growth story. Studios and recreation concepts project 252 openings but have 393 outlets signed, 1.6 signed agreements for every projected opening.

Personal care has the biggest gap. Salons and similar concepts project only 84 openings but have 249 outlets already signed, about three signed agreements for every projected opening.

Health care also has more contracts than forecasts (281 signed against 228 projected).

Home-service and cleaning concepts run the other way. Signed outlets are fewer than projected openings (136 against 192 for home services, 44 against 117 for cleaning). These are lower-cost models that often sign and open quickly, so there is less time between signature and launch, and less backlog to count.

Many small plans, a few large ones

The Texas pipeline isn't a handful of giants. Of the 612 brands with a Texas plan:

• 482 (79%) plan one to four openings. Together that is 919 openings, 39% of the total. A typical Texas plan is small.
• 51 brands (8%) plan ten or more, and they account for 964 openings, 41% of the total.
• The ten largest plans add up to 374 openings, 16% of the pipeline. That is a much flatter distribution than Florida's (see the Florida article).

Signed outlets are more evenly spread than you might expect, and more often ahead of forecasts. Of the 464 brands with at least one signed Texas outlet, 247 (53%) have more outlets signed than they project opening. The ten brands with the most signed Texas outlets hold 530 of the 2,603 (20%).

Two practical readings:

• Large and small plans carry different kinds of information. A big forecast shows a franchisor's ambition; a signed count shows what franchisees have already committed to.
• Home-based concepts count too. Two home-based travel-agency networks alone account for 120 of the projected Texas openings (5%), and a new advisor isn't a new storefront. Without them the Texas total is 2,243.

What this means for different readers

If you are researching a franchise purchase, the pipeline shows where franchisors are putting their effort and in which categories. A category with many outlets signed and few projected is one where growth is already contracted. A category with many projected and few signed is forecasting growth it has not yet contracted.

If you sell to or serve new franchise locations (as a lender, real-estate adviser, supplier, local marketing firm or contractor), the industry mix shows where Texas demand is concentrated, and the signed-not-open figures show where it is already contracted.

If you already own a franchise in Texas, the industry table shows which neighboring categories are about to get more crowded.

How to read these numbers carefully

• Projections are estimates. They are a franchisor's forecast for the next fiscal year, and some brands report zero or leave rows blank. Of the 1,329 brands, 612 project at least one Texas franchised opening and 464 report at least one signed outlet.
• Signed does not mean open soon. Disclosure documents don't give opening dates.
• State-level only. Item 20 reports by state, so we can't say whether an opening is in Houston, Dallas, Austin or elsewhere.
• Duplicate entries. A few franchisors file separate entries for sub-concepts with identical figures. We count those once (five cases in Texas).
• Window and classification. Filings received December 2025 through September 2026. Industry labels are ours, assigned per filing.

Want the brand-by-brand view?

This article uses aggregated totals only. FranchiseTracker tracks every new disclosure filing as it arrives, with state-by-state projections, signed-not-open counts and three-year outlet trends for each brand. Preview the data →

Related: Florida franchise expansion: where franchisors plan to open next

Sources

• U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Population Growth Slows Due to Historic Decline in Net International Migration (Vintage 2025 estimates)
• KXAN, These were Texas' fastest-growing counties in 2025
• IFA, 2026 Franchising Economic Outlook (with FRANdata)
• FranchiseTracker analysis of Franchise Disclosure Documents, Item 20 (Table 5), from the Minnesota CARDS public registry