38%
of loans: we are not told how they ended
That is 35,640 loans out of 93,493. The government keeps them private. Nobody can say whether they were repaid — not us, not anyone — so every percentage on this page leaves them out.
SBA loans: who paid them back, and who did not
Most people who buy a franchise borrow money to do it, and the government records how those loans ended. Of the 45,407 that have finished, 4,432 ended with the bank writing off the debt — about one in 10. Below, brand by brand, so you can look up the one you are considering.
What is in the government’s loan file
45,407
loans we know the ending of
Each one was either paid back in full or written off as a loss. These are the only loans the percentages here are based on.
5,617
franchise brands borrowed this money
960 of them have a page on this site. We have not got to the rest yet.
415
brands have enough loans to show a percentage
Another 415 have some finished loans, but fewer than 20. We show their numbers without a percentage: one failure out of four is not a pattern, and printing it as 25% would suggest it is.
415 brands with enough finished loans to rate
| Brand | Charged off | Finished loans | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1000 Degrees Pizzeria | 15 | 20 | 75.0% |
| Experimac | 41 | 59 | 69.5% |
| Gymguyz | 12 | 21 | 57.1% |
| Window Genie | 34 | 61 | 55.7% |
| Dental Fix RX | 26 | 48 | 54.2% |
| Glass Doctor | 17 | 33 | 51.5% |
| Flip Flop Shops | 10 | 20 | 50.0% |
| Embroidme | 15 | 31 | 48.4% |
| Pro-Lift Garage Doors | 10 | 21 | 47.6% |
| Mr. Appliance | 28 | 62 | 45.2% |
| Nurse Next Door | 11 | 26 | 42.3% |
| Aire Serv | 9 | 22 | 40.9% |
| The Grounds Guys | 40 | 99 | 40.4% |
| Premier Rental-Purchase | 10 | 25 | 40.0% |
| Wireless Zone | 11 | 28 | 39.3% |
| Schooley Mitchell | 9 | 23 | 39.1% |
| Burgerim | 26 | 68 | 38.2% |
| UFC Gym | 8 | 21 | 38.1% |
| CPR - Cell Phone Repair | 9 | 24 | 37.5% |
| Concrete Craft | 8 | 22 | 36.4% |
| Signarama | 29 | 80 | 36.3% |
| Five Star Painting | 11 | 32 | 34.4% |
| Tutor Doctor | 22 | 65 | 33.8% |
| Dickey's Barbecue Pit | 58 | 172 | 33.7% |
| 360 Painting | 14 | 42 | 33.3% |
Colour uses the same 15% and 25% thresholds that raise a flag on a brand page, so a red cell here and a red flag there mean one thing.
This says who repaid. It cannot say what they earned.
The loan file is a record of debt, not of trade. It shows that a franchisee borrowed and whether the bank was paid back — never what the outlet took, what the franchisor charged for it, or what the franchisor claims a new one will make. That is in the disclosure document, and it is what we read.
Takes an email and a password. You choose which brand — any of them, including the ones ranked above — and it stays open for a year.After that, $49 a brand, $99 for five, $199 for every brand we have read. What that opens.
This page stays free, and so does every brand’s loan record. It is a public government file and we do not charge for it. What you pay for is only what we read out of the franchisor’s own disclosure document.
How to read this
≠
A charge-off is not a closure
It means the lender wrote the loan off. A franchisee can fail while repaying, and an outlet can close with the loan paid.
20
is the bar, and it is about outcomes not loans
Fifty originations can mean five finished ones. We count loans that reached an outcome, which is what a rate is actually made of.
415
brands are excluded from the ranking
They have finished loans, just too few. Their pages show the counts so nothing is hidden — only the percentage is withheld.
—
Old loans and new brands are not comparable
A 2010 loan has had fifteen years to fail; a 2024 loan has not. Brands that grew recently look safer here than they may be.
Why the same brand fails 3x more often as a startup → · How we read this data → · Browse 1,426 brands →