Franchise Search Trends: Google Interest in Buying a Franchise, 2004 to September 2026

Franchise search trends dashboard, September 2026 edition

Five of seven tracked terms are higher over the latest 12 months than over the 2004 to 2024 average, led by ‘franchise consultant’ at 2.84 times and ‘franchise broker’ at 2.34 times. The exceptions are ‘franchise opportunities’ (0.80x) and ‘franchise for sale’, just under its long-run average (0.98x). Every term is up on the prior 12 months, by 18.6% (‘franchise for sale’) to 100% (‘franchise broker’).

Read each row on its own scale: the index compares a term with itself over time. A 71.7 for ‘buy a franchise’ and a 67.2 for ‘franchise consultant’ do not mean the two are searched equally often (see the shared-scale comparison below). Data: Google Trends, United States, monthly, pulled October 7, 2026.

This edition: the 2026 surge has unwound

September 2026 is the latest complete month. All seven tracked terms were lower than in September 2025 in the United States. ‘buy a franchise’ stood at 49.2 against 55.3 a year earlier (-11%), and ‘franchise consultant’ at 35.1 against 36.4 (-3.6%).

The pattern is a surge and a return. Interest in buying-intent terms climbed from November 2025, peaked between January and June 2026, and fell back from July. ‘franchise consultant’ rose from 36.4 in September 2025 to its high of 100 in June 2026, then fell to 53.1 in August and 35.1 in September. Because the 12-month averages still include the peak, they remain near record levels while the monthly readings do not.

An agency analysis by Reshift Media (January 29, 2026) also reported that franchise interest in its own index of Google searches reached its highest point at the end of 2025 and into January 2026. Its query list and weights are not published, so it is a corroboration of timing, not of size.

Long-run franchise search trends, 2004 to 2026

Over the long run, buying-intent and cost searches have grown while listing-style searches have shrunk. ‘buy a franchise’ averaged 17.1 in 2004 and 43.4 in 2024 on its own scale, then 56.3 in 2025 and 72.4 in January to September 2026. ‘franchise opportunities’ went the other way, from 82.8 in 2004 to 18.8 in 2024 (Google Trends).

Five of seven terms recorded their highest calendar-year average in 2026 (January to September). That comparison flatters 2026 slightly, because January to March run above the yearly average for most terms (Table 3); the trailing 12-month comparison in Table 1 has no such bias. ‘franchise consultant’ also shows a bump from March to October 2017 that appears in both samples and then reverses.

Early years need care. In 2004 to 2008, low-volume terms such as ‘franchise consultant’, ‘franchise broker’ and ‘how to buy a franchise’ often fell below Google’s reporting threshold, so single months jump between 0 and high values. Each sample put its own 100 on a different 2004 or 2005 month for ‘franchise consultant’; averaging the two samples removes that artifact. This page measures search interest only; for the number of franchise units and establishments see franchise industry growth.

Are more people looking for franchise consultants and brokers?

Yes, relative to the past. The 12 months to August 2026 were the highest 12-month period for ‘franchise consultant’ searches since 2004 (67.3 on the index), and the 12 months to September 2026 rank second of 262 such windows. Searches for ‘franchise broker’ averaged 43.8 over the latest 12 months, double the prior 12 months (21.9); they are comparable with the noisy 2005 to 2007 readings rather than clearly above them (Google Trends).

Consultant searches also grew faster than buying searches. On a shared scale, ‘franchise consultant’ equalled 21.8 searches per 100 ‘buy a franchise’ searches in January to September 2026, against 16.2 in 2024 and 11.4 in 2020 (Google Trends comparison). The consultant values on that shared scale are small whole numbers (2026 average 5.8), so treat the ratio as approximate.

Absolute volume remains small next to cost searches: on another shared scale, ‘franchise cost’ averaged 77.1 in January to September 2026 against 13 for ‘buy a franchise’ and 3 for ‘franchise consultant’. The top related query for ‘franchise consultant’ is ‘franchise consultant jobs’ (Table 5), so part of the interest comes from people looking at the work, not hiring a consultant. For what consultants do and how they are paid, see franchise consultants explained and our franchise broker registration tracker.

When do people search for franchises most?

January. For ‘buy a franchise’ the January index is 105.8 against a yearly average of 100, and December is lowest at 95.5 (2010 to 2025, United States, Google Trends). ‘franchise opportunities’ has the strongest January lift (116.1) and ‘franchise broker’ peaks in February (116.4).

Consultant searches follow a different calendar: ‘franchise consultant’ peaks in June (108.5) and is lowest in December (82.9). ‘franchise cost’ peaks in July (107.1). Across all terms, November and December are below average. The swings are modest: the largest is the December low for ‘franchise consultant’ (82.9), so a month-to-month move of 5 to 10 points can be seasonal rather than a change in trend.

Which states search for franchises the most?

Wyoming leads ‘buy a franchise’ with 100 in both samples over October 2021 to September 2026, followed by Florida (60.5), Texas (56), Georgia and South Carolina (55.5 each). The lowest shares are in Vermont (15.5), Alaska (27) and Maine and Montana (29 each) (Google Trends).

For ‘franchise consultant’, Kansas leads (100) ahead of Wyoming (81.5), the District of Columbia (48) and Colorado (43.5). Seven states fell below Google’s threshold in both samples: Alaska, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia.

These values are shares of each state’s own searches (Google help), so a small state can rank first on few searches, and sampling noise is larger where volume is small. Wyoming, a small state, is first in both samples and both windows; we report it as measured and flag it as the least certain ranking. The two samples agree closely on the order (Spearman rho 0.98 for ‘buy a franchise’, 0.87 for ‘franchise consultant’).

States that search more for ‘buy a franchise’ also tend to have more franchise businesses: the rank correlation with the Census franchise share of employer firms in 2023 is 0.48 (Census ABS 2023); for ‘franchise consultant’ it is -0.03, no relationship. For franchise counts by state see franchise statistics by state.

Related rising queries, as published by Google Trends

Google lists the queries searched alongside each term (Google help). ‘Top’ ranks the most frequent; ‘Rising’ ranks the fastest growing versus the previous period, and ‘Breakout’ means growth above 5000%. We reproduce them as published for October 2021 to September 2026 and do not rank or endorse any brand.

Cost questions dominate. The top queries around ‘buy a franchise’ ask how much it costs, and ‘franchise cost’ searches are led by named restaurant and retail brands. Rising ‘franchise opportunities’ queries include pickleball (Breakout), retail and education. For what drives the up-front cost, see franchise costs and funding and franchise affordability.

Franchise searches and new business applications (correlation only)

Franchise buying searches and new business applications have risen together over two decades, but they do not move together month to month. Monthly ‘buy a franchise’ interest and Census business applications correlate at r = 0.69 in levels (July 2004 to August 2026) and 0.8 on annual averages (2005 to 2025), but only 0.15 on 12-month changes (Census BFS; Google Trends). The level correlation mostly reflects a shared upward trend.

Both series were high in 2026. Seasonally adjusted applications averaged 524,182 a month in January to August 2026, 16.7% above the same months of 2025 (Census BFS). Business applications count all Employer Identification Number requests after basic filters, not franchises (Census definitions), and December 2025 data are affected by an IRS online EIN outage (Census notice). None of this shows that searches cause applications or the reverse.

How reliable are these numbers? Sampling variance across repeated pulls

Reliable enough for the headline findings, not for small month-to-month moves in low-volume terms. Google Trends is computed from a sample of searches (Google), and the same request on the same day returns the same sample (Stephens-Davidowitz and Varian). We confirmed this: a second request for each term with a different date string changed at most one month by one point. A request routed through a US network exit, however, returned a different sample, which gave two independent samples on October 7, 2026.

The two samples differed in most months but by small amounts once on the same scale: a median gap of 0.7 index points for ‘buy a franchise’ and 2.3 for ‘franchise consultant’. Gaps are largest where volume is lowest: in 2004 and 2005 one sample shows a spike where the other shows 0, which is why each single sample puts its 100 on an early month for ‘franchise consultant’. In January 2025 to September 2026 the largest gap is 2.3 points for ‘buy a franchise’ and 7.4 for ‘franchise consultant’.

The choice of request window matters more for low-volume terms. Rebuilding the latest-12 vs prior-12 change from up to six series versions (two samples, two date windows, up to two comparison requests) gives 44.2% to 46.3% for ‘buy a franchise’ but 75.0% to 113.9% for ‘franchise consultant’; the highest value comes from a weekly request, where many below-threshold weeks pull the base period down. The direction of the change holds in every version.

How to read Google Trends: relative index, sampling and the 2022 collection change

A relative index. Each point is a term’s share of all Google searches in that place and month, scaled to 0 to 100 within the request (Google Trends FAQ). Rising values can mean more people searched or that the term took a larger share of a changing total. Google removes repeat searches by the same person over a short period and says the data are not a perfect mirror of search activity.

Sampling and rounding. Values are rounded to whole numbers and come from a sample; Google’s own economists suggest averaging samples when precision matters (Stephens-Davidowitz and Varian). Comparing a popular and an unpopular term in one request can push the smaller one to 0, which is why each term here was also pulled alone.

The January 2022 change. Google notes data-collection improvements in 2011, 2016 and 2022, and a study cited by Djorno, Santillana and Yang (2025) found the January 2022 change raised values relative to earlier data. In this dataset the December 2021 to January 2022 step was unusual for ‘buy a franchise’ (+43.5% vs a typical +16.6%) and ‘how to buy a franchise’ (+44.8%), but not for the other five terms. Comparisons that cross January 2022 may carry part of that step.

Not a forecast. Google researchers who pioneered this use framed it as “predicting the present” and stated they were not claiming the data predict the future (Choi and Varian, 2009 draft).

Is now a good time to buy a franchise? What search data can and cannot say

Search data cannot answer that. They show that more Americans looked up buying a franchise, franchise costs and franchise consultants in late 2025 and the first half of 2026 than at any time since 2004, and that the interest had returned to 2025 levels by September 2026 (Google Trends). They say nothing about franchise prices, financing terms, franchisee results or whether a given brand is a sound purchase.

High search interest can mean more competition for attention from franchisors and consultants, or simply curiosity. For the questions that decide a purchase, start with the disclosure document and the financing data in our SBA franchise loans and franchise initial investment reports and the buying a franchise guide.

Methods and next edition

Data were pulled on October 7, 2026 from the endpoints behind the Google Trends Explore page for seven unquoted terms, United States, all categories, web search, January 2004 to the present; October 2026 is partial and excluded. Each term was requested alone (twice by the direct route, once through a US exit), in two comparison requests of five terms, and in three date windows. State interest covers October 2021 to September 2026 and October 2025 to September 2026. Related queries cover October 2021 to September 2026. Scripts are in the downloadable data.

The next edition (first week of November 2026) adds October 2026 and a third sample drawn on a different day.