Blog Franchise Growth · The Franchise Growth Playbook · Part 13
The 2026 franchise outlook in numbers, and what it means for wellness systems
The industry forecast says 1.5% unit growth. The measured federal counts say fitness and personal care keep adding locations while each one employs fewer people. Here is how to plan 2027 on both.
Every fall, franchise leadership teams build next year's plan on a few borrowed numbers. Usually they come from one forecast, quoted secondhand, with no line between what someone predicted and what someone counted. We went back to the primary sources so you can see that line clearly. Then we turned the numbers into a short playbook for fitness, wellness, salon and med spa systems planning 2027.
One rule runs through this post. A forecast is a projection built from a model. A measured result is a count of real establishments or jobs. Both are useful, and they are not the same thing, so every number below is labeled.
What the 2026 forecast says
The International Franchise Association and FRANdata published the 2026 Franchising Economic Outlook on February 19, 2026. We found no mid-year update from either organization as of October 2026, so the February report is the latest forecast. It is worth knowing how it was built: the report describes its 2025 figures as estimates "based on observed and currently available data," and its 2026 figures as projections "derived by extrapolating 2025 estimates." So neither year in the outlook is a final count.
Source: IFA and FRANdata, 2026 Franchising Economic Outlook
The report's growth also differs a lot by business line. Two of its categories matter most to readers of this series. Health and Wellness includes fitness centers, hair care, beauty services, cosmetic services, diet and weight control, and tanning. Personal Services includes pet care, dance schools, maid services, dry cleaning and similar businesses.
Source: IFA and FRANdata, 2026 Franchising Economic Outlook, Franchise Establishments by Business Line
Health and Wellness is projected to grow from 97,309 to 99,353 establishments. That is 2,044 new units, or about 16% of the 12,488 net new franchise units the report projects across all of franchising. The report says the sector is now the third-largest franchised industry, at 11.8% of all franchise establishments. It also expects "value concepts such as HVLP (High Value Low Price) fitness gyms, Pilates, holistic wellness concepts or beauty-related franchise businesses" to "outperform premium and niche concepts," and it expects franchise businesses "to increase marketing spend in an increasingly competitive landscape."
Read those last two lines together. The forecast expects more units competing on value, with more marketing money chasing the same customers.
What was actually counted
For measured results we used the Bureau of Labor Statistics Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which counts establishments and jobs from unemployment insurance records. It covers every business, franchised or independent, so it describes the market your locations compete in, not franchising alone. Its 2025 annual averages are the latest available and are still marked preliminary, so they may be revised.
Source: BLS QCEW annual averages, NAICS 713940, private ownership
From 2019 to 2025, private fitness centers grew from 39,272 to 46,015 establishments, up 17.2%. Employment in the same industry grew from 664,318 to 679,921, up 2.3%. That works out to about 16.9 jobs per fitness establishment in 2019 and about 14.8 in 2025.
Personal care services, the industry group that includes hair, nail and skin care, shows the same shape. Establishments rose from 131,476 in 2019 to 156,103 in 2025, up 18.7%, while employment rose 2.0%, from 736,675 to 751,268. Inside that group, beauty salons added establishments (74,418 to 77,449) while their employment fell from 421,585 to 361,683.
The counts show more doors and fewer people behind each one. Every location now has to fill its own calendar.
The measured data does not say why. Smaller formats, studio concepts and booth rental could all play a part, and the BLS counts cannot tell them apart. What the counts do show is a market with more locations competing for each customer, which matches the forecast's expectation of more marketing spend.
The playbook: plan 2027 on both kinds of numbers
- Label every number in your plan
Put "forecast" or "measured" next to each external figure in your board deck, with its source and date. If a number has no source, take it out.
- Compare your unit plan to the sector, not to franchising overall
Say a 30-location wellness system plans six openings in 2027. That is 20% unit growth against a sector forecast of 2.1%. The gap is not a reason to stop. It shows how much of your growth must come from taking customers from someone else, so budget local marketing per opening, not per year.
- Plan for smaller units with their own trade areas
If each location runs leaner, each one needs its own demand. Draw trade areas by drive time, not radius, and check for overlap with your own locations. We showed why in a circle is not a trade area.
- Market development to multi-unit operators
FRANdata reports that 19.3% of franchisees operate multiple units and control 58.8% of franchised locations. Those buyers ask for unit-level proof, so keep clean, comparable numbers for every location.
- Watch the weakest locations early
The outlook expects the historical unit success rate to slip to about 94.2% in 2025, and it describes franchisors "systematically removing underperforming units." Compare each location to its real peers each month so a struggling one is seen in its first quarter, not its fourth. Our method is in truth, not wins.
The forecast also has a cost line that matters for development. FRANdata reports that average initial investment for personal services brands rose 8.4% in 2025. A higher entry price makes a prospective franchisee look harder at how existing locations perform, and unit-level marketing records are part of that answer.
Planning on one borrowed number
"Franchising grows 1.5% next year," quoted from a slide, applied to every location, with one annual marketing budget for the whole system.
Planning on labeled numbers
A sector forecast labeled as a forecast, a measured count of competing locations, and a marketing budget set per opening and per trade area, checked each month against real peers.
What to do this quarter
Most of this is fourth-quarter work that fits into a planning cycle you already run.
First, rebuild the market slide in your 2027 plan with the numbers above, each labeled. Second, pull your own unit counts by year and set them beside the sector forecast, so the board sees the gap you are planning to close. Third, for each 2027 opening, map the trade area and count competing fitness or personal care locations inside it before you set an opening budget. Audience maps drive-time trade areas, and we learned the hard way that demographics did not predict cost per lead, so do not let a demographic profile stand in for real demand.
Finally, set a calendar reminder for February. The next IFA and FRANdata outlook should replace the 2025 estimates with firmer numbers, and BLS will finalize the 2025 counts. When they do, compare them with what was forecast and update your plan.
Sources
- International Franchise Association and FRANdata, "2026 Franchising Economic Outlook," released February 19, 2026. Report PDF: https://frandata.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2026-Franchising-Economic-Outlook_V2-2.pdf. Summary page: https://www.franchise.org/franchising-economic-outlook/
- International Franchise Association, "IFA Predicts Steady Growth for Franchising in 2026 Economic Outlook," February 19, 2026. https://www.franchise.org/2026/02/ifa-predicts-steady-growth-for-franchising-in-2026-economic-outlook/
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, annual averages 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 (2025 preliminary), private ownership, U.S. totals for NAICS 713940 (Fitness and Recreational Sports Centers), 8121 (Personal Care Services) and 812112 (Beauty Salons), accessed October 10, 2026. https://www.bls.gov/cew/ (data: https://data.bls.gov/cew/data/api/2025/a/industry/713940.csv)