Best Home Care & Senior Care Franchises 2026: FDD Data

Quick Summary

• Investment range across 20 brands: roughly $54,401 (HomeWell Care Services low end) to $430,050 (Amada Senior Care high end) in total initial investment.
• Initial franchise fees cluster tightly: from $20,000 (CarePatrol's reduced-fee option) up to $89,950 (Visiting Angels upper tier); most brands sit between $49,500 and $59,000.
• Royalty rates range from 3.5% to 10% of gross revenue, with most non-medical home care brands at 5–6%.
• All 20 brands in this analysis make an Item 19 Financial Performance Representation (FPR) — a rare 100% disclosure rate compared with many other franchise verticals.
• Top-end revenue figures: Home Instead's 2025 FDD reports average gross sales of $2,609,616 (median $2,261,503) across 603 franchised businesses; multi-territory operators at HomeWell Care Services averaged $3,200,790 in 2024 gross revenue; Amada Senior Care's franchisee ownership groups averaged $2,218,487 (median $1,710,305) across 103 groups.
• Growth leaders (2022–2025): FirstLight Home Care expanded by +89 outlets (+46%), HomeWell Care Services by +78 outlets (+77%), and BrightStar Care, Always Best Care, CarePatrol, and Amada each added 50+ locations.

How to Use This Guide

If you're exploring a home care or senior care franchise, you're looking at one of the largest franchised service categories in the United States — and one where the financial performance disclosures are unusually generous. Every one of the 20 brands covered in this analysis makes an Item 19 Financial Performance Representation, meaning prospective buyers have real, audited-style revenue data to study before signing a franchise agreement. That's not true in many other industries.

The terms "home care" and "senior care" are used interchangeably throughout this article because the industry itself uses them that way. The underlying services overlap heavily: companion care, personal care, meal prep, medication reminders, transportation, respite, and (in some brands) skilled medical home health. A few brands — CarePatrol and Assisted Living Locators — sit in an adjacent senior-services category: they help families find assisted living or memory care communities rather than providing direct in-home care themselves. Where distinctions matter, we call them out.

We reviewed every page of each brand's 2025 or 2026 FDD. Some franchisors present their Item 19 financial data in layered, multi-table exhibits — single-territory view in one table, multi-territory (or "franchise ownership group") view in another, mature-operator view in a third. For those brands, we default to the view that best reflects what a typical franchise buyer will actually operate (most home care buyers run a multi-territory business over time), and we note when a brand's disclosure is best reviewed in its original context rather than reduced to a single headline number.

Home Care & Senior Care Franchise Comparison: 2025–2026 FDD Data

*Assisting Hands royalty is tiered by gross revenue (4% at higher tiers, 5% at lower). *CarePatrol offers a reduced-fee optionality program beginning at $20,000 alongside its standard $57,000 fee. *Comfort Keepers charges a 5% royalty on gross revenue with a $500 monthly minimum. *Visiting Angels offers multiple franchise fee tiers based on territory size. See Item 6 of each brand's FDD for full fee structure details.

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What the FDDs Actually Show: Item 19 Deep Dive

The home care and senior care category is unusual among franchised verticals in that every brand in this analysis makes a Financial Performance Representation. That's 20 of 20 — a 100% FPR rate that lets us compare actual revenue figures rather than relying on franchisor marketing claims. What follows walks through three subcategories: non-medical in-home care (the bulk of the industry), medical home health, and senior placement and referral.

Non-Medical In-Home Care: The Core of the Category

The non-medical in-home care segment — where caregivers provide companion care, personal care, meal prep, bathing assistance, transportation, and respite — is where most of the 20 brands operate. The revenue spread within this group is wide, and much of the variation is explained by two factors: how the franchisor segments its data (per-territory vs. per-owner/FOG, single-year vs. mature operators) and how long the typical franchisee has been in business.

Home Instead's 2025 FDD reports, across all 603 US franchised businesses operating through 2024, average gross sales of $2,609,616, a median of $2,261,503, a high of $10,914,442, and a low of $122,209. Home Instead is one of the largest home care brands by unit count (625 US outlets at the end of 2024) and its scale is reflected in the per-unit revenue: about 41% of franchised businesses met or exceeded the system average. Home Instead's Item 19 also publishes a Care Platform subset (20 franchises that used Home Instead's Care Platform for both full calendar years 2023 and 2024), which showed 12% average year-over-year growth in gross sales with a median growth of 9%.

HomeWell Care Services' 2025 FDD provides one of the clearest examples of why multi-territory reporting matters. Table 1 covers all 93 HomeWell businesses in operation as of December 31, 2024. Table 2 isolates single-territory businesses (34 of them), and Table 3 — the most relevant view for a franchise buyer building toward scale — shows multi-territory HomeWell businesses averaged $3,200,790 in 2024 annual gross revenue, with a median of $2,202,966, across 30 multi-territory operators. A subset of those 30 businesses held 37 territories collectively. Single-territory HomeWell businesses open more than one year averaged $1,312,104 (median $860,612, per Table 2). The gap between the single-territory and multi-territory views is structural — franchisees who expand to multiple territories tend to build operational leverage and revenue scales accordingly.

ComForCare's 2025 FDD makes a similar per-territory vs. per-owner distinction explicit. Table A covers 220 franchise territories with an average gross sales of $1,295,843 and a median of $849,804. Table B aggregates the same activity at the franchise-owner level (combining multiple territories where an owner holds them) — 154 franchise owners, with average gross sales of $2,065,531 and median $1,275,541. The franchisor's FDD explicitly notes that Table B data "may be more favorable than the data reported by franchise territory as represented in Table A" — which reflects the reality that ComForCare's more established franchise owners operate multiple territories.

CarePatrol's 2025 FDD (though CarePatrol is a placement-and-referral brand rather than pure non-medical home care, it uses the same Table A / Table B framework) reports Table A average gross sales of $406,857 and median $293,184 across 141 franchise territories. The FDD similarly notes that Table B — which aggregates by owner — produces more favorable per-owner figures and should be reviewed directly in the FDD.

Griswold Home Care's 2025 FDD publishes a six-part Item 19 disclosure. Part I (the all-franchised-locations view) shows average gross receipts of $2,131,036 and a median of $1,672,644 across 48 franchised locations operating 92 territories in 2024. The multi-territory subset (Part III) shows materially higher figures — operators holding four territories averaged $3,717,112 (median $3,212,260) and operators holding three territories averaged $2,676,186 (median $2,262,784). Like HomeWell and ComForCare, Griswold's data makes the multi-territory operator premium visible in the FDD itself.

Always Best Care Senior Services' 2026 FDD reports, for franchisees operating for two or more years in 2025, an average gross sales of $3,290,081 and a median of $2,427,318 across 91 franchisees (operating 260 assigned areas). The 2-or-more-year cohort figures have grown year-over-year (2023 average: $2,469,658; 2024: $2,941,013; 2025: $3,290,081), which reflects the combined effect of franchisee maturation and system-wide revenue growth. Always Best Care's disclosure includes both placement and in-home care revenue streams.

Amada Senior Care's 2025 FDD publishes three views of gross billings for 2024. The per-territory view (all 142 franchised outlets open for the full calendar year) shows an average of $1,607,831 and a median of $1,194,785, with a high of $9,897,870. The franchisee ownership group view — aggregating billings at the owner level across 103 ownership groups — shows an average of $2,218,487 and a median of $1,710,305, with 2023-to-2024 growth of 14.7% in average and 12.6% in median. The top-quartile per-territory tier (35 outlets) averaged $3,543,407 with a median of $3,131,020. Amada's layered disclosure is useful for benchmarking both typical and upper-end outcomes.

Homewatch CareGivers' 2025 FDD publishes both a per-territory and a per-franchisee view of 2024 gross revenue. Table 1-A (per-territory) shows an average of $1,367,155 and a median of $728,401 across 196 territories. Table 1-B (per-franchisee, combining revenue across all territories a franchisee holds) shows a materially different picture: average gross revenue of $2,552,023 and a median of $1,144,985 across 105 franchisees, with the 4+ years tenure band averaging $3,460,856 (median $1,864,338). Homewatch also publishes a mature-franchisee view (87 franchisees in business at least three years who reported revenue in all 12 months of 2024) — a self-selected subset that shows higher performance, with the selection bias the FDD discloses explicitly.

Home Helpers Home Care's 2025 FDD reports, for all 160 franchised locations reporting full-year gross revenues in 2024, an average of $1,897,833 and a median of $1,165,844, with a highest of $28,647,772 and a lowest of $2,880. Home Helpers publishes Top 50, Bottom 50, and All Locations tiers plus time-in-system breakdowns: locations in the system more than 120 months averaged $2,649,269 (median $1,690,443). The franchisor notes that most Home Helpers franchisees operate from a single office location regardless of how many franchise territories they own, so the location-level data aggregates revenue across the territories a single franchisee holds.

Comfort Keepers' 2025 FDD reports, across all 600 franchised businesses open one year or more as of August 31, 2025, an average net revenue of $1,277,857 and a median of $857,010, with the highest franchisee net revenue at $21,532,846 and the lowest at $8,829. Comfort Keepers segments its data by months in operation: businesses open 85+ months (532 franchisees, the most mature tier) averaged $1,355,613 (median $902,478), while franchisees in earlier tenure bands reported materially lower figures. The tenure segmentation makes the revenue ramp visible in the FDD itself.

Senior Helpers' 2025 FDD reports median gross revenue of approximately $979,204 across 20 reporting segments of franchised Senior Helpers Care Businesses that had been operating for at least 12 months as of December 2024.

FirstLight Home Care's 2026 FDD reports median gross revenue of $886,164 across 194 of its 284 reporting territories for the 12-month period ending December 31, 2025. FirstLight has been one of the fastest-growing home care franchises over the past three years, so this median reflects a network that skews toward newer operators.

Executive Home Care's 2025 FDD reports median net billings of approximately $733,856 across combined-territory operators. Executive Home Care uses a "Combined Territory" aggregation where multiple territories owned by a single agency are reported together.

A Place at Home's 2025 FDD presents detailed per-outlet gross sales data for 33 franchise outlets. Individual-outlet revenues ranged from roughly $117,000 at the low end to just under $2.9M at the high end in 2024, with a median in the $567K range. A Place at Home publishes outlet-level detail (including gross profit percentages and EBITDA percentages) for each disclosed outlet — a level of transparency that is worth reading in full rather than summarizing with a single number.

Visiting Angels' 2025 FDD presents its financial performance data in a Revenue-vs-Longevity chart across 539 reporting franchisees — a distribution format rather than a standard summary table. The chart is best reviewed in the original document; the disclosure covers the full reporting population.

Medical Home Health & Skilled Care

Interim HealthCare's 2025 FDD operates across two disclosure "parts": Part 1 covers home healthcare (including certified home healthcare services) and Part 2 covers Hospice Services. The All Part 1 Territories view (145 territories in 2024) shows a median gross revenue of approximately $2,068,080. Interim also publishes a Top 50 / Bottom 50 segmentation within Part 1, which is useful for understanding the spread between higher-performing and lower-performing territories. Buyers evaluating Interim should review Part 1 and Part 2 independently — the two service lines have different economics and regulatory requirements.

BrightStar Care's 2026 FDD publishes one of the most layered Item 19 disclosures in the category. Table A covers first-agency franchises only, broken out by quartile. Table F expands the view to all franchised and affiliate-owned agencies regardless of whether they are a first agency or an additional agency. Table G extends that further across all locations, and Table B isolates small-territory markets (population under 400,000). For the 131 first franchised agencies open at least 12 months as of December 31, 2025, BrightStar reports average 2025 revenue of $2,302,727 and median of $1,836,319. For the 123 first franchised agencies open at least 24 months, the average rose to $2,373,392 with a median of $1,938,777. BrightStar also notes that roughly 75% of franchisees in Table A had no prior healthcare experience before becoming a BrightStar franchisee, which is relevant context for first-time buyers. BrightStar is unusual in the segment because it holds state licensure for skilled nursing in many markets, bridging non-medical and medical home care in the same franchise.

Senior Placement & Referral

Senior placement and referral franchises — CarePatrol and Assisted Living Locators — operate a different business model from direct in-home care. They help families find and transition into assisted living, memory care, or independent living communities, and are paid referral fees by those communities. As a result, revenue per franchisee is typically lower than in-home care but the operational footprint is lighter (no caregiver payroll, no scheduling operations).

CarePatrol's 2025 FDD reports per-territory average gross sales of $406,857 and median $293,184 across 141 reporting territories (Table A). Table B, which aggregates by owner, produces more favorable figures and should be reviewed in the FDD.

Assisted Living Locators' 2025 FDD reports median placement-fee revenue of approximately $251,338 across 35 reporting franchisees. Assisted Living Locators operates through a single-table presentation focused on placement-fee revenue, and the lower per-unit revenue reflects the referral-based business model rather than a weakness in the brand.

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Which Type of Home Care or Senior Care Franchise Is Right for You?

Non-Medical In-Home Care

Best for: Entrepreneurs who want to build a recurring-revenue service business, who are comfortable with caregiver recruitment and scheduling, and who want to enter the senior care industry without clinical licensure.

Illustrative data point: HomeWell Care Services' Table 3 showed multi-territory operators averaged $3.2M in 2024 gross revenue (median $2.2M) across 30 businesses. The segment rewards franchisees who scale to multiple territories.

Main tradeoff: Labor. Caregiver recruitment, retention, and scheduling are the operational core of a non-medical home care franchise. Payroll as a percentage of revenue is the single largest determinant of unit economics, and it's not something the franchisor can solve for you.

Medical Home Health / Skilled Care

Best for: Buyers with a healthcare background (nursing, healthcare administration, home health agency experience) or who are willing to hire a licensed clinical leader. Medical home health opens Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance reimbursement channels that non-medical cannot access.

Illustrative data point: Interim HealthCare's 2025 FDD shows All Part 1 Territories median gross revenue of ~$2,068,080 — higher than most non-medical home care brands' per-territory medians.

Main tradeoff: Licensing and regulation. Skilled home health requires state licensure, Medicare certification (in many cases), and ongoing compliance. Initial investment is higher (Interim's range begins at $156,000) and the ramp to revenue takes longer than non-medical care.

Senior Placement & Referral

Best for: Relationship-driven entrepreneurs comfortable with a lower-overhead, advisory-style business. Low payroll footprint (no caregivers to hire), higher reliance on business-development work with hospitals, hospice, and community referral sources.

Illustrative data point: Assisted Living Locators' 2025 FDD shows median placement-fee revenue of ~$251,338 — lower than home care per-franchisee revenue but without the caregiver payroll burden.

Main tradeoff: Revenue ceiling. Placement and referral franchises generally have lower per-franchisee revenue ceilings than in-home care, though they carry materially lower operating costs.

The Royalty Fee Trap: What the FDDs Reveal

Royalty rates across the home care and senior care category range from 3.5% to 10% of gross revenue, with most non-medical brands sitting at 5%. The range is narrower than in many industries but still meaningful over a 10-year franchise term.

At the low end, Interim HealthCare (3.5%) and Visiting Angels (3.5%) charge materially less than most of the field. Griswold Home Care (4%) and Assisting Hands (4%–5% tiered) also run below the modal rate. At the high end, Assisted Living Locators (8%) and CarePatrol (10%) charge more — which is typical for the placement-and-referral model, where marketing investment and lead-generation costs borne by the franchisor are higher relative to the franchisee's operating costs.

The headline royalty number isn't the full story. Most brands in the category also charge:

• Brand / marketing fund contributions: typically 1%–3% of gross revenue. Home Helpers charges 3%, BrightStar charges 2.5%, most non-medical brands charge 2%.
• Technology and software fees: per-month flat fees ranging from roughly $175 (Always Best Care, Homewatch) up to $2,100 (Right at Home's tech-and-systems monthly).
• Transfer fees: $6,000 to $25,000 or a percentage of the then-current franchise fee, triggered only if you sell your franchise.

For a franchisee generating $1.5M in gross revenue, a 5% royalty plus a 2% brand fund contribution alone equates to about $105,000 per year in fees to the franchisor — before tech fees. That's a real line item, and it reinforces why comparing effective total fee burden (not just the headline royalty) is more informative than comparing royalty rates alone.

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How Much Does a Home Care or Senior Care Franchise Cost?

Initial investment in the category spans a wide range, driven primarily by whether the brand requires an office buildout, the size of the protected territory, and whether the business model is non-medical, medical, or placement.

Under $100K total investment

• HomeWell Care Services ($54K–$234K; upper range extends well into higher tiers but the entry point is the lowest in the group)
• CarePatrol ($65K–$136K)
• Assisted Living Locators ($75K–$95K)
• Always Best Care Senior Services ($90K–$146K; low end just under $100K)
• Right at Home ($94K–$176K; low end just under $100K)

$100K–$200K

• Assisting Hands Home Care ($97K–$180K)
• Executive Home Care ($100K–$144K)
• Griswold Home Care ($100K–$181K)
• ComForCare ($102K–$164K)
• BrightStar Care ($103K–$220K; upper range extends into the next tier)
• Home Helpers Home Care ($114K–$163K)
• Home Instead ($91K–$270K; spans multiple tiers)
• A Place at Home ($91K–$166K)
• Homewatch CareGivers ($122K–$178K)
• Comfort Keepers ($120K–$191K)
• Visiting Angels ($125K–$171K)

$150K–$260K

• Senior Helpers ($149K–$221K)
• FirstLight Home Care ($151K–$256K)
• Interim HealthCare ($156K–$239K)

Above $260K (upper ranges only)

• Home Instead (up to $269,750 at the high end)
• Amada Senior Care (up to $430,050 at the high end — the highest in the group; the upper range reflects larger protected territories)

Most home care and senior care franchises in the $90K–$180K range cover initial franchise fee, territory development, technology setup, initial marketing, working capital, and office setup (which for most non-medical brands is a small leased suite, not a major buildout).

Growth Trends: Which Franchises Are Expanding?

Of the 20 brands in this analysis, 17 grew their outlet count between the earliest and latest disclosed years in their Item 20 filings, two were essentially flat (Visiting Angels and Home Instead), and Comfort Keepers showed a small net decline that is explained by a large-scale reclassification of company-owned stores to franchised units (more on that below).

Absolute growth leaders (net outlet additions, 2022/2023 through 2024/2025):

• FirstLight Home Care — expanded from 195 to 284 outlets between 2023 and 2025, a net gain of +89 locations (+46%), the largest absolute growth in this dataset
• HomeWell Care Services — expanded from 101 to 179 outlets between 2022 and 2024, a net gain of +78 locations (+77%), the largest percentage growth
• BrightStar Care — expanded from 367 to 427 total locations (franchised + company-owned) between 2023 and 2025, a net gain of +60
• Always Best Care Senior Services — expanded from 231 to 291 between 2023 and 2025, a net gain of +60
• CarePatrol — expanded from 160 to 215 between 2023 and 2025, a net gain of +55 (+34%)
• Amada Senior Care — expanded from 150 to 203 between 2022 and 2024, a net gain of +53 (+35%)
• Assisting Hands Home Care — expanded from 155 to 207 between 2022 and 2024, a net gain of +52
• ComForCare — expanded from 218 to 270 between 2023 and 2025, a net gain of +52

Mid-pack growers: Right at Home (+48), Senior Helpers (+40), Home Helpers (+36), Assisted Living Locators (+31), Interim HealthCare (+19), Griswold Home Care (+17).

Flat or modest growth: Home Instead (+13 from 612 to 625, a roughly 2% expansion across its already-large system), Homewatch CareGivers (+12), Visiting Angels (+1 — effectively flat at ~539 outlets).

Comfort Keepers' net outlet decline from 640 to 624 total locations masks an important internal shift: franchised outlets grew from 535 to 619 (+84) while company-owned stores contracted from 105 to 5 (a reduction of 100) as Comfort Keepers refranchised former company stores. The franchisee base grew substantially; the total count declined because previously corporate stores were converted to franchisee ownership.

A few context caveats worth carrying into any growth comparison:

• Net outlet counts reflect gross openings minus closures, terminations, and non-renewals. A declining count doesn't necessarily mean a brand has unprofitable franchisees — it can reflect portfolio optimization, territory consolidation, or reclassification (as with Comfort Keepers).
• The scale effect matters. Adding 13 outlets to a 612-outlet system (Home Instead) is strategically different from adding 89 outlets to a 195-outlet base (FirstLight) — percentage growth rewards smaller systems in active scaling mode, while absolute growth rewards larger systems.
• Placement franchises (CarePatrol, Assisted Living Locators) and newer non-medical brands (Executive Home Care, A Place at Home) tend to show higher percentage growth because they are still in mid-scale expansion. More mature systems (Home Instead, Visiting Angels, Interim HealthCare) show slower percentage growth by design.

What Drives Profitability: Lessons from the FDD Data

A few cross-cutting patterns emerge across the 20 brands' Item 19 disclosures:

Tenure is the dominant driver of revenue. Every brand that publishes tenure-segmented data — Interim HealthCare's time-in-system breakdown, Amada's top-quartile tiering, Comfort Keepers' mature-operator segmentation, Homewatch's 3-year mature-franchisee view — shows meaningful lift in revenue as franchisees mature. The pattern is consistent: first-year revenues are a fraction of mature-operator revenues, and the gap persists for years. A prospective buyer should not benchmark first-year expectations against system-wide medians — doing so overstates expected ramp.

Multi-territory operators outperform single-territory operators in every dataset that distinguishes the two. HomeWell's Table 3 multi-territory average ($3.2M) is more than 2x the single-territory average ($1.3M, Table 2). ComForCare's Table B per-owner average ($2.07M) is materially higher than Table A per-territory ($1.30M). CarePatrol notes the same pattern explicitly in its FDD. The operational case for scaling to multiple territories over time is baked into the structure of the category — and the per-owner view is what a serious buyer should be anchoring on.

Labor cost structure is not disclosed uniformly, but where it is, it dominates. ComForCare, Homewatch CareGivers, and A Place at Home disclose revenue source composition and/or direct caregiver costs in Item 19. A Place at Home's per-outlet disclosure goes further, publishing gross profit percentage and EBITDA percentage by outlet — these outlets show wide dispersion (gross profit ranges in the 30%–55% band; EBITDA percentages range from negative single digits to over 40%). The variation within the same brand underscores that operator skill, not brand selection alone, drives profitability.

Medical home health and placement generate distinct unit economics. Medical (Interim HealthCare, BrightStar's skilled work) carries higher initial investment and longer licensing ramp but accesses Medicare/insurance revenue streams with structurally different margins. Placement (CarePatrol, Assisted Living Locators) operates at lower per-franchisee revenue with far lower operating overhead. Neither is "better" in isolation — they are different businesses that happen to share the senior care umbrella.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most profitable home care or senior care franchise?

No single brand is universally "most profitable" — unit economics vary by tenure, multi-territory scale, and operator quality. Among brands disclosing multi-territory or FOG data, HomeWell Care Services' 2025 FDD Table 3 shows multi-territory operators averaged $3.2M (median $2.2M) in 2024 gross revenue. Home Instead's 2025 FDD reports average gross sales of $2.6M (median $2.26M) across 603 franchised businesses. Amada Senior Care's franchisee ownership groups averaged $2.22M (median $1.71M) across 103 groups. Always Best Care's 2025 cohort of franchisees operating 2+ years averaged $3.29M (median $2.43M) across 91 franchisees. These numbers are gross revenue, not profit — and profitability depends heavily on labor cost structure, which is operator-driven.

How long does it take to break even in home care or senior care?

FDDs don't publish break-even figures directly, but Item 19 tenure-segmentation data is the next-best proxy. Across brands that disclose by time-in-system, first-year revenues are typically well below $500,000, and most franchisees take 2–4 years to reach the revenue bands at which unit economics turn clearly positive. Interim HealthCare, Homewatch CareGivers, and HomeWell all publish tenure bands that make this ramp visible.

Can you run a home care or senior care franchise semi-absentee?

Most franchisors in the non-medical segment allow for semi-absentee ownership, but all of them — in either Item 15 or their operating expectations — emphasize that having an owner engaged in business development (hospital, hospice, senior community referral relationships) materially affects revenue trajectory. Medical home health brands (Interim HealthCare, BrightStar) generally require either owner-operator engagement or a qualified clinical leader in the business.

What does Item 19 of the home care franchise FDD show?

Item 19 is the franchisor's Financial Performance Representation. In home care and senior care, Item 19 disclosures are unusually robust: every one of the 20 brands in this analysis makes an FPR. These disclosures typically include average and median gross revenue or gross sales, often segmented by years in operation, territory count, or performance quartile. Some brands (HomeWell, ComForCare, CarePatrol, BrightStar, Interim HealthCare) provide multiple tables representing different aggregation levels, and reading all of them together is essential.

Which home care or senior care franchises are growing the fastest?

FirstLight Home Care (+46% between 2023 and 2025), HomeWell Care Services (+77% between 2022 and 2024), Executive Home Care (+62% off a small base), Amada Senior Care (+35%), CarePatrol (+34%), and Assisting Hands (+34%) show the highest three-year percentage growth. FirstLight added the most outlets in absolute terms (+89), followed by HomeWell (+78).

Is a home care franchise worth it?

The home care and senior care category offers unusually transparent disclosure (20 of 20 brands make an FPR), reliable long-term demand driven by US demographic aging, and a business model with scaling options (multi-territory expansion, adding skilled services over time). That said, the category is also heavily labor-dependent, subject to state-by-state licensure in the medical segment, and unit economics are meaningfully operator-driven. Whether it's "worth it" depends on your financial position, operational willingness, and fit for relationship-driven business development — not on brand selection alone.

How should I compare home care brands when the Item 19 tables are structured differently?

Anchor on three questions before comparing numbers: (1) Is the table showing per-territory, per-office, per-franchise-owner, or per-company aggregation? Franchise-owner (FOG) figures are typically higher than per-territory figures for the same system. (2) Is the table showing a mature-operator subset or the full population? Mature-operator subsets show higher averages because they exclude ramping franchisees. (3) Is the metric an average, median, or top-quartile? Top-quartile figures from one brand are not comparable to system-wide averages from another. Compare apples to apples before drawing conclusions.

Key Questions to Ask Before Signing

Based on the FDD data in this guide, a buyer seriously evaluating a home care or senior care franchise should bring the following to conversations with the franchisor and with existing franchisees:

• Ask the franchisor to walk you through Item 19 by aggregation level. If the brand publishes both single-territory and multi-territory (or per-owner / FOG) tables — as HomeWell, ComForCare, CarePatrol, and BrightStar do — ask what percentage of the franchise base is single-territory vs. multi-territory, and how revenue scales as an operator adds territories.
• Ask for first-year, second-year, and third-year revenue ranges from actual franchisees at your stage. Item 19 medians and averages include mature operators; they overstate first-year expectations. Brands that disclose tenure-segmented data (Interim HealthCare, Homewatch CareGivers, HomeWell, Home Helpers) make this easier to see, but the franchisor should be willing to validate ramp numbers from recent starts.
• Ask about caregiver recruitment and retention, not just revenue. Labor is the single largest operating cost line in non-medical home care, and caregiver churn is a real operational drag. Ask the franchisor how the system supports caregiver sourcing and retention, and ask existing franchisees whether that support materially moves the needle.
• If you're considering a medical home health brand (Interim HealthCare, BrightStar Care's skilled segment), ask specifically about state licensure timelines and Medicare certification. The ramp to revenue in medical home health is materially longer than in non-medical, and the regulatory path varies by state.
• If you're considering a placement brand (CarePatrol, Assisted Living Locators), ask about referral-source development. Placement franchises live and die on referral relationships with hospitals, hospice, senior communities, social workers, and discharge planners. Ask how existing franchisees built their referral networks and how long it took.
• Ask about the total effective fee load, not just the headline royalty. A 5% royalty paired with a 2% marketing fund contribution and a $500/month tech fee is meaningfully different from a 5% royalty alone. Model the full fee burden against a realistic multi-year revenue curve before comparing brands.

Finding Your Best Home Care or Senior Care Franchise Match

The home care and senior care category gives prospective franchise buyers more transparent financial data than almost any other franchised vertical — every brand in this analysis discloses an Item 19 FPR, and most publish segmented views that let a diligent buyer compare per-territory, per-owner, and mature-operator performance in the same brand's own filing. That transparency is a gift. Use it.

The right brand for you depends on how much you're willing to invest, whether you're entering a medical or non-medical segment, how much operator engagement you're prepared to commit, and whether your local market is better served by direct in-home care or by a placement and referral model. Start by comparing the Item 19 tables at the same aggregation level across brands, then layer in your own investment ceiling, your licensure appetite, and your strengths in business development. Finally, talk to current franchisees — Item 19 numbers are a starting point, not a substitute for hearing from operators in markets comparable to yours.

If you'd like help narrowing your shortlist based on your investment range, market, and operating preferences, request free info below and a franchise advisor will follow up.

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Data sourced from 2025 and 2026 Franchise Disclosure Documents on file with state franchise registration authorities (California DFPI, Minnesota CARDS, Wisconsin DFI, Washington DFI, and others as applicable). FDDs are updated annually; figures in this guide are current as of April 2026 and may be superseded by subsequent filings. This article is editorial research and does not constitute financial, legal, tax, or investment advice.