The federal Franchise Rule governs disclosure. It says nothing about registration. Registration is a creature of state law, and the states built their franchise statutes separately, at different times, with different scope and different vocabulary.
So the question is underspecified rather than difficult. An answer to it depends on what the person answering decided to count.
Three different things get called registration
Separating them is most of the work, and doing it makes the varying counts explicable rather than suspicious.
- Registration. A state examines a franchise offering and issues an effective registration before the franchisor may offer or sell there.
- Filing or notice. A state requires a document, or a notice claiming an exemption, to be filed before offering, without examining or approving the offering itself.
- Relationship law. A state regulates what happens after the sale. Where it has one, it restricts termination, non-renewal or transfer, and says nothing about registration at all.
Why this page gives no number
The three overlap, and a state may run any combination of them: a registration regime, a relationship statute, both, or only a notice requirement. A count therefore depends on which of the three the counter decided to include.
No primary source consulted for this page publishes a single figure. The Federal Trade Commission does not, because registration is not federal, and NASAA, which coordinates the registration guidelines the states work from, publishes no count either. Whatever number is in circulation goes stale as soon as a statute is amended.
So the honest answer is a method rather than a number: identify the states a particular plan actually touches, and read each one's own statute. What follows is what that reading produces, and it is more useful than a count would have been.
The verb that matters is offer
California's provision is one sentence: it shall be unlawful for any person to offer or sell any franchise in this state unless the offer of the franchise has been registered under this part or exempted (opens in a new tab). New York's makes it unlawful for any person to offer to sell or sell in this state any franchise unless and until there shall have been registered with the department of law, prior to such offer or sale, an offering prospectus (opens in a new tab). Washington's makes it unlawful for any franchisor or subfranchisor to sell or offer to sell any franchise in this state unless the offer of the franchise has been registered or exempted (opens in a new tab). All three attach to the offer.
Which is why a website can be the exposure
All three statutes define the word the same way, and soliciting is inside the definition. California's reaches every attempt to dispose of, or solicitation of an offer to buy, a franchise (opens in a new tab), New York's any attempt to offer to dispose of, or solicitation of an offer to buy (opens in a new tab), Washington's every attempt or offer to dispose of or solicitation of an offer to buy (opens in a new tab). So an enquiry form that accepts a submission, or a conversation begun with somebody in one of those states, is capable of being a solicitation long before anybody signs or pays.
Advertising is not inside that definition, and two of the three handle it in a section of its own. California requires that a true copy of the advertisement be filed with the commissioner at least three business days before first publication (opens in a new tab), and Washington at least seven days before publication (opens in a new tab). Both apply to advertisements offering a franchise subject to registration, so they bite once registration does.
Between them those two things are the reason a franchisor in formation keeps its public pages informational and says plainly that nothing is being offered. It is not a disclaimer habit. It is the statutes, which put solicitation inside the definition of an offer, and in two of these three put advertising on a filing clock of its own.
A state with no registration can still require a filing
Texas has no franchise registration statute. It does have a Business Opportunity Act, and a franchise complying with the federal rule falls outside it, but the exclusion is not automatic. The Texas Secretary of State states that prior to offering for sale or selling, the seller must file an exemption notice (opens in a new tab), and that the notice does not have a term or expiration date; it is a one time filing (opens in a new tab).
No list of registration states has a column for that. Texas appears on such a list, when it appears at all, as a state with nothing to do, and a franchisor reading it that way would not have filed the notice the Secretary of State says must be filed before offering or selling.
How to check a single state properly
Start from the state's own statute rather than from anybody's summary. Find the section that makes offering or selling unlawful without registration, filing or exemption. Read that state's own definition of a franchise, because it is the definition the section turns on and it need not match the federal one. Then identify the administering agency, which the statute names. The right reader for the answer is a franchise lawyer admitted in that state.
What changes, and how often
Statutes are amended, forms and fees change, and an exemption available one year can acquire conditions the next. Anything on this page could be out of date by the time it matters to a particular plan, including every statute and agency page quoted on it.
Every claim here links to the statute or the agency it came from, so checking one is a click rather than a search. That is the only durable form a page like this can take, and it is why no count appears on it.