What it costs to open

Item 7 is an estimate of the investment needed to establish and begin operating one franchised business. It is not a quote, a financing promise or a maximum. The FTC’s Item 7 rule requires a prescribed table with expense types, amounts or ranges, payment timing, payees and refundability, plus a total.

Read three Items as one

Start with Item 5, which identifies initial fees paid to the franchisor or an affiliate. Then read Item 7, where those fees usually reappear as part of the total investment. Do not add them twice. Finish with Item 6, because recurring charges begin when the agreement, development schedule or outlet operation says they begin—not necessarily when sales are strong enough to absorb them.

Build a worksheet with four buckets:

1. Payments to the system: franchise and development fees, opening advertising, training-related charges and required deposits.
2. Premises and fixed assets: lease deposits, design, permits, construction, fixtures, equipment, signs and technology.
3. Opening inventory and launch: initial stock, smallwares, uniforms, licenses, insurance and travel.
4. Additional funds: payroll, occupancy, utilities and other operating cash for the period the filing states.

The fourth bucket is often misunderstood. Federal rules call for at least three months or another reasonable initial period, but that does not mean three months is enough for a particular lease, construction delay or sales ramp. Item 7 also does not automatically include an owner’s salary, debt service, personal living expenses or every local contingency. Read the footnote and ask what is excluded.

Three adjacent concepts, three ranges

Start with the compact shop. Döner Haus’s 2026 FDD puts one 850–1,200 square-foot imbiss at $359,500–$586,000. GDK’s Wisconsin registration identifies the current document for the other German döner filing: $690,500–$1,123,000 per 1,200–1,400 square-foot outlet, inside a five-outlet minimum. Shah’s Halal’s complete 2025 Minnesota-filed document states a $207,000–$410,000 range on its cover for a licensed-heavy chicken-and-rice restaurant. The Halal Guys’ 2025 Wisconsin filing is a fourth restaurant and a different development structure.

Those totals are not a cheapest-to-dearest ranking. They are different rooms. Compare the rows. One range assumes a standing sandwich window; another a mall restaurant you can only buy in fives; another a conversion or a seated dining room. One may include a development obligation outside the single-unit total. Real-property treatment, landlord work, equipment financing and the initial operating period can move large costs between rows or outside the table.

The current Halal Guys franchise page publishes broad investment requirements for single- and multi-unit buyers. That page is useful for screening, but the delivered FDD controls the definitions for a transaction. The same distinction applies to any operator calculator or “starting from” number.

Plan above the table, not from the low end

Price the actual site with bids, local permit requirements and a construction schedule. Separate costs the franchisor estimated from costs a landlord, lender or local authority controls. Model the Item 7 low and high, then add a buyer-owned contingency that is visibly separate rather than pretending it came from the filing.

Ask current franchisees for the bridge from their Item 7 to final cash required: which rows overran, how long the store took to open, when rent started and how much operating cash remained on opening day. Compare recent stores of the same format and market type. A historical low-end conversion in a suburban strip is poor evidence for a new urban build.

The useful output is not one number. It is a sources-and-uses schedule, dated showing who supplied each estimate, when cash leaves, what can change and what the FDD does not cover.

Additional funds are not a rounding error

The Item 7 worksheets here show how differently filings treat the opening-cash row.

Brand	Additional funds	Months	Item 7 total	Source
GDK	$15,000–$20,000	3	$690,500–$1,123,000	FDD issued 3 September 2024
Shah’s Halal Food	$10,000–$30,000	3	$197,000–$405,000	FDD issued 10 April 2024
375° Chicken ‘n Fries	$30,000–$60,000	3	$324,100–$521,500	FDD issued 30 April 2024
The Great Greek Mediterranean Grill	$35,000–$75,000	0–6	$582,014–$1,088,560	FDD issued 17 August 2023
Mad for Chicken	$51,375–$162,000	3	$321,125–$691,700	FDD issued 12 March 2025
Döner Haus	$20,000–$35,000	3	$359,500–$586,000	2026 Franchise Disclosure Document

GDK’s working-capital line is small against a seven-figure high. That is a disclosed estimate, not a proof that a 1,200–1,400 square-foot shop ramps on $20,000. Mad for Chicken’s high additional-funds figure is $162,000 in a 2,000–4,000 square-foot full restaurant. Same three-month label, different cash.

Shah’s high column of fifteen line items sums to $410,000 against a printed total of $405,000; the cover repeats $405,000. The gap is in the document. Plan with both numbers visible. Great Greek’s low franchise-fee cell is $35,550 versus $39,500 at the high — the low is a discount for owners of affiliated brands. A first-time buyer who budgets the printed low has budgeted someone else’s deal.

Construction still dominates

Where the Item 7 worksheets exist, leasehold improvements and packages dwarf the franchise fee.

• GDK: leasehold improvements $0–$250,000; MEP $150,000–$175,000; fit-out $175,000–$205,000; equipment $140,000–$175,000. Fee: $30,000. Five-outlet minimum.
• Shah’s: build-out $80,000–$160,000; fixture package $30,000–$50,000. Fee: $30,000.
• Great Greek: leasehold improvements $250,000–$650,000; restaurant package $225,964–$248,560. Fee: $35,550–$39,500.
• Mad for Chicken: leasehold $75,000–$235,000; FF&E $85,000–$110,000. Fee: $35,000. Express format separately $243,500–$470,700.
• 375° Chicken ‘n Fries: leasehold $100,000–$200,000; FF&E $100,000–$120,000. Fee: $40,000.
• Döner Haus: construction and leasehold improvements $131,000–$266,000; equipment $78,000–$85,000. Fee: $35,000, plus a $10,000 initial training fee.

Wienerschnitzel, bluTaco and several others have no Item 7 total here; leave them off a ranked investment table rather than estimating.

Opening marketing and inventory are not the fee

Grand-opening lines here, where disclosed: GDK $10,000–$15,000; Shah’s $1,000–$5,000; Great Greek included in the restaurant package; Mad for Chicken $15,000; 375° $10,000; The Halal Guys $17,000; Dog Haus $20,000–$25,000; Capriotti’s $30,000; Pepper Lunch $7,500–$15,000; Crave $5,000 (sources on those records). bluTaco discloses no grand-opening requirement. A $30,000 Capriotti’s launch and a $1,000–$5,000 Shah’s campaign are different jobs. Neither is optional if Item 6 or the agreement requires it.

Insurance, licenses and professional fees are small rows that close a deal: GDK insurance $9,000–$18,000 and professional $10,000–$15,000; Shah’s insurance $6,000–$10,000 and legal/accounting $3,000–$6,000; Mad for Chicken insurance $2,500 fixed in the table and professional $2,500–$7,000. They are also the rows an optimistic low-end budget deletes. Put them back.

Döner Haus’s 2026 range of $359,500–$586,000 covers an 850–1,200 square-foot imbiss across eighteen rows, which is a coarser split than GDK’s separate MEP and fit-out lines: one construction and leasehold improvements row of $131,000–$266,000 carries work that another filing would divide three ways. Different filings, different granularity. Pepper Lunch’s May 2024 comparative record high of $1,471,500 is the highest disclosed total here; The Halal Guys’ $1,333,500 high is next. Those highs are still estimates. A conversion in a cheap market can land nearer a different brand’s low without making the filings comparable. Plan the site you have, then use the table as a check, not as a quote.

Related reading

• Financing overview — equity injection is not the Item 7 total
• Qualification — liquidity versus net worth
• Single vs multi-unit — when the table is per store inside a schedule
• Item 8, suppliers — which rows are single-source
• Footprint and labor questions — the box that drives construction