Eighteen home care franchise brands tracked by the Franchise Times Top 400 collectively generated $10.4 billion in US system sales in 2025, a 7.3% increase over the prior year. The data, released in the magazine’s annual ranking on October 12, 2026, places the senior home care sector among the strongest performers in franchising this year, outpacing many restaurant and retail categories.
Home care franchises provide non-medical and medical assistance services to older adults in their residences, a model whose market scale has expanded alongside the aging of the US Baby Boomer generation.
The Franchise Times Top 400 tracks system-wide sales across hundreds of franchise brands and publishes sector breakdowns alongside individual brand rankings. In 2025, the 18 home care brands included in the ranking combined for $10.4 billion in system sales, with growth concentrated among brands focused on companion care, personal care, and specialty dementia care services. The demographic context is structural: an estimated 10,000 Americans turn 65 every day, a rate projected to continue into the early 2030s.
Growth in US home care franchise system sales, 2025
Eighteen home care brands tracked by the Franchise Times Top 400 collectively generated $10.4 billion in system sales in 2025, a 7.3% gain year-over-year. (Source: Franchise Times Top 400, October 2026)
The Sector Performance in Numbers
The Top 400 data identifies BrightStar Care as the largest brand in the home care category, with $801 million in system sales. FirstLight Home Care posted $323 million, a 14.6% year-over-year gain. HomeWell Care Services reached $164 million, up 18.6%. Collectively, the sector’s 7.3% growth rate indicates broad-based expansion across service lines and geographies, not growth concentrated in a single brand or a single market type.
| Brand | 2025 System Sales | Year-over-Year Growth |
|---|---|---|
| BrightStar Care | $801 million | n.a. |
| FirstLight Home Care | $323 million | 14,60% |
| HomeWell Care Services | $164 million | 18,60% |
Source: Franchise Times Top 400, October 2026. “n.a.” indicates growth figure not separately reported by Franchise Times for this brand.
What Is Driving the Fastest-Growing Brands
The three brands that headline the Franchise Times data illustrate different growth profiles. BrightStar Care, the category leader, operates both medical and non-medical home care alongside supplemental staffing services, a diversified model that distributes revenue across multiple care needs.
FirstLight Home Care’s 14.6% growth reflects expansion in companion care and dementia care services across its franchise network. HomeWell Care Services, at 18.6% growth, is the smallest of the three highlighted brands, and has been building through franchise development agreements in markets where larger competitors have more limited presence.
The Demographic Backdrop Behind the Numbers
The expansion of home care franchise networks is occurring against a demographic backdrop that researchers have tracked for years. An estimated 10,000 Baby Boomers turn 65 each day in the US, a trend projected to continue into the early 2030s. Older adults increasingly report a preference for remaining in their homes rather than entering residential facilities, a preference that sustains demand for in-home care services.
Franchise systems benefit from that structural demand because the model allows trained caregiving processes and client management procedures to be replicated across many local markets simultaneously, without each location requiring independent service development from scratch.
Franchise Investment Patterns in the Home Care Sector
Home care franchises have attracted consistent interest from multi-unit franchisee investors in part because the model does not require a physical retail location. Startup costs are typically lower than food service or fitness concepts, and revenue is generated through service contracts rather than foot traffic.
The Franchise Times Top 400 data confirms that the sector’s financial performance in 2025 kept pace with the demographic tailwind. The growth rate of brands such as HomeWell (+18.6%) and FirstLight (+14.6%) points to a competitive market in which smaller franchisors are gaining ground alongside the established category leader.
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