Bubble Tea Franchise Costs: One Verifiable Royalty in Five

This site has now compared brands across coffee, pizza, chicken, sandwiches, bakery, burgers and bowls. Bubble tea is the least transparent category we have covered.

Of five major brands, exactly one royalty rate can be verified from a primary document.

What each brand actually publishes

Brand	Fee	Investment	Royalty	Liquid / net worth
Kung Fu Tea	$37,000, or $25,000 non-traditional	$169,000 to $378,000 standard (FDD)	4% of Gross Sales, defined	Not stated in the FDD
Gong Cha	Not published	$207,450 to $648,460	Not published	$150,000 / $500,000
Chatime	Not published	Not published	Not published	Not published
Sharetea	Not published	Not published	Not published	Not published
Happy Lemon	Not published	Not published	Not published	$150,000 / $450,000

Every “not published” above means we checked the franchisor’s own pages and found nothing, not that we failed to look. Third-party figures exist for most of these cells and disagree with each other, so none appears here.

The two brands with something moving underneath them

Gong Cha is the most disclosed and the most in flux. In March 2026 its US operating company bought back master-franchise rights to 170 of roughly 240 US stores across 13 states, stating an intent to refranchise them to large multi-unit developers. That is a material fact for anyone considering a single store: the brand has said publicly which kind of operator it now wants.

Trade press has also reported an active sale process for the brand during 2026, which we could not verify from a source we loaded ourselves, so we are flagging rather than asserting it. Ask directly who owns the franchisor today. Ownership in this sector moves fast.

Kung Fu Tea contradicts itself between documents. Its website gives $140,000 to $422,000 for a standard unit; its disclosure document gives $169,000 to $378,000. Both are the franchisor’s own figures. The FDD is the document with legal weight, and the gap is a good opening question.

Its 2026 disclosure also carries a turnover risk statement, reporting that 53 franchised outlets transferred ownership or ceased operations in the prior year. On a system of roughly 440 locations that is a meaningful churn rate, and it is the franchisor’s own disclosure rather than an outside estimate.

What “not published” costs you

Three of these brands publish no dollar figure a buyer could plan against. Chatime is explicit about it: the cost “depends on the location you’re looking to franchise. It is very difficult to indicate an average or approximate cost.”

That is a defensible position. Costs genuinely do vary by site, and the FDD is where Item 7 answers the question properly. But it has a practical consequence worth naming: you cannot shortlist on cost in this category. You have to enter each brand’s process, request each FDD, and compare afterwards, which is a materially slower path than in coffee or sandwiches where several brands publish per-format tables.

Several of these franchisors are US subsidiaries of listed Taiwanese parents, and disclosure practice in a home market does not carry over to a US franchising page. That is context rather than an excuse, and it does not change what you should do: get the document.

How to shortlist anyway

Use the capital requirement as the first filter, since it is the field most often published. Gong Cha at $150,000 liquid and $500,000 net worth and Happy Lemon at $150,000 and $450,000 are the only two stating a bar you can measure yourself against before applying.

Then ask every brand the same three questions in writing: the royalty rate, its basis, and whether a single unit is available in your market. Any brand that will not answer those before you sign an NDA is telling you something about how it will communicate later.

And weigh the churn disclosure. Kung Fu Tea is the only one of the five that disclosed a turnover figure to us, which is a point in favour of its transparency even though the figure itself is not flattering. The other four may have comparable churn, better or worse; we simply cannot see it.

Questions to ask any brand in this category

• What is the royalty rate, and is it charged on gross sales, net sales, or something else defined in the agreement?
• Does the base include or exclude delivery, app orders and sales tax?
• What is the Item 7 range for the specific format I would build in my market?
• Which FDD is currently in force, and does its investment range match your website?
• Is a single unit available here, or are you prioritising multi-unit developers?
• What does Item 20 show for transfers, terminations and closures over the last three years?
• Who owns the franchisor today, and is any sale or restructuring under way?
• Will a franchise attorney and an accountant review the full FDD with me before I commit?