How Much Does a Country Inn & Suites Franchise Owner Make?

Item 19 officially measures occupancy, Average Daily Rate, Revenue per Available Room, reservation-system contribution, loyalty-program contribution, and guest-recommendation cohorts—not owner earnings. The period is calendar 2025, and the principal population is the Performance Sample of 389 franchised U.S. Country Inn & Suites hotels.

The Performance Sample included hotels open and operating on or before January 1, 2025 and still operating on December 31, 2025. It excluded hotels repositioned from another Choice brand during 2025, hotels missing at least 30 days of performance data, and hotels with an operating interruption longer than 30 consecutive days. Item 19 states that no hotel closed during 2025 after operating for less than one year. These rules make the sample broad, but they also remove certain disrupted properties.

Average Daily Rate

Gross room revenue divided by occupied guest rooms. It is a room-price measure, not owner income.

RevPAR

Gross room revenue divided by available guest rooms. It combines room rate and occupancy, but excludes the operating costs needed to calculate profit.

Gross Room Revenues

The Item 6 fee base for sleeping-room revenue, including specified room-related charges and business-interruption proceeds, but excluding taxes and specified ancillary revenue.

Estimated pre-tax owner earnings

For this article, an EBITDA-like amount available before financing interest and principal, personal income taxes, depreciation, amortization, and capital expenditures. It is not after-tax take-home pay.

Choice Hotels says written substantiation for the Item 19 financial performance representation is available after a written request. The Federal Trade Commission’s franchise buyer guide likewise advises buyers to examine the source, limitations, assumptions, sample size, and written support behind an Item 19 claim.

The estimate converts Generation 4 median RevPAR into room revenue for an illustrative 101-room hotel, then applies a broad EBITDA sensitivity. The revenue input is FDD-anchored; the 101-room room count and the 80%/100%/120% revenue spread are analytical assumptions; the margin input is an external U.S. hotel benchmark rather than a Country Inn & Suites profit disclosure.

CoStar/STR reported the 2024 U.S. hotel P&L metrics used in the second formula. Its 2024 hotel profitability release defines EBITDA as earnings before interest, income tax, depreciation, and amortization. The data are broad hotel-industry evidence, not a same-brand, same-format margin. Applying that total-revenue margin to room revenue is a simplifying proxy and one reason confidence is limited.

• Room count: 101 rooms is the 2026 FDD’s standard new-construction example, not the reported average room count of the Generation 4 Performance Sample.
• Revenue scope: RevPAR produces Gross Room Revenues. Ancillary revenue from meeting rooms, food and beverage, vending, and other sources is not added.
• Expense scope: The EBITDA-margin proxy is treated as all-in. FDD fees are not subtracted again in the scenario, avoiding double counting.
• Cash-flow scope: Replacement reserves, renovation capital, financing interest, loan principal, and personal income taxes are not deducted.

An active owner who replaces a paid General Manager may receive an estimated owner-operator benefit about $80,000 higher than the manager-run result, but that increment is compensation for labor, not passive business profit. Item 15, page 74, does not require personal owner participation; it does require a certified General Manager at the hotel.

The national May 2025 Bureau of Labor Statistics table reports a mean annual wage of $78,740 for lodging managers. The figures below round that value to $80,000. They do not include payroll taxes, benefits, bonuses, housing, or local wage differences.

The Generation 4 median RevPAR of $69.96 is the most relevant FDD anchor for a hotel built or renovated to current prototype standards, but it is not a guarantee for a new 101-room property. Item 19 defines Generation 4 hotels as properties meeting at least 70% of overall standards and 80% of brand-identity standards for the fourth-generation system.

The above-brand-average Likelihood to Recommend cohort had the highest displayed median RevPAR, at $71.61. That cohort is selected using a guest-satisfaction result, so it should not replace the Generation 4 anchor for a general acquisition model. It does, however, indicate that service execution and guest satisfaction may affect room revenue alongside property standards.

The 2026 FDD sets a 6.0% Royalty Fee and a 3.5% Marketing and Reservation Fee on Gross Room Revenues, creating a 9.5% core percentage burden before loyalty, distribution, technology, revenue-management, and other charges. These are official fee terms for the U.S. hotel format; the dollar examples below use the $2.58 million base room-revenue scenario.

The loyalty estimate is especially uncertain. It multiplies the FDD’s 5% Rewards Program Fee by the Generation 4 cohort’s 44.2% average Choice Privileges Contribution. A specific hotel’s member mix, reward-night economics, direct-channel mix, travel-agent usage, and third-party distribution will differ.

Property-level operating costs and financing are the largest unresolved variables, so actual cash distributions can fall well below—or occasionally exceed—the scenario range. The Item 19 population is strong revenue evidence for 2025 franchised hotels, but it does not provide labor, occupancy cost, insurance, property tax, utilities, repairs, management fees, capital reserve, or debt-service data.

• Location and demand: Local weekday demand, group business, events, highway access, competitive supply, seasonality, and disaster exposure can change occupancy and Average Daily Rate.
• Property generation and condition: Generation 4 median RevPAR exceeded the Generation 1–3 median by $17.61, but achieving current standards may require renovation capital that is excluded from annual earnings.
• Labor and management: Front desk, housekeeping, maintenance, breakfast, sales, and General Manager costs vary by market. Labor pressure was a major constraint in CoStar/STR’s 2024 U.S. hotel profitability data.
• Property-level fixed costs: Property tax, insurance, utilities, repairs, and replacement reserves can be substantial and location-specific.
• Financing: The range is before both interest and loan principal. A highly leveraged hotel may generate materially less cash for owner distributions even when operating earnings are positive.
• Sample and system movement: Item 20 shows franchised U.S. outlets declining from 416 at the end of 2024 to 397 at the end of 2025. The 2025 table reports 10 openings, four terminations, five non-renewals, and 20 outlets ceasing operations or leaving for other reasons, plus 36 transfers.

A buyer should replace every external or editorial assumption with property-specific records and current franchisee evidence before treating the range as decision-grade. The most important verification is a normalized profit-and-loss statement showing the relationship among room revenue, payroll, property-level costs, recurring Choice fees, management compensation, capital reserves, and debt service.

• Request the written substantiation supporting the 2026 FDD Item 19 tables, including the exact hotel list, room counts, and any updates issued after May 20, 2026.
• Ask the franchisor for a bridge from Gross Room Revenues to Gross Operating Profit and EBITDA for hotels comparable by room count, generation, geography, occupancy, age, and management model.
• Interview current Generation 4 franchisees and former franchisees listed in Item 20 about payroll, insurance, property tax, utilities, repairs, loyalty fees, distribution commissions, required renovations, and actual cash distributions.
• For an existing hotel, review at least three years of monthly profit-and-loss statements, tax returns, reservation-channel reports, occupancy, Average Daily Rate, RevPAR, capital expenditures, and debt statements.
• Confirm whether the owner will serve as the certified General Manager, what replacement management remains necessary, and whether the BLS wage benchmark fits the local labor market.
• Model financing interest and principal separately. Do not treat the EBITDA-like scenario as cash available for personal spending.