Corp. Code, § 31011 · Part 1. DEFINITIONS
Corp. Code, § 31011
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
“Franchise fee” means any fee or charge that a franchisee or subfranchisor is required to pay or agrees to pay for the right to enter into a business under a franchise agreement, including, but not limited to, any payment for goods and services.
However, the following shall not be considered the payment of a franchise fee:
(a) The purchase or agreement to purchase goods at a bona fide wholesale price if no obligation is imposed upon the purchaser to purchase or pay for a quantity of the goods in excess of that which a reasonable businessperson normally would purchase by way of a starting inventory or supply or to maintain a going inventory or supply.
(b) The payment of a reasonable service charge to the issuer of a credit card by an establishment accepting or honoring that credit card.
(c) Amounts paid to a trading stamp company under Chapter 3 (commencing with Section 17750) of Part 3 of Division 7 of the Business and Professions Code by a person issuing trading stamps in connection with the retail sale of merchandise or service.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 2002, Ch. 664, Sec. 54. Effective January 1, 2003.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CORP§ionNum=31011.
- Text hash
- sha256 5571965dbf97a3c80f0bb6396b056526e33c0a29a8b599d7025e3af4486ee184
- Composed by
- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
This section cites
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