Best Western: What It Costs to Build or Buy, Whether It Is SBA Approved, and How Owners Finance It in 2026

Best Western is a membership association rather than a conventional franchisor, and that changes the financing in two ways. First, the fees: an application fee of $49,000, a 5% monthly royalty on room revenue and a 2.1% marketing and technology assessment across the core brands, plus annual dues scaled by room count, on a 20-year term. SureStay pays $37,500, 4% and 4%. Second, the brand publishes no financial performance representation, so lenders size a Best Western on the hotel's own trailing numbers and the comp set. A new 75-room Best Western is summarized at about $6.1 million to $12.7 million before land in the 2026 franchise disclosure document, with the Premier, Vib and Aiden brands ranging up to about $32.5 million. The document is provided through Best Western's development team, so confirm those figures against it.

Best Western is SBA approved, listed on the SBA Franchise Directory as code S2125 under a single membership agreement covering Best Western, Plus, Premier, Executive Residency, GLo and Aiden, with SureStay at S2322. The brand's hotels are a staple of SBA lending, with 77 SBA loans on Best Westerns since fiscal 2020 at a median of about $4.28 million. That is the practical answer to how owners buy an existing Best Western: an SBA 7(a) at 90% of cost under $5 million, or a 504 for the real estate, with a bank or debt fund loan above that. The acquisition example below puts a $4.725 million 7(a) on a $5.25 million purchase at 1.17x on trailing NOI, and the build example shows where a 75-room new build at $10 million lands.

Key takeaways

• Fees: $49,000 application, 5% royalty, 2.1% marketing and technology, plus annual dues; SureStay $37,500, 4% and 4%.
• New build about $6.1M to $12.7M for 75 rooms before land (third-party summary); Premier, Vib and Aiden to $32.5M.
• No Item 19: lenders size on the hotel's trailing-12 and the comp set, not a brand average.
• SBA approved: code S2125 (membership agreement) and S2322 (SureStay); 77 SBA loans since FY2020 at a $4.28M median.
• 1,659 Best Western and 1,136 Best Western Plus hotels; the brand added more than 200 hotels in 2025.

How does Best Western's membership model work, and what does it cost?

Best Western Hotels & Resorts is owned by its member hotels, so a new hotel joins rather than franchises: an evaluation fee, an entrance or affiliation fee, annual dues and a monthly assessment on room revenue replace the royalty-and-marketing-fund structure of a Hilton or Marriott, but the economics line up with them. The schedule below is from the Lodging 2026 Guide to Franchising, reflecting figures as of March 31, 2026, with the FDD detail from a third-party summary of the 2025 document.

Two things the schedule hides. The dues are real money: on a 100-room hotel the fixed charges run into the tens of thousands a year on top of the 7.1% of room revenue, so model 8% to 8.5% all-in. And Best Western negotiates: the 2025 and 2026 FDDs both show the 5% standard, and the brand added more than 200 hotels in 2025, with 36 Aiden hotels open and more than 50 in the pipeline, which is the kind of growth that comes with fee concessions on conversions.

What does it cost to build a Best Western?

The core Best Western range sits under HVS's 2026 median of $170,000 to $197,000 for limited-service hotels because the membership model tolerates a wider range of building types than a prototype brand. The $82,000 low end is the obvious number to budget from, but it is the wrong basis for anything beyond a two-story, exterior-corridor building on cheap land; the Vib and GLo prototypes are the exceptions, built to a fixed design at $150,000 to $175,000 per key. Add land, contingency and an interest reserve, and a core-brand new build lands at $100,000 to $190,000 per key all-in.

How big is Best Western, and how do its hotels perform?

Worldwide, the Lodging 2026 guide counts 1,659 Best Western hotels with 121,774 rooms, 1,136 Best Western Plus with 103,030 rooms, 117 Premier, 391 SureStay, 36 Aiden, 12 GLo, 10 Executive Residency and 4 Vib. In the U.S., the 2026 FDD's Item 20 shows 1,750 member hotels with 32 openings and 52 closures in the year. The brand reports about 336,000 rooms across more than 3,900 hotels worldwide. There is no Item 19, so there is no published RevPAR, and a lender will want the specific hotel's STR report. Best Western's one owner financing program is DEX 3.0, an FF&E finance program through its supply arm announced at the 2024 convention; the brand publishes no key money program.

Is Best Western SBA approved?

Yes. The SBA Franchise Directory effective October 15, 2026 lists the Best Western membership agreement, covering Best Western, Best Western Plus, Premier, Executive Residency, @Home, GLo and Aiden, as code S2125, listed since October 2017, and SureStay and SureStay Studio as S2322, with the SureStay Collection distribution agreement added April 30, 2026 as S8758. Both carry the hotel manager-affiliation condition and, unusually for a transient brand, the extended-stay transient test (more than 50% of revenue from stays of 30 days or less), which a Best Western meets easily. Loan-level data compiled from SBA's public 7(a) and 504 FOIA releases shows 77 SBA loans on Best Western hotels since fiscal 2020 at a median of about $4.28 million, which is to say the brand is among the most common flags in hotel 7(a) lending.

The 2026 rules in four lines. A 7(a) runs to $5 million at a variable rate capped at 10.00%, which is prime plus 3.00 points. A 504 carries a 6.97% fixed 25-year debenture capped at $5.5 million and 15% equity on a hotel (20% if the business is also new), combinable with a 7(a) to $10 million since July 4, 2026. Every owner must be a U.S. citizen or national since March 1, 2026. An initial acquisition carries a 1.25x coverage test. The brand table and rules are in the SBA Franchise Directory check for hotel brands.

Who finances a Best Western?

Bank hotel franchise-finance desks and CMBS conduits are mostly absent: the desks lend on the four major flag families, and conduits price a membership brand without an Item 19 cautiously. Bridge closed more than $500 million of hotel loans in 2025, and on acquisitions and refinances of $10 million or more it structures the loan and runs the process through closing for a 0.50% fee.

How do owners finance buying an existing Best Western?

Most often with SBA 7(a), because the typical deal is $2 million to $6 million. A buyer who will operate the hotel borrows up to 90% of cost, including the purchase, the change-of-ownership PIP and working capital, at a variable rate capped at 10.00%, with 10% cash equity (a seller note on full standby can supply half) and 1.25x coverage on trailing NOI; above $5 million the real estate moves to a 504 and the PIP to a 7(a). Investors, non-citizen partners and buyers who will not operate use a bank at 55% to 65% or a debt fund at 65% to 75%. What every lender wants is the seller's trailing-12 USALI statement and STR report, because there is no brand average to lean on; how a specialist normalizes seasonal Best Western cash flow is in lenders who understand hospitality cash flow cycles.

Worked example 1: buying an 80-room Best Western for $4.5 million

Purchase $4.5 million, change-of-ownership PIP $600,000, closing and working capital $150,000: $5.25 million. Trailing NOI $590,000.

The Best Western code (S2125) goes in the loan system, the executed membership agreement and PIP addendum go in the file before funding, and the buyer's management plan clears the experience factor. Closing runs 60 to 90 days.

Worked example 2: building a 75-room Best Western for $10 million

Building cost $8.8 million (upper-middle of the summarized range), land $1.2 million, $10 million all-in, $133,000 per key, in a market supporting $72 of RevPAR (NOI about $750,000).

The conventional stack works at $72 of RevPAR, the 504 stack clears 1.15x only after ramp, and neither works at $60, which is the Best Western underwriting in one line: the membership model keeps the cost per key low, and the loan follows the hotel's own numbers.

When is Best Western the wrong frame?

• Avoid assuming a brand-average RevPAR. There is none; the lender uses your hotel's trailing-12 and the comp set.
• Avoid modeling the 5% royalty plus 2.1% assessment as the total fee load. Annual dues and the per-room assessments push it to 8% to 8.5%.
• Avoid budgeting a Premier, Vib or Aiden from the core-brand Item 7. Those prototypes run to about $32.5 million.
• Avoid SBA if any owner is a lawful permanent resident or the hotel will be managed with full discretion by a third party.
• Avoid a CMBS refinance under about $8 million of loan. Conduits price a membership brand without an Item 19 cautiously and the fixed costs bite.