6 records
How much notice must a franchisor give before terminating a franchise, and does the state require good cause?
6 records, one fact each. Every value is transcribed from the source that states it and carries the sentence it was taken from: 7 sources across 6 sites, last checked 2026-09-02, due for re-check by 2027-09-02. Every record is listed below, each linking the page its value came from.
About this data
A franchise agreement usually lets the franchisor end the relationship, but about a third of states layer a statute on top of the contract — a Franchise Relationship Act, Franchise Investment Law or, in Wisconsin, the Fair Dealership Law — that requires 'good cause' before termination or non-renewal and a minimum written-notice period with a chance to cure. Wisconsin is the one to read carefully: its chapter never uses the word 'franchise' at all, and instead governs a 'dealership', defined functionally as a right to sell goods or services or use a trade name with a community of interest — so each record also records, in the statute's own words, which relationship it governs, rather than leaving the reader to assume. The notice period is not comparable on its face: Minnesota and Wisconsin require at least 90 days' notice with 60 days to cure; California and New Jersey require 60 days' notice (New Jersey allows only 15 days where the franchisee abandoned the business); Illinois and Michigan require notice and a cure opportunity that need not exceed 30 days, with no separate minimum notice period stated. A widely-cited 50-state law-firm survey of this exact question (Kilpatrick Townsend, republished via Lexis) exists as a static PDF, but its citations for at least two states point to legislative history that never passed into law — this asset is quoted directly from each state's own published statute text instead (the official legislature or code-revisor site for five of the six states), and skips the roughly two-thirds of states with no such statute (ordinary contract law and case-law 'good faith' doctrine govern those, with no fixed number to publish). Each record is one state, with the required notice period, the cure period if the statute states one, whether 'good cause' is required at all, and the statute citation, each backed by a verbatim quote from the state's own code. Answers 'how many days notice before a franchisor can terminate my franchise in [state]' and 'does [state] require good cause to end a franchise'.
The data
| State | Good cause required to terminate | Relationship the statute covers | Notice period before termination | Cure period | Statute |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | Yes, for termination before the end of the franchise term | Franchises | notice at least 60 days in advance of the termination | in no event shall be less than 60 days from the date of the notice of noncompliance | Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 20020 |
| Illinois | Yes, for termination before the end of the franchise term | Franchises | which in no event need be more than 30 days | 815 ILCS 705/19 | |
| Michigan | Yes, for termination before the end of the franchise term | Franchises | which in no event need be more than 30 days | Mich. Comp. Laws § 445.1527(c) | |
| Minnesota | Yes, for termination or cancellation | Franchises | at least 90 days in advance of termination or cancellation | within 60 days of receipt of the notice | Minn. Stat. § 80C.14, subd. 3 |
| New Jersey | Yes, for termination, cancellation or non-renewal | Franchises | at least 60 days in advance of such termination, cancellation, or failure to renew | N.J.S.A. 56:10-5 | |
| Wisconsin | Yes, for termination, cancellation, non-renewal or a substantial change in competitive circumstances | Dealerships, as defined in Wis. Stat. § 135.02(3) | at least 90 days’ prior written notice | 60 days in which to rectify any claimed deficiency | Wis. Stat. §§ 135.03 and 135.04 (Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law) |
Where this came from
Every record above links the page it was taken from and quotes the sentence that states it. These are the 7 sources this dataset was assembled from.
- leginfo.legislature.ca.govhttps://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=BPC§ionNum=20020.
- ilga.govhttps://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=081507050K19
- legislature.mi.govhttps://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-445-1527
- revisor.mn.govhttps://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/80C.14
- law.justia.comhttps://law.justia.com/codes/new-jersey/2021/title-56/section-56-10-5/
- docs.legis.wisconsin.govhttps://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/135/04
- docs.legis.wisconsin.govhttps://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/135/02
Machine-readable
- data.jsonThe whole dataset — every record with its source URL and source quote.
- Open Knowledge Format bundleOne JSON object per line — every record's frontmatter and quoted span exactly as it is held here, in one fetch.
- data.csvThe same records as one flat table, for a spreadsheet or a dataframe. The last four columns are the source URL, the quoted sentence it was read from, the date we last checked it, and which columns are our reading rather than the page's words.
- How this is made and checkedWhat "verified against source" does and does not mean.
Set your AI assistant up to use this
Two files and no account. Put this in .mcp.json at the root of your project — Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code and Codex all read that file — and your assistant can look this dataset up instead of recalling it. The server is remote, keyless and read-only.
{
"mcpServers": {
"referencesource": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://referencesource.org/mcp"
}
}
}Add to Cursor · or, on the command line: claude mcp add --transport http referencesource https://referencesource.org/mcp --scope project
Then one line in the project's CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md, so the assistant knows when to reach for it:
When a question needs "Franchise termination notice and good-cause requirements by US state — quoted from the state franchise relationship statute", call the referencesource MCP server at https://referencesource.org/mcp (tool `search_records`, dataset_slug `franchise-termination-notice-and-good-cause-requirements-by-state`) instead of answering from memory — every record it returns carries its source URL and a verbatim quote from that page.What each tool does, and the servers built over single registers: Connect your AI assistant.