Dataset · cut-off September 28, 2026
The Panama Franchise Census
A record of which chains are documented operating in Panama, built brand by brand from primary documents. As of September 28, 2026 it holds 492 published profiles: 328 directory records and 164 Panamanian company-owned chains. The directory profiles cite 1,393 sources between them, each with the date it was read.
Price and terms on request. The licensing form is in Spanish and reaches [email protected].
What exists, and what it is for
Four things, one dataset
| Product | What it contains | Access |
|---|---|---|
| Public website | 492 published profiles with their fields, sources and amendment history, in Spanish | Open to read |
| Public navigation index | 10 fields per directory brand, the minimum the site needs to search, filter and compare | Served to the browser; not a data product |
| Downloadable sample | 8 brands with every column of the commercial version, to show the structure | Free, with the licence notice attached |
| Complete database | All 328 directory records with every field, provenance tag and dated source | Proprietary. Licensed on request |
What each figure counts
- published profiles
- Published profiles in the census. Each one documents a brand operating in Panama from sources we can read, with the date each source was read. It is not a count of units verified open on the cut-off date. Inclusion rule: a profile is created when a source shows the brand operating in Panama. The rule is about what a source shows, and the profile records which source and when.
- directory records
- Profiles whose contractual link with the parent company is franchise, licence or distribution, or is not yet determined. These are the records of the franchise directory. A profile enters the directory when it is not a Panamanian company-owned chain.
- Panamanian company-owned chains
- Panamanian companies that operate their own stores. They are documented like any other profile and they are not franchises, so they are kept out of the franchise directory. Foreign companies operating their own stores are excluded from the census altogether and listed, with the reason, on the Spanish exclusions page.
- profiles with a published unit count
- Profiles that publish a number of units for Panama. The remaining profiles document the brand operating here without a published count, and the field stays empty rather than being estimated. A published count carries its own qualifier -exact, more than, approximate- and the date the figure was read.
© PanaFranquicias. This database is proprietary. The downloadable sample is provided solely to show the structure of the dataset. Reproduction, redistribution, commercial use, or access to the complete database requires prior authorization and a separate license from PanaFranquicias.
The operative legal text is the Spanish notice in Terms — Spanish. The paragraph above conveys its meaning for English readers and does not replace it.
Coverage
What is inside, in numbers
Every figure below is computed from the published profiles when the site is built.
Sectors in the directory
| Sector | Brands |
|---|---|
| Retail | 173 |
| Food and beverage | 61 |
| Automotive | 42 |
| Hospitality | 27 |
| Beauty | 17 |
| Services | 15 |
| Home | 7 |
| Fitness and wellness | 7 |
| Education | 5 |
| Real estate | 3 |
| B2B | 2 |
| Other | 1 |
| Logistics | 1 |
Where the brands come from
| Origin | Brands |
|---|---|
| Estados Unidos | 140 |
| España | 29 |
| Japón | 16 |
| Colombia | 16 |
| China | 14 |
| Alemania | 13 |
| Francia | 13 |
| Italia | 12 |
Geography
| Province | Brands |
|---|---|
| Panamá | 316 |
| Panamá Oeste | 78 |
| Chiriquí | 62 |
| Veraguas | 34 |
| Herrera | 34 |
| Coclé | 27 |
224 directory profiles name the company that operates the brand in Panama, and 4 publish an investment figure for the country. Together they are the two fields that most often decide whether a market study is worth starting.
What the sample contains
8 brands chosen by hand and fixed, so the file can be cited: they span sectors, origins, development models and data states, with and without a published investment figure, with and without a named operator.
It carries all 26 columns of the commercial version, so you can see exactly how the dataset is shaped: provenance tags, qualifiers on unit counts, date fields and source URLs. It is not a reduced schema.
Download the sample (CSV)UTF-8 with BOM, comma separated, licence notice in the header rows.
How the full dataset is licensed
The complete database is not published and is not linked anywhere on this site. Access is granted under a separate licence, and the scope of each licence is agreed in writing.
Price and conditions are provided on request. We publish no rate card, no packages and no tiers, because the contract for delivering the full dataset is still being drafted.
Request full-dataset licensing informationReaches [email protected]. The form is in Spanish; you may write in English and we will reply in English.
How it stays current
- Daily
- New profiles enter from the shopping-centre directories being processed, each with its sources.
- On evidence
- A brand, an operator or a reader sends a correction; it is checked against a source and the profile is amended with the date of the change.
- Per edition
- The published edition carries a version and a cut-off. Current edition: Edición septiembre 2026, version 0.1.
What this dataset will not tell you
- Presence, not market size
- A profile is opened when a source shows the brand operating in Panama. The census does not estimate franchise sales, employment or share of GDP, because we have no primary source for those in Panama.
- Documented, not inspected
- A profile records what sources show and when they were read; nobody from PanaFranquicias visits the store to confirm it is trading today. There are 486 profiles with a published unit count, and the remaining 6 document the brand without one.
- Documented, not exhaustive
- Coverage grows brand by brand. A brand absent from the census means we have not documented it, not that it is absent from the country. The Spanish coverage page publishes how much of each shopping-centre directory has been processed.
- Published, not audited
- Investment figures, unit counts and expansion plans are what the brand or a named third party publishes, with the date we read it. We do not audit them.
- No commercial seals
- No profile carries a verification seal: that number is zero today. Eighteen profiles carry an editorial Document Review note, which is a reading of named documents and nothing more.
Full methodology, coverage by shopping-centre directory and the source register are published in Spanish: census page — Spanish, methodology — Spanish and sources — Spanish.