White House Backs the American Franchise Act as IFA Closes Its Largest-Ever Advocacy Summit

The International Franchise Association held its 2026 Advocacy Summit at Union Station in Washington, D.C. from September 14 to 16, drawing more than 500 members of the U.S. franchise community in what the association described as its largest Advocacy Summit to date. The gathering's central agenda item was the American Franchise Act, a bipartisan bill that had reached 142 co-sponsors in the House alongside a companion measure in the Senate, aimed at establishing a federal standard for determining joint-employer status between franchisors and franchisees.

The most significant development came during a keynote address, when Vince Haley, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, announced the full support of the current administration for the American Franchise Act. Attendees then moved to Capitol Hill to meet directly with members of Congress and press the case for the legislation, alongside the newly named 2026 Franchisees of the Year who were honored during the summit.

The joint-employer question the bill addresses has been a persistent source of legal and regulatory uncertainty for U.S. franchise brands for years, since an unsettled federal standard leaves franchisors exposed to being treated as co-employers of their franchisees' staff in labor disputes — a liability risk that shapes how tightly franchisors are willing to standardize operations across their networks.

For international franchisors weighing U.S. market entry, and for Southeast Asian brands whose master franchise partners operate on both sides of the Pacific, a settled federal joint-employer standard would remove one of the more persistent pieces of legal uncertainty in the U.S. franchise model — a detail worth tracking as the bill moves through Congress.