Subway Closed Over 600 Stores in 2024, Lost Over 7,600 Stores in 9 Years

Subway continues to lose ground in the quick-service restaurant market, with over 600 stores shutting their doors in 2024 alone. These closures bring the total net loss of stores to 7,600 in just nine years.

According to a new report from QSR, 631 stores closed in 2024. The sandwich chain concluded the year with 19,502 domestic units, the brand’s lowest level in nearly 20 years. It peaked at more than 27,000 stores in 2015.

The decreases started in 2016 and have continued. Since then, Subway has lost nearly 7,600 locations, including more than 1,000 in 2018, 2020, and 2021.

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Despite this news, the brand remains the largest restaurant chain in the United States in terms of size. Starbucks is the second largest, with 16,935 locations in the United States as of the end of the fiscal year 2024. McDonald’s ranks third with 13,559.

Subway also has more than 10,000 units in its foreign pipeline from acquisitions made over the last three years. The sandwich giant operates roughly 37,000 locations globally, making it the world’s third-largest restaurant chain, after only McDonald’s and Starbucks.

Could Subway Be ‘Gobbled Up’ by the Competition?

In December 2024, there was some speculation that the sandwich chain was at risk of being “gobbled up” by its competitor, Jersey Mike’s, due to its executives’ failure to listen to franchisees.

Although it operates just 3,000 U.S. locations compared to Subway’s 20,000, the chain was acquired by Blackstone Group for $8 billion — only slightly less than what Roark Capital paid for Subway six months earlier.

At the time of the December 2024 report, the sandwich shop had decreased by 15% in the previous four years, from “23,799 US restaurants on Jan. 1, 2020 [to] 20,133 on Jan. 1, 2024, according to public filings,” per a report from The New York Post.

Meanwhile, one of the chain’s franchisees stated that he could “easily see Jersey Mike’s more than doubling its size soon to 8,000 U.S. restaurants.” According to public documents, the average Jersey Mike’s restaurant earns around three times more than the average Subway.