Key takeaways
- Residence Inn by Marriott, LLC, a Delaware company, appears in the Subsidiaries of the Registrant exhibit filed with Marriott's Form 10-K on 10 February 2026, listing subsidiaries as of 31 December 2025.
- Marriott's own 10-K says it plainly: "Under our asset-light business model and consistent with our focus on franchising, management, and licensing, we own or lease very few of our lodging properties."
- The numbers behind that sentence, as of 31 December 2025: 7,644 franchised/licensed, 1,966 managed, and 51 owned or leased, out of 9,805 total properties. Marriott owns or leases roughly 0.5% of the hotels carrying its brands.
- The Residence Inn brand itself is 937 properties and 115,333 rooms, per the brand table in the same 10-K.
- Marriott did not invent Residence Inn. Jack DeBoer started it in Wichita, Kansas in 1975 by converting an apartment building he could not fill, and Marriott bought the chain on 7 July 1987, when it had 103 hotels.
- DeBoer and his partner coined the term "extended stay". The original Wichita property is still run by DeBoer's own company today, under a competing brand.
This article is based on primary sources: Marriott International's Form 10-K for FY2025 filed 10 February 2026, and its Exhibit 21 subsidiary schedule as of 31 December 2025. Brand history older than fifteen years is sourced to CoStar's trade reporting and contemporaneous accounts. Full source list at the bottom.
Who owns Residence Inn right now?
Two answers, and the gap between them is the article.
The brand is owned by Marriott International, Inc., the publicly traded company on NASDAQ under MAR. The Exhibit 21 filed with Marriott's 10-K on 10 February 2026 lists Residence Inn by Marriott, LLC, jurisdiction Delaware, among the subsidiaries of the registrant as of 31 December 2025. That is a dated, current, primary-source answer.
The hotels are, overwhelmingly, owned by somebody else.
| Ownership type | Properties (31 Dec. 2025) | Rooms |
|---|---|---|
| Franchised / licensed / other | 7,644 | 1,183,513 |
| Managed | 1,966 | 565,764 |
| Owned or leased by Marriott | 51 | 14,406 |
| Residential | 144 | 16,253 |
| Total | 9,805 | 1,779,936 |
Fifty-one. Out of 9,805. Marriott is not being coy about this either; the 10-K states the strategy in a single sentence: "Under our asset-light business model and consistent with our focus on franchising, management, and licensing, we own or lease very few of our lodging properties."
The Residence Inn brand accounts for 937 properties and 115,333 rooms in that system. Marriott's 10-K does not break the 51 owned-or-leased properties down by brand, so I cannot tell you that Marriott owns zero Residence Inns. What I can tell you is the arithmetic: 51 properties spread across a portfolio of more than thirty brands, against 937 Residence Inns. The odds that any particular Residence Inn is owned by Marriott are close to nil.
So the honest answer to "who owns Residence Inn" is layered:
| Layer | Entity | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
| Brand owner | Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAR) | The Residence Inn brand and system |
| Legal entity | Residence Inn by Marriott, LLC (Delaware) | The brand's corporate vehicle |
| Hotel owner | A franchisee, REIT, or private investor | The actual building you slept in |
| Operator | Often the franchisee, sometimes Marriott | Day-to-day management |
Who controls Residence Inn?
Marriott controls the brand absolutely and the buildings barely at all, and it earns money from the arrangement precisely because of that split.
The 10-K describes the mechanics. Under franchising arrangements Marriott "generally receive[s] an initial application fee and continuing royalty fees, which are typically based on a percentage of room revenues." Under management agreements it earns "a base management fee, which is a percentage of the revenues of the hotel, and an incentive management fee, which is based on the profits of the hotel."
Read that as an ownership statement. Marriott's product is not hotel rooms. It is the standards, the reservation system, and the Bonvoy loyalty programme, licensed to people who put up the capital. The company also notes it earns fees "for other uses of our intellectual property, including primarily co-branded credit card fees."
This is why the franchise-versus-corporate distinction matters for anyone asking the ownership question honestly. When a Residence Inn has a bad night, the entity responsible is usually a franchisee you have never heard of. When it has a good one, Marriott takes a percentage of the room revenue either way. The brand owner carries the name and almost none of the real estate risk.
The direction of travel is visible in the same table. Franchised properties grew by 452 in 2025, a 6% increase. Managed properties fell by 15. Owned or leased stayed flat at 51, unchanged year over year. Marriott is not accumulating hotels. It has not been for decades.
Founders: who started Residence Inn?
Not Marriott, and the origin is stranger than the brand suggests.
Jack DeBoer, a developer in Wichita, Kansas, was sitting on apartment buildings with vacancy he could not fill in 1975. He converted one to monthly rentals and called it The Residence. The insight was that a guest staying five nights or more does not want daily maid service, which meant the economics worked at a price point conventional hotels could not touch.
In 1981 DeBoer formed a joint venture with Robert L. Brock, then the largest Holiday Inn franchisee, and the chain became The Residence Inn. The two of them coined the phrase "extended stay" for the category they were inventing.
In early 1987 DeBoer bought his partner's interest back, and on 7 July 1987 he sold the whole company to Marriott. The chain had 103 hotels at that point. It has 937 now.
There is a coda that belongs in an ownership article. DeBoer, who died in 2021 at 90, never stopped building extended-stay hotels. The original Wichita property is still operated by his own company, under the WaterWalk brand, which competes with the chain he sold. The founder outlasted his own sale by 34 years and ended up running a rival on the site where it started.
Ownership history: the timeline
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1975 | Jack DeBoer converts a Wichita apartment building into The Residence | CoStar |
| 1981 | DeBoer and Robert L. Brock form a joint venture; The Residence Inn chain launches | CoStar |
| Early 1987 | DeBoer buys back his partner's interest in the chain | CoStar |
| 7 Jul. 1987 | Marriott acquires Residence Inn, then 103 hotels. Its only change of ownership | CoStar |
| 31 Dec. 2025 | Residence Inn by Marriott, LLC (Delaware) listed in Marriott's Exhibit 21 | Marriott 10-K, filed 10 Feb. 2026 |
| 31 Dec. 2025 | Residence Inn brand at 937 properties, 115,333 rooms; Marriott owns or leases 51 properties system-wide | Marriott 10-K, filed 10 Feb. 2026 |
Like Oldsmobile, Residence Inn changed hands exactly once. Unlike Oldsmobile, it is still open.
What changed in the last 18 months
In the ownership of the brand, nothing: Residence Inn by Marriott, LLC sits in the Exhibit 21 filed in February 2026 exactly as before.
In the ownership of the hotels, the trend continued in the direction it has run for years. Marriott's franchised and licensed count rose from 7,192 to 7,644 properties during 2025, a gain of 452. Managed properties fell from 1,981 to 1,966. Owned or leased held at 51, unchanged. The system as a whole grew from 9,361 to 9,805 properties.
In other words: Marriott added 444 net properties to its system in 2025 and did not add a single one to its own balance sheet. That is what asset-light means when you watch it happen over one year rather than read it in a strategy deck.
So who really owns Residence Inn?
The trivia answer, "Marriott," is correct and has been since 7 July 1987.
The structure answer is that Marriott International, Inc. owns the brand through Residence Inn by Marriott, LLC, a Delaware subsidiary confirmed in a filing from February 2026, and that the 937 hotels flying that flag are almost entirely owned by franchisees and property investors. Marriott owns or leases 51 hotels in a system of 9,805 and did not buy one in 2025.
That is the part the top ten results miss. They answer "Marriott" and stop, which leaves the reader believing Marriott owns a chain of hotels. Marriott owns a brand, a reservation system and a loyalty programme, and rents them to the people who own the hotels. The building is somebody else's; the sign, the standards and the percentage are Marriott's.
And the man who actually built the thing sold it in 1987 for a chain of 103, then spent the next three decades competing with it from the same street in Wichita.
FAQ
Who owns Residence Inn?
Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAR) owns the brand, through Residence Inn by Marriott, LLC, a Delaware subsidiary listed in Marriott's 10-K Exhibit 21 as of 31 December 2025. Individual Residence Inn hotels are usually owned by franchisees, not Marriott.
Does Marriott own the actual Residence Inn hotels?
Almost never. As of 31 December 2025 Marriott owned or leased 51 of its 9,805 properties, roughly 0.5%. The rest are franchised (7,644) or managed for their owners (1,966).
Is Residence Inn a franchise?
Yes, overwhelmingly. Franchisees pay Marriott an application fee and continuing royalties based on a percentage of room revenue, and they own the hotel.
Who founded Residence Inn?
Jack DeBoer, in Wichita, Kansas, in 1975, by converting an apartment building he could not fill. He and partner Robert L. Brock launched the chain in 1981 and coined the term "extended stay."
When did Marriott buy Residence Inn?
On 7 July 1987, when the chain had 103 hotels. It is the brand's only change of ownership.
How many Residence Inns are there?
937 properties with 115,333 rooms as of 31 December 2025, per Marriott's 10-K.
What I'm watching next
The 51. It has not moved in a year, and it is the single cleanest number in Marriott's filings for testing whether the asset-light model is actually a model or just a description of the present. If it ever climbs, something structural has changed. The next Exhibit 21 and properties table land around February 2027.
Second, the franchised-versus-managed split. Managed properties fell in 2025 while franchised rose sharply. Franchising is the lighter, more profitable, less controlled relationship, and its share is growing. For a brand like Residence Inn, whose entire proposition is consistency, that drift is worth tracking, because the fewer hotels Marriott operates the more the brand depends on standards it enforces by contract rather than by payroll.
Third, whether Residence Inn by Marriott, LLC stays a distinct entity in Exhibit 21. Marriott lists over a hundred Marriott-named subsidiaries, and consolidations there are the earliest visible sign of brand reorganisation.
Sources
1. Marriott International, Inc., Form 10-K FY2025, Exhibit 21, "Subsidiaries of the Registrant," filed 10 February 2026. SEC EDGAR. Establishes Residence Inn by Marriott, LLC as a Delaware subsidiary of Marriott as of 31 December 2025.
2. Marriott International, Inc., Form 10-K FY2025, filed 10 February 2026. SEC EDGAR. Establishes the asset-light statement, the properties-by-ownership-type table (7,644 franchised, 1,966 managed, 51 owned/leased, 9,805 total), and the Residence Inn brand count of 937 properties and 115,333 rooms.
3. CoStar, "Now and Then: The History of Residence Inn". Article. Trade-press account of the 1975 origin, the 1981 joint venture, and the 7 July 1987 sale to Marriott at 103 hotels.
4. Hotel Management, "Residence Inn, WaterWalk founder Jack DeBoer dies at 90". Article. Establishes DeBoer's later WaterWalk brand and his death in 2021.