FirstCash Holdings, Inc. is headquartered at 1600 West 7th Street in Fort Worth, Texas, and is publicly traded as a component of the S&P MidCap 400 Index and the Russell 2000 Index. The company operates more than 3,300 pawn and consumer lending locations across 29 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, the United Kingdom, and throughout Latin America — including all Mexican states plus Guatemala, Colombia, and El Salvador. With approximately 22,000 employees worldwide, FirstCash is one of the largest pawn operators by store count globally.
FirstCash's core business revolves around small, non-recourse pawn loans secured by pledged personal property — meaning borrowers risk only the collateral item, not their credit score or other assets. The company buys and sells a wide variety of secondhand merchandise including jewelry, electronics, tools, appliances, sporting goods, and musical instruments. Additional services include gold and precious metal buying for short-term cash access, a layaway program requiring just 10% down, and retail sales of pre-owned goods at its store locations. Through its wholly owned subsidiary AFF, FirstCash also offers lease-to-own and retail finance payment solutions through a network of over 15,000 active merchant partner locations nationwide.
What distinguishes FirstCash from independent pawn shops is its scale and institutional backing. With 3,300+ stores, it offers a store locator with broad geographic coverage, standardized lending practices, and the inventory breadth that comes with a large retail operation. Its S&P index inclusion signals financial stability relative to smaller, regional competitors. The AFF subsidiary also extends its reach beyond traditional pawn into point-of-sale financing, making it a more diversified consumer finance company than its pawn-shop identity suggests.
For consumers, FirstCash is a straightforward option when short-term cash access is needed and traditional credit isn't available. Pawn loans are non-recourse — defaulting means losing the item, not facing collections or credit damage — which is a listed consumer-protection context. However, pawn loan terms are typically short (30–90 days) with high effective APRs, and merchandise resale values offered to sellers are well below retail. Consumers should treat FirstCash as a last-resort liquidity tool or a secondhand shopping destination, not a cost-efficient borrowing channel.