Apple ended its fiscal year on 26 September with net cash of $56.8 billion, by our arithmetic from the balance sheet in the results it filed with the SEC on 2 November: $136.9 billion of cash and marketable securities, minus $80.1 billion of commercial paper and term debt. That is $23.1 billion more than a year earlier, the largest rise in any of the 11 fiscal years we could compute from its filings.
It is the year Apple stopped aiming for zero. On its 30 April earnings call, chief financial officer Kevan Parekh said: “As we move ahead, we are no longer providing net cash neutral as a formal target, and we will independently evaluate cash and debt”, according to a Motley Fool transcript of the call.
By our arithmetic, at fiscal 2026’s pace Apple would never reach net cash neutral, because net cash went up. At the average pace of the 30 quarters from its December 2017 peak to its June 2025 low, about $4.4 billion a quarter, the $56.8 billion would take about 13 quarters to run down. That is a description of past pace, not a forecast; Apple no longer targets zero.
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The key insight: By our arithmetic, about 80% of the $23.1 billion rise in Apple’s fiscal 2026 net cash came from owing less: commercial paper and term debt fell $18.5 billion while cash and marketable securities rose $4.5 billion.
Net cash is the cash and marketable securities a company holds minus what it owes in debt. Net cash neutral means those two are equal, so the figure is zero.
In his prepared remarks on 30 April, Parekh said: “Net cash neutral has been a valuable framework for our capital structure, and since 2018, we have significantly right-sized our balance sheet and reduced net cash by over $100 billion”. He gave net cash at the end of March as $62 billion.
Asked by an analyst to expand, he said: “Our goal of net cash neutral has really served us well and been a valuable framework for our capital structure since 2018”, and “We believe we are at a stage where evaluating cash and debt independently is the right approach for us”. The same day, Apple’s board authorised an additional $100 billion of buybacks and raised the dividend 4% to $0.27 a share.
Apple’s net cash at each quarter-end from June 2015 to September 2026: cash and current and non-current marketable securities minus commercial paper and term debt, in US$ billion, our arithmetic from its 10-Q and 10-K balance sheets (SEC XBRL) and its Q4 fiscal 2026 results. The dashed line marks zero, net cash neutral. For March and June 2020 the line Apple tagged as other short-term borrowings is used as commercial paper. Chart: FourWeekMBA.Animated: Apple’s net cash at each quarter-end, June 2015 to September 2026, US$ billion: cash and marketable securities minus commercial paper and term debt, our arithmetic from its 10-Q and 10-K balance sheets (SEC XBRL) and its Q4 fiscal 2026 results. Values are computed from filed figures, not read from a chart. Chart: FourWeekMBA.
Eleven Years of Net Cash, Quarter by Quarter
We rebuilt the figure for 46 quarter-ends, June 2015 to September 2026, from Apple’s 10-Q and 10-K balance sheets via SEC XBRL data, the last from the new release. Net cash peaked at $162.7 billion in December 2017 and reached its low of $31.3 billion in June 2025.
That is a fall of $131.4 billion over 30 quarters, by our arithmetic. From the December 2017 peak to the end of March 2026 the fall was $100.8 billion, which matches the “over $100 billion” Parekh cited.
Net cash fell in seven of the eight fiscal years from 2018 to 2025, from $153.2 billion in September 2017 to $33.8 billion in September 2025, an average of $14.9 billion a year. The one exception was fiscal 2023, when it rose $2.0 billion.
Why It Rose: Debt Fell Faster Than Cash Grew
Most of the fiscal 2026 rise came from the debt side, by our arithmetic. Commercial paper and term debt fell $18.5 billion, to $80.1 billion from $98.7 billion. Cash and marketable securities rose $4.5 billion. So about 80% of the $23.1 billion came from owing less, not from holding more.
The cash flow statement shows repayments of $12.396 billion of term debt and $5.911 billion of commercial paper, net, and no proceeds from new term debt, against $4.481 billion raised in fiscal 2025. The $80.1 billion of total debt is the lowest at any quarter-end since March 2016, when it was $79.9 billion, by our count.
The rise was not even across the year. Net cash grew $20.5 billion in the December 2025 quarter and $7.6 billion in the March quarter, before the April call. It then rose $0.3 billion in the June quarter and fell $5.3 billion in the September quarter, so it is $5.1 billion lower than at the end of March.
Where the Cash Went: Fewer Shares
Most of the year’s operating cash went back to shareholders. Apple generated $145.097 billion from operations and spent $86.390 billion on buybacks and $15.721 billion on dividends, according to the cash flow statement.
Diluted shares used in its earnings per share fell to 14.720 billion in fiscal 2026. In fiscal 2016 the figure was 5.500 billion, before the four-for-one stock split of 2020, or 22.001 billion on a split-adjusted basis. By our arithmetic, that is 33.1% fewer shares in ten years.
Apple issued no new term debt in fiscal 2026. On 2 November, the day its results came out, Oracle filed to sell $10 billion of common stock and $10 billion of senior notes, Alphabet priced €6 billion of euro notes, and Meta was reported to be eyeing at least $20 billion of dollar and euro bonds, as we set out in our self-funded versus market-funded comparison.
The two moves are not the same kind of decision. Apple is repaying debt while it still holds more cash than it owes; the other three were raising or seeking new money from investors that day.
The Structural Read
As we read it, the higher net cash is mainly a smaller debt load, not a bigger cash pile: cash and marketable securities of $136.9 billion are below the $146.6 billion of March.
As we read it, the timing matters: $28.1 billion of the rise came in the two quarters before the April call, and net cash has fallen $5.1 billion since.
As we read it, the share count is where the long drawdown went: 33.1% fewer diluted shares than in fiscal 2016, on a split-adjusted basis.
“We believe we are at a stage where evaluating cash and debt independently is the right approach for us”
Three Implications
FOR SHAREHOLDERS Apple spent $86.390 billion on buybacks and $15.721 billion on dividends in fiscal 2026, and its board added $100 billion to the buyback authorisation in April.
FOR BOND INVESTORS Apple raised no new term debt in fiscal 2026 and repaid $12.396 billion; its $80.1 billion of total debt is the lowest at a quarter-end since March 2016, by our count.
FOR READERS TRACKING THE TARGET At the average pace of its 2017-2025 drawdown, $56.8 billion would take about 13 quarters to reach zero, by our arithmetic; Apple no longer targets zero, so this describes past pace only.
The framework describes Apple’s April report as “decreasing capex year-over-year” and “announcing a structural break” from its net cash neutral policy, the week the four largest cloud spenders lifted their 2026 capex guides.
As we read it, the September balance sheet is the first full quarter after that break: net cash fell $5.3 billion in the quarter. The framework does not discuss these figures.
Apple has not said, in the material we read, what level of net cash or debt it now aims for, or whether the fiscal 2026 rise was planned. Parekh’s words come from a Motley Fool transcript of the 30 April call, not from an Apple document. We had not read a transcript of the 2 November call when we wrote, so any comment on net cash made there is not covered.
Net cash, its changes, the share of the rise from lower debt, the split-adjusted share count and the quarters-to-zero figure are our arithmetic from Apple’s filings, not company statements. For March and June 2020 we used the line Apple tagged as other short-term borrowings as its commercial paper. Apple’s 10-K for fiscal 2026 had not been filed, so there is no risk-factor comparison. We did not contact Apple.
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Apple ended fiscal 2026 with $56.8 billion of net cash, $23.1 billion more than a year earlier, by our arithmetic, after seven years in which it fell. About 80% of the rise came from cutting debt by $18.5 billion, with no new term debt issued. In April Apple said it was no longer targeting net cash neutral; in the September quarter net cash fell $5.3 billion.
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A note on sourcing. The net cash series is our arithmetic from Apple’s balance sheets as filed with the SEC (10-Q and 10-K data via SEC XBRL, and the Q4 fiscal 2026 results of 2 November 2026). Parekh’s words are from a Motley Fool transcript of Apple’s 30 April 2026 call. The Oracle, Alphabet and Meta figures are from our linked piece of 2 November. The quarters-to-zero figure describes past pace and is not a forecast. We did not contact Apple.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
