Meta Q3 2026 earnings: revenue above its $61–64B outlook

On Jul 29, Meta Platforms (META) told investors to expect third-quarter revenue of $61 billion to $64 billion. On Wednesday, Oct 21, after the market closed, it reported $64.60 billion, $0.6 billion above the top of that range and up 26% from a year earlier. The same release showed operating income down 37%, after a $9.89 billion legal charge, free cash flow of −$2.12 billion on Meta's own definition, and a full-year capital spending range whose floor moved up again, to $135 billion.

Meta reported a week before Microsoft and Alphabet (Oct 28) and eight days before Amazon (Oct 29), the other three large technology companies we follow. This recap measures the quarter against the outlook Meta itself gave, not against analysts' estimates: first the revenue range, then the full-year ranges for expenses and capital spending as they moved through 2026, then the new outlook and the stock's move. Company figures come from Meta's Oct 21 release and its 10-Q; prices and the regional revenue split come from StockFit, through the Oct 30 close.

Meta guided Q3 revenue to $61–64B; it reported $64.60B

Meta's revenue of $64,601 million landed above the range it gave in its second-quarter release: $0.60 billion above the $64 billion top, $2.10 billion (3.4%) above the $62.5 billion midpoint and $3.60 billion above the bottom (MoverTape calculations from company figures).

The guide came with one stated assumption. Meta's Jul 29 release said: "Our guidance assumes foreign currency is an approximately 1% headwind to year-over-year total revenue growth." The headwind turned out smaller. Converted at last year's exchange rates, revenue would have been $64,714 million, so currencies took $113 million off the reported figure, about 0.2 percentage point of growth. Revenue rose 26% on both a reported and a constant-currency basis, and even the constant-currency figure was above the top of the range.

Revenue was a single number to test against. Meta gave no outlook for third-quarter expenses or capital spending; it guides those for the full year only, which is where the next sections look.

Five quarters of Meta's revenue ranges, against the results

Meta has issued a $3 billion-wide revenue range for each of the last five quarters. In all five, revenue came in at or above the midpoint; it went above the top three times and stayed inside the range twice.

Sources: Meta's quarterly releases (8-K Exhibit 99.1) for each range and its currency assumption; revenue from the following quarter's release, matching StockFit's quarterly income statements. The last two columns are MoverTape calculations.

Five quarters is a short record, and it says nothing about the next one. It does show how Meta's ranges have been used: as a $3 billion band that the result has not fallen below in this period. Our guide to reading an earnings report explains where companies publish guidance and how to compare a result with it.

The rest of Meta's Q3: a $9.89B legal charge

The revenue line grew 26%, but costs grew 68%, because the quarter carries a one-time charge. In August, Meta agreed with 52 state attorneys general to resolve litigation related to teen mental health and social media, with payments of "up to approximately $18.59 billion", the release says. Third-quarter general and administrative costs include a $9.89 billion charge for that agreement.

Source: Meta's Q3 2026 release, Oct 21, 2026; the percentage changes are Meta's; the percentage-point changes are MoverTape calculations.

Both quarters carry a large one-off item, so the net income and per-share comparisons say little. Q3 2025 includes a $15.93 billion discrete tax charge recognized when the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was enacted, which pushed that quarter's tax rate to 87%, according to Meta's 10-Q; Q3 2026 includes the legal charge. Excluding the charge, Meta says, operating income would have been $22.88 billion and diluted EPS $7.40, with a 17% tax rate. That operating income would have been 11.4% above the year-earlier $20.54 billion (MoverTape calculation from company figures). Without the charge, costs were $41.72 billion, up 36% (MoverTape calculation from company figures).

The 10-Q gives the terms behind the charge. About $12.7 billion, roughly 70% of the total, is payable to the participating states in annual installments over 10 years. The remaining approximately $5.3 billion becomes payable state by state only if two conditions are met, including that peers such as YouTube and TikTok implement certain teen protections and make matching payments. Those conditions were not met at Sep 30, so Meta has not booked that amount and "may recognize additional expenses in future periods".

Segments. Meta reports two segments, Family of Apps and Reality Labs.

Source: Meta's Q3 2026 release, segment information. The advertising growth rate is Meta's; the other changes are MoverTape calculations from company figures.

The release does not say how the legal charge is split between the segments, so the fall in Family of Apps operating income cannot be read as a change in the underlying business. In advertising, Meta delivered 10% more ad impressions than a year earlier at a 14% higher average price per ad. Family daily active people averaged 3.64 billion in September, up 3%. Headcount was 66,775 at Sep 30, down 15% from a year earlier, after a reduction Meta announced in May.

By region, as Meta reports it, revenue grew fastest in the US and Canada, up 33.0% to $26.22 billion, followed by Rest of World (+30.1%, $7.37 billion), Europe (+21.2%, $14.02 billion) and Asia-Pacific (+18.8%, $16.99 billion) (StockFit revenue segmentation from the 10-Qs; growth rates are MoverTape calculations).

Free cash flow: −$2.12B on Meta's definition, −$1.16B on StockFit's

Meta's free cash flow was negative for the quarter, at −$2.12 billion, against $10.63 billion a year earlier. Two numbers circulate because there are two definitions:

• Meta's definition subtracts both purchases of property and equipment ($33.94 billion) and principal payments on finance leases ($0.96 billion) from operating cash flow ($32.79 billion). Meta counts both as capital expenditures, $34.91 billion in total, "regardless of whether we procure such property or equipment with a finance lease", the release says.
• StockFit's free cash flow, the series we use in our Big Tech capex comparison, subtracts only the purchases of property and equipment: −$1.16 billion.

Over the first nine months, Meta's free cash flow was $11.05 billion on its own definition. Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities were $82.45 billion at Sep 30, down from $90.26 billion at Jun 30, and long-term debt was $80.92 billion, up from $58.74 billion at the end of 2025 after notes Meta sold before July. When you see Meta's capex or free cash flow quoted, check which of the two definitions it uses.

Meta's full-year expense and capex ranges, as they moved

Meta has changed at least one of its 2026 ranges at every release since January. The expense range rose twice, each time to take in legal charges from the quarter just reported; the capital spending floor rose three times.

Sources: Meta's releases of the dates shown (CFO outlook commentary).

Expenses. "We are raising our expense outlook to incorporate the $9.9 billion charge related to legal proceedings recognized in the third quarter," the Oct 21 release says. The arithmetic fits: the July range plus $9.9 billion is $174.9–178.9 billion, which rounds to the new range. Costs for the first nine months were $127.08 billion, which leaves $47.9–51.9 billion for the fourth quarter (MoverTape calculation). That compares with $51.61 billion in the third quarter including the charge, and $41.72 billion without it. Meta also repeated that, excluding the third-quarter charge, it expects 2026 operating income to be above 2025's $83.28 billion.

Capital spending. The ceiling has stayed at $145 billion since April; the floor went from $115 billion to $125 billion, $130 billion and now $135 billion. On Meta's definition, which includes finance-lease principal, it spent $85.82 billion in the first nine months, so the new range implies $49.2–59.2 billion in the fourth quarter, against $34.91 billion in the third (MoverTape calculation). The full-year range is 1.87 to 2.01 times the $72.22 billion Meta spent on the same definition in 2025.

Reality Labs. In January, Meta expected Reality Labs operating losses to remain "similar to 2025 levels" ($19.19 billion). It now expects them to "decline compared to 2025 to a range of $18-19 billion". The segment lost $12.78 billion in the first nine months, which implies a fourth-quarter loss of $5.2–6.2 billion, against $6.02 billion a year earlier (MoverTape calculation). For 2027, Meta expects the losses "to narrow next year to around $15 billion".

Meta's Q4 revenue outlook: $73–76B

"We expect fourth quarter 2026 total revenue to be in the range of $73-76 billion," Meta said on Oct 21, again assuming currencies are "an approximately 1% headwind". Against fourth-quarter 2025 revenue of $59.89 billion, the range implies growth of 22% to 27% (MoverTape calculation). Meta expects a fourth-quarter tax rate of 15% to 17%, "absent any changes to our tax landscape".

The release gives no revenue outlook for 2027, saying instead that its AI investments "position us to sustain strong overall revenue growth throughout 2027".

How META traded from Oct 21 to Oct 30

Meta's shares closed at $697.52 on Oct 21, before the report, and fell 6.98% the next day to $648.85, when SPY, the S&P 500 fund, fell 1.18%. By the Oct 30 close they were at $614.99, 11.83% below the pre-report close, against a 2.25% fall for SPY.

Source: StockFit daily closes, unadjusted, as of the Oct 30, 2026 close; price change, dividends not included. Changes are MoverTape calculations.

CNBC reported that the shares fell on Oct 22 as Meta "showed negative free cash flow in its third-quarter earnings and raised the floor of its full-year capital expenditures", and that the price of Meta's five-year credit default swaps, a market measure of the cost of insuring its debt, reached all-time highs that day. Revenue above the range and a falling stock are both facts of the week; we report no other cause.

On Oct 30, S&P Global Ratings kept Meta's AA- credit rating and changed its outlook to negative from stable, citing "uncertainty" about capital spending and negative free cash flow, according to CNBC.

The other three reported later: Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet (GOOGL) on Oct 28 and Amazon (AMZN) on Oct 29. Our week in review for Oct 26–30 covers the market in the week after Meta's report.

Class C stock and the offerings that followed

The Oct 21 release also announced a new class of non-voting Class C common stock, effective Jan 19, 2027. Each Class A and Class B share is to receive one Class C share as a stock dividend, and Meta said it expects the Class A price "to reflect the effect of a two-for-one stock split" after the payment date. The record and payment dates have not been set.

Five days later, Meta priced about $37.5 billion of stock offerings and set out a planned program of about $60 billion. The offerings were $12.5 billion of mandatory convertible preferred stock, which closed on Oct 29, and $25.0 billion of Class A shares at $625.00 sold through forward sale agreements, for which Meta receives about $24.9 billion only when it settles, on or before Nov 19, 2027. The planned at-the-market program would sell Class C shares from the first quarter of 2027, and Meta says its size, timing and terms are not set. Our Big Tech capex and funding piece sets out each part and compares it with how the other three are paying for their spending.

One term affects the common shareholders. Under the Oct 29 8-K, while any preferred share is outstanding, Meta may not pay dividends on or buy back its common stock unless all accumulated preferred dividends have been paid or set aside, subject to certain exceptions. Meta bought back no stock in the first nine months of 2026, against $26.25 billion a year earlier, and paid $1.36 billion in dividends in the third quarter.

What the 10-Q adds

Meta's 10-Q, filed the evening of Oct 21, puts the spending in a longer frame:

1. Leases not yet started: about $355.73 billion of operating and finance leases, for data centers, energy infrastructure, colocation and network infrastructure, that begin between the rest of 2026 and 2036, with terms of up to 30 years. None of it is on the balance sheet yet.
2. Non-cancelable commitments: $454.52 billion, mostly third-party cloud capacity and servers and network equipment, with about $45.85 billion due in 2026 and $121.41 billion in 2027. These are contracts, not a capex forecast.
3. Contingent cloud purchases: up to a further $14.72 billion of cloud capacity over five years.

What Meta has not said yet

• No 2027 capital spending figure. The release says Meta is "still developing" its 2027 budget and capacity plans but expects "to continue investing aggressively". On the call, finance chief Susan Li said Meta does "not have anything more specific or quantitative to share until we get to the Q4 call, which is typically when we share guidance for the next year" (transcript).
• No 2027 revenue outlook, only the qualitative line above.
• No quarterly expense or capex guide, so the fourth-quarter figures in this post are our arithmetic from the full-year ranges, not Meta's.
• No segment split of the legal charge, and no Class C record or payment date.

Dates to watch

• Late November: the underwriters' 30-day options on the offerings lapse: up to 37.5 million more depositary shares and up to $3.75 billion more Class A stock.
• Jan 19, 2027: the Class C stock takes effect; the stock dividend follows on dates the board has not yet set.
• Jan 27, 2027: StockFit lists this as Meta's next report date; Meta has not confirmed it. Meta says 2027 guidance typically comes on that call.
• Feb 15, 2027: the first scheduled dividend date on the preferred stock.
• Feb 2027: the next school district bellwether trial in the federal social media litigation, according to the 10-Q.
• By Nov 19, 2027: the last date for Meta to settle the forward sale agreements.

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