Cintas Q1 2027 earnings: revenue tops $3 billion for the first time, guidance raised

September 23, 2026

Cintas topped $3 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time, beat adjusted EPS estimates, and raised its full-year guidance.

Key takeaways

• Adjusted earnings per share of $1.39 came in slightly ahead of Wall Street’s $1.38 estimate, while revenue of just over $3.01 billion landed just under the roughly $3.04 billion analysts expected — but it was still the first time Cintas has topped $3 billion in quarterly revenue, up 10.9% from a year earlier.
• Sales grew 8.9% on an organic basis (stripping out acquisitions, currency swings, and calendar differences), with the First Aid and Safety Services business a standout, growing 14.2%.
• Management said the growth is being driven mainly by more customers and more services per customer rather than by raising prices, a distinction the company highlighted as a sign of durable demand rather than one-time price increases.
• Gross margin hit a record 51.5% and adjusted operating margin expanded by 90 basis points, meaning Cintas kept more of each sales dollar as profit — a trend also reflected in trailing-twelve-month operating and net margins of roughly 23% and 18%, both improved from a year earlier.
• The quarter included $14.4 million of one-time costs tied to Cintas’s proposed acquisition of rival UniFirst; excluding those costs is why adjusted EPS ($1.39) was higher than unadjusted GAAP EPS ($1.36).
• The effective tax rate rose to 20.0% from 17.6% a year earlier, a modest drag on reported profit growth compared with the underlying business improvement.
• Cintas raised its full-year fiscal 2027 outlook to revenue of $12.15–$12.27 billion (7.9%–8.9% growth) and adjusted EPS of $5.45–$5.54 (10.3%–12.1% growth), continuing a multi-year streak of raising guidance after beating its own targets.
• The company returned cash to shareholders through a 15.6% dividend increase and about $545 million in share buybacks during the quarter, underscoring the strong cash generation implied by its roughly 42% trailing return on equity.

Q1 2027 in context

Figures for the quarter ended Aug 2026 and the quarter ended Aug 2025, as reported to the SEC.

How the stock took it

Cintas Corp closed at $196.88 on Sep 21, 2026, the last session before the report, and at $197.68 on Sep 24, 2026, the first session after it — +0.4% across the report.

Closes from the market's daily record. Each figure spans the report date — from the last session that closed before it to the first that closed after — because a company may report before the open or after the close.

Fundamentals

Financial history →

Sources: company report · Benzinga