Visa Q4 2026 earnings: cardholder spending tops $4 trillion, but results trail forecasts

October 27, 2026

Visa's fiscal Q4 2026 revenue and profit grew by double digits from a year ago but landed just shy of Wall Street forecasts, while cardholder spending crossed $4 trillion in a quarter for the first time.

Key takeaways

• Both revenue and adjusted profit grew by double digits versus a year earlier, but came in just under what analysts had expected for the quarter — a modest miss rather than a shortfall in the underlying business.
• Growth was driven by record spending activity on Visa’s network: total “payments volume” (money spent on Visa cards) rose about 10% in constant-currency terms and topped $4 trillion in a single quarter for the first time in the company’s history.
• Cross-border volume — spending made outside a cardholder’s home country, which Visa charges extra fees on — grew 13% on a constant-currency basis, an acceleration from 12% growth a year earlier.
• For the full fiscal year 2026, Visa generated $45.9 billion in net revenue, up 15% from the prior year, with adjusted (non-GAAP) net income of $25.3 billion, or $13.27 per share.
• Visa returned $5.2 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends in the quarter alone ($25.6 billion for the full year), and its board raised the quarterly dividend 16% to $0.78 per share, signaling confidence in continued cash generation.
• The fundamentals table shows very high profitability — operating margin near 61% and return on equity above 61% over the trailing year — reflecting Visa’s asset-light model: it runs the payment network and collects a fee per transaction rather than lending money or holding credit risk itself, which keeps costs low relative to revenue.
• Executives cited a World Cup boost: the company’s CFO said card-present transactions rose as much as 20% in some host cities on match days, with entertainment and restaurant spending seeing the biggest lift in cross-border activity.
• Visa’s CEO said the company is cutting some roles, mainly in its technology and product teams, as part of ongoing cost discipline even as the business keeps growing.

How the stock took it

Visa Inc. closed at $404.16 on Oct 26, 2026, the last session before the report, and at $400.60 on Oct 28, 2026, the first session after it — -0.9% 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 · Reuters