ABNB · Industrials(services-to dwellings & other buildings) · 8 years of annual accounts filed with the SEC · latest fiscal year ended 2025-12-31
Airbnb, Inc. reported revenue of $12.2 billion in fiscal 2025. Of the $18.3 billion its operations generated over 8 years, 60.0% went to buybacks. On the accounting screens, it passes 6 of 9 Piotroski tests, its Altman Z'' of 2.10 is in the grey zone and its Beneish M-score is below the -1.78 line; none of the six cross-checks between its statements fires.
Revenue, fiscal 202512.2B
Operating margin20.8%gross margin 83.0%
Return on invested capital20.0%13.1% on average over 5 years
Free cash flow—
Net debt ÷ EBITDANet cash4.6B more cash than debt
Piotroski F-score6/9tests of improvement passed
Share counts are in today's shares. The SEC's filings restate only recent years after a split, so these jumps were read as splits and the older years scaled to match — otherwise per-share figures would compare different units:
2-for-1 before fiscal 2021.
Is it growing?
Revenue and the operating income it turns into. Growth that does not reach operating income is growth bought with margin.
RevenueOperating income
-5.0B05.0B10.0B15.0B
2018
2019Revenue 4.8BOperating income -501.5M
2020Revenue 3.4BOperating income -3.6B
2021Revenue 6.0BOperating income 429.0M
2022Revenue 8.4BOperating income 1.8B
2023Revenue 9.9BOperating income 1.5B
2024Revenue 11.1BOperating income 2.6B
2025Revenue 12.2BOperating income 2.5B
20182019202020212022202320242025
Compound growth a year
3 yrs
5 yrs
7 yrs
Revenue
+13.4%
+29.4%
—
Operating income
+12.2%
—
—
Net income
+9.9%
—
—
Earnings per share
+13.1%
—
—
Shares
-2.9%
+1.9%
—
Falling shares are buybacks: each remaining share owns more of the company.
Does it earn more than its capital costs?
Margins say how much of each sale is kept; return on invested capital says how much the business earns on the money it needs to operate. Growth only creates value when that return is above the cost of the capital.
Needs a cost of capital, which comes from the valuation below.
Return on equity
30.6%
Return on assets
11.3%
Asset turnover
0.55×
Research & development
19.2% of revenue
Overheads (SG&A)
11.0% of revenue
Is the profit cash, and where does the cash go?
Net income is an accounting opinion; free cash flow is what was left in the bank after investing. Stock-based pay does not leave the bank — shareholders pay it through dilution — so it is shown taken off as well.
Net incomeFree cash flowAfter stock-based pay
-5.0B-2.5B02.5B5.0B
2018
2019Net income -674.3MFree cash flow 97.3MAfter stock-based pay -272,000
2020Net income -4.6BFree cash flow -777.0MAfter stock-based pay -3.8B
2021Net income -352.0MFree cash flow 2.3BAfter stock-based pay 1.4B
2022Net income 1.9BFree cash flow 3.4BAfter stock-based pay 2.5B
2023Net income 4.8B
2024Net income 2.6B
2025Net income 2.5B
20182019202020212022202320242025
Where 8 years of operating cash went, 2018–2025
18.3B generated by the business. Each band is its share of that total.
Reinvested in the business 1%212.5M
Acquisitions 1%192.1M
Dividends 0%0
Share buybacks 60%11.0B
Kept, or used to pay down debt 38%6.9B
Over the same years it paid 9.0B in stock. 1.9B of the buybacks went beyond offsetting that dilution.
Per share
Earnings per shareFree cash flow per shareDividend per share
$-10.00$-5.00$0.00$5.00$10.00
2018
2019Earnings per share $-1.29Free cash flow per share $0.19
2020Earnings per share $-8.07Free cash flow per share $-1.37
2021Earnings per share $-0.57Free cash flow per share $3.71
2022Earnings per share $2.78Free cash flow per share $5.01
2023Earnings per share $7.24
2024Earnings per share $4.11
2025Earnings per share $4.03
20182019202020212022202320242025
Shares outstanding
Diluted shares
500.0M550.0M600.0M650.0M700.0M
2018
2019Diluted shares 521.1M
2020Diluted shares 568.0M
2021Diluted shares 616.0M
2022Diluted shares 680.0M
2023Diluted shares 662.0M
2024Diluted shares 645.0M
2025Diluted shares 623.0M
20182019202020212022202320242025
How strong is the balance sheet?
Debt is not bad in itself; debt the business cannot service in a bad year is. Net debt is debt minus cash, and below zero the company holds more cash than it owes.
Net debt
-6.0B-4.0B-2.0B0
2018
2019
2020Net debt -3.7B
2021Net debt -4.1B
2022Net debt -5.4B
2023Net debt -4.9B
2024Net debt -4.9B
2025Net debt -4.6B
20182019202020212022202320242025
Net debt ÷ EBITDA
-1.8×
Interest coverage
— operating income ÷ interest
Current ratio
1.38 current assets ÷ current liabilities
Cash conversion cycle
—
Three classic screens of the accounts
Each asks a different question of the same statements — is it improving, does it look like a company heading for distress, do the accounts resemble ones that were manipulated. None is a verdict; each shows what moves it.
Piotroski F-score
Is the business improving? Nine yes-or-no tests, this year against last.
6of 9 tests passed
✓ProfitableReturn on assets above zeropassed
✓Cash from operationsOperating cash flow above zeropassed
✕Profitability improvedReturn on assets higher than a year beforefailed
✓Profit backed by cashOperating cash flow above net income (low accruals)passed
✓Less long-term debtLong-term debt as a share of assets fellpassed
✕More liquidCurrent ratio higher than a year beforefailed
✓No new sharesShare count did not growpassed
✕Better gross marginGross margin higher than a year beforefailed
✓Sells more per assetAsset turnover higher than a year beforepassed
Where it misleads: it measures change, not level. An excellent business that stood still for a year scores low; a poor one recovering from a disaster scores high.
Altman Z''-score
Does the balance sheet look like those of companies that went bankrupt?
2.10grey zone
1.12.6
Working capital ÷ assets 0.23 × 6.56+1.52
Retained earnings ÷ assets -0.25 × 3.26-0.81
Operating income ÷ assets 0.11 × 6.72+0.77
Equity ÷ liabilities 0.59 × 1.05+0.61
Where it misleads: buybacks. A company that returns so much cash that its equity turns small or negative sinks the last two ratios without being anywhere near bankruptcy. Banks and insurers do not fit the model at all.
Beneish M-score
Do the accounts resemble those of companies that manipulated their earnings?
-2.95below the -1.78 line
-1.78
Receivables vs sales 1.00 (not reported, set to 1)+0.92
Gross margin slipping 1.00+0.53
Soft assets 0.86+0.35
Sales growth 1.10+0.98
Slower depreciation 0.72+0.08
Overheads vs sales 1.03-0.18
Profit not in cash -0.10-0.45
Leverage rising 1.06-0.35
Where it misleads: fast growth and acquisitions. Sales growth carries a heavy weight, so a company growing 50% a year scores like a suspect without having done anything. It is a screen from a 1999 study, not an accusation.
Where the statements disagree
Cross-checks between the income statement, the balance sheet and the cash flow for the latest year, each with the benign reading and the worrying one.
None of the six cross-checks fires for the latest year: receivables and inventory move with revenue, profit turns into cash, investment keeps up with depreciation, the tax rate is ordinary and debt is moderate.
What is it worth, under which assumptions?
A company is worth the cash it will generate, brought back to today. This model projects revenue with growth that fades over the years, applies a free cash flow margin, and discounts the result at the cost of capital. Every assumption says where it came from, and all of them can be changed.
The SEC accounts lack the lines needed for revenue, free cash flow or the share count, so there is no DCF for this company.
What it has filed lately
The last twelve months at the SEC, most important first: annual and quarterly reports, events, large holders and insiders.
Accounts from the company's own SEC filings; lines some companies do not report are shown as a dash rather than estimated. The risk-free rate is the 10-year US Treasury yield. A DCF is a way of making assumptions explicit, not a forecast: it states what the company would be worth if the assumptions held. The scores are screens that point where to look, not verdicts. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell.
