American Express
American Express' revenue rose 9.5% to $72.2 billion in fiscal 2025. Net income was $10.8 billion, up 7.0%. Its return on equity was 34.0%, down from 34.7% a year earlier. Its efficiency ratio was 73.6%, up from 72.6% a year earlier. It paid out $8.1 billion in dividends and buybacks. The diluted share count fell 2.4%.
Return on equity is net income as a share of shareholders' equity; return on tangible equity leaves out goodwill and other intangible assets. The efficiency ratio is operating costs as a share of revenue, so lower means the bank spends less to earn each dollar. Market cap is the last closing share price times the latest diluted share count, so it is approximate. P/E is the last close divided by diluted earnings per share over the last four quarters, or the latest fiscal year where the quarters aren't available; there is none when the company made a loss.
What American Express does
American Express issues credit and charge cards to consumers, small businesses, mid-sized companies and large corporations around the world, plus travel, dining and expense management services. It also offers savings and checking accounts, consumer installment loans and small-business lines of credit. It runs its own payments network and signs up merchants to accept its cards, charging them a fee it calls the discount rate. Banks and other institutions in approximately 110 countries and territories also issue American Express-branded cards or sign up merchants on its network.
American Express says it makes money mainly from spending on its cards and secondarily from finance charges and fees, including annual fees on many cards. It reports four segments: U.S. Consumer Services, Commercial Services, International Card Services, and Global Merchant and Network Services. In 2025 spending on the cards it issues came to $1,670 billion, and at year-end it had 86.6 million of its own cards in force. Delta Air Lines is its largest partner; cards issued with Delta made up approximately 13 percent of that worldwide spending as of December 31, 2025.
Its card network competes with Visa, China UnionPay, Mastercard, JCB, Discover and Diners Club International, and it says it is the fourth largest general-purpose card network globally by purchase volume. Other cobrand partners include Marriott International, British Airways and Hilton. As of December 31, 2025, it employed approximately 76,800 people, approximately 25,900 of them in the United States. In 2025 it bought Center, an expense management software company.
Its biggest risks, as it describes them
- Intense competition for partners such as cobrand card issuers, which could lead to losing or renegotiating those deals.
- Pressure on the fees it charges merchants to accept its cards, and the risk of losing merchants.
- Merchants adding surcharges or steering customers toward other ways to pay.
- Failing to win customers and promote card use, or to control what it spends on rewards and marketing to do so.
- Credit risk: cardholders and partners may not be able to pay what they owe.
Charts show fiscal years, from the 10-K filings.
Revenue and returns
Net income and earnings per share
From fiscal 2016 to 2025, earnings per share grew 11.9% a year and net income 8.1% a year, as buybacks cut the share count by 26%.
Efficiency and income mix
Payouts and share count
Valuation
Value American Express yourself from its earnings. A bank's cash flow is mostly the money it lends and takes in, so the cash flow model on other company pages doesn't suit it.
Price-to-earnings (P/E) method
Another common way to value a company is to multiply its earnings per share by a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple: the number of years of today's earnings an investor pays for a share. A higher multiple usually means investors expect earnings to grow. Choose a multiple, for example from similar companies, to see the value it gives.
Value per share on three example scenarios, from American Express' earnings per share of $17.76 (over the last four quarters). Each grows earnings for a year at the cash flow scenarios' rates and applies a multiple to next year's earnings: 13.8×, the middle of American Express' own P/E today, its peers' median and its sector's median (the Financials median) for the base scenario, 20% less and more for the cautious and optimistic ones. The price is brought back a year at 12%, 11% and 10%. Select one to load it into the calculator. These are the model's arithmetic on those assumptions, not a forecast or a price target.
- Last close, October 26, 2026
- $315.05
- Value at this multiple, against the last close
- —
- American Express' P/E at the last close
- 17.7×
| Company | Last close | Earnings per share | P/E today |
|---|---|---|---|
| SoFi TechnologiesSOFI | $14.46 | $0.49 | 29.5× |
| American ExpressAXP | $315.05 | $17.76 | 17.7× |
| Capital OneCOF | $202.35 | $16.70 | 12.1× |
| Ally FinancialALLY | $38.81 | $4.25 | 9.1× |
| Synchrony FinancialSYF | $74.83 | $9.60 | 7.8× |
Balance sheet
| Fiscal year end | FY21 | FY22 | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loans, net | — | — | — | — | — |
| Deposits | 84.4 | 110.2 | 129.1 | 139.4 | 152.5 |
| Loans to deposits | — | — | — | — | — |
| Provision for credit losses | −1.4 | 2.2 | 4.9 | 5.2 | 5.3 |
| Provision to average loans | — | — | — | — | — |
| Total assets | 189.0 | 228.4 | 261.1 | 271.5 | 300.1 |
| Shareholders' equity | 22.2 | 24.7 | 28.1 | 30.3 | 33.5 |
Insider trades
Over the 12 months between October 27, 2025 and October 26, 2026, no insider bought American Express shares on the open market, and 10 insiders sold $60.3 million, $18.0 million of it under trading plans set up in advance.
| Date | Insider | Trade | Shares | Price | Value | Filing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 18, 2026 | Monique HerenaChief Colleague Exp. Officer | Sold | 8,811 | $337.41 | $3.0 million | Form 4 |
| Jun 15, 2026 | Glenda G McNealChief Partner Officer | Sold | 7,033 | $339.36 | $2.4 million | Form 4 |
| Mar 13, 2026 | Raymond JoabarGrp. Pres., Global Comm. Serv. | Sold | 16 | $301.27 | $4,820 | Form 4 |
| Mar 6, 2026 | Quinn Jessica LiebermanEVP - Controller | Sold | 3,032 | $300.02 | $909,661 | Form 4 |
| Mar 2, 2026 | Raymond JoabarGrp. Pres., Global Comm. Serv. | Sold | 24 | $309.85 | $7,436 | Form 4 |
| Feb 19, 2026 | Raymond JoabarGrp. Pres., Global Comm. Serv. | Sold | 14,000 | $340.67 | $4.8 million | Form 4 |
| Feb 12, 2026 | Howard GrosfieldGroup Pres., U.S. Cons. Serv. | Sold | 8,134 | $346.73 | $2.8 million | Form 4 |
| Feb 9, 2026 | Ravikumar RadhakrishnanChief Information Officer | Sold | 15,000 | $356.58 | $5.3 million | Form 4 |
| Feb 9, 2026 | Laureen SeegerChief Legal Officer | Sold | 12,737 | $360.99 | $4.6 million | Form 4 |
| Feb 5, 2026 | Anna MarrsGroup Pres., Gmns | Sold | 27,425 | $350.01 | $9.6 million | Form 4 |
| Feb 5, 2026 | Denise PickettPres., Enterprise Shared Serv. | Sold | 23,385 | $356.91 | $8.3 million | Form 4 |
| Dec 12, 2025 | Raymond JoabarGrp. Pres., Global Comm. Serv. | Sold | 1,400 | $384.93 | $538,902 | Form 4 |
Compare
Put American Express side by side with any other company we cover: revenue, growth, margins, cash flow and returns, with ten years of charts.
Similar companies
| Company | Year | Revenue growth | Net margin | Return on equity | Return on tangible equity | Efficiency ratio | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Express | FY25 | 9.5% | 15.0% | 34.0% | 39.4% | 73.6% | |
| Capital One | FY25 | 36.6% | 4.6% | 2.8% | 3.8% | 57.1% | Compare |
| Synchrony Financial | FY25 | −2.8% | 18.7% | 21.3% | 24.6% | 27.1% | Compare |
| Ally Financial | FY25 | −3.3% | 10.8% | 5.8% | 6.2% | 68.1% | Compare |
| SoFi Technologies | FY25 | 35.1% | 13.3% | 5.7% | 7.0% | 84.6% | Compare |
10 years of figures
| Fiscal year | FY16 | FY17 | FY18 | FY19 | FY20 | FY21 | FY22 | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | ||||||||||
| Revenue | 35.4 | 36.9 | 40.3 | 43.6 | 36.1 | 42.4 | 52.9 | 60.5 | 65.9 | 72.2 |
| Revenue growth | 8.0% | 4.1% | 9.4% | 8.0% | −17.1% | 17.4% | 24.7% | 14.5% | 9.0% | 9.5% |
| Net interest income | 5.8 | 6.5 | 7.7 | 8.6 | 8.0 | 7.8 | 9.9 | 13.1 | 15.5 | 17.4 |
| Noninterest income | 29.7 | 30.4 | 32.7 | 34.9 | 28.1 | 34.6 | 43.0 | 47.4 | 50.4 | 54.9 |
| Noninterest expense | 25.4 | 26.7 | 28.9 | 31.6 | 27.1 | 33.1 | 41.1 | 45.1 | 47.9 | 53.2 |
| Provision for credit losses | 2.0 | 2.8 | 3.4 | 3.6 | 4.7 | −1.4 | 2.2 | 4.9 | 5.2 | 5.3 |
| Net income | 5.4 | 2.7 | 6.9 | 6.8 | 3.1 | 8.1 | 7.5 | 8.4 | 10.1 | 10.8 |
| Diluted EPS (US$) | 5.61 | 2.99 | 7.91 | 7.99 | 3.77 | 10.02 | 9.85 | 11.21 | 14.01 | 15.38 |
| Diluted shares (millions) | 935 | 886 | 859 | 830 | 806 | 790 | 752 | 736 | 713 | 696 |
| Payouts | ||||||||||
| Dividends paid | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.4 | 1.6 | 1.8 | 2.0 | 2.3 |
| Share buybacks | 4.4 | 4.3 | 1.6 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 7.7 | 3.5 | 3.6 | 6.0 | 5.8 |
| Balance sheet at fiscal year end | ||||||||||
| Loans, net | 64.0 | 71.7 | 79.7 | 85.0 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Deposits | 53.0 | 64.5 | 70.0 | 73.3 | 86.9 | 84.4 | 110.2 | 129.1 | 139.4 | 152.5 |
| Total assets | 159.0 | 181.0 | 189.0 | 198.0 | 191.0 | 189.0 | 228.4 | 261.1 | 271.5 | 300.1 |
| Shareholders' equity | 20.5 | 18.3 | 22.3 | 23.1 | 23.0 | 22.2 | 24.7 | 28.1 | 30.3 | 33.5 |
| Ratios | ||||||||||
| Return on equity | 26.1% | 14.2% | 34.1% | 29.8% | 13.6% | 35.7% | 32.0% | 31.7% | 34.7% | 34.0% |
| Return on tangible common equity | 29.8% | 16.2% | 39.7% | 34.3% | 15.7% | 42.5% | 38.0% | 36.9% | 40.1% | 39.4% |
| Return on assets | 3.4% | 1.6% | 3.7% | 3.5% | 1.6% | 4.2% | 3.6% | 3.4% | 3.8% | 3.8% |
| Efficiency ratio | 71.6% | 72.4% | 71.6% | 72.4% | 75.0% | 78.1% | 77.7% | 74.5% | 72.6% | 73.6% |