Nasdaq Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results; Annual Results Exceed $5.2B in Net Revenue and $4.0B in Solutions Revenue

NEW YORK, Jan. 29, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nasdaq, Inc. (Nasdaq: NDAQ) today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2025.

• Net revenue¹ in 2025 was $5.2 billion, an increase of 13% over 2024, or 12% on an adjusted² basis. Solutions³ revenue increased 12%, or 11% on an adjusted basis.
  
  
• Fourth quarter 2025 net revenue was $1.4 billion, an increase of 13% on both a reported and organic basis over the fourth quarter of 2024. Solutions revenue grew 13%, or 12% on an organic basis.
  
  
• Annualized Recurring Revenue (ARR)^3,4 of $3.1 billion increased 10% on both a reported and organic basis over the fourth quarter of 2024. Annualized SaaS revenue increased 11%, or 13% on an organic basis, and represented 38% of ARR.
  
  
• Financial Technology revenue was $498 million, an increase of 14% over the fourth quarter of 2024, or 12% on an organic basis.
  
  
• Index revenue of $232 million grew 23% in the fourth quarter, with $99 billion of net inflows over the trailing twelve months and $35 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025.
  
  
• GAAP diluted earnings per share increased 60% in 2025 and grew 47% in the fourth quarter of 2025. Non-GAAP⁵ diluted earnings per share in 2025 increased 24% over 2024. Fourth quarter 2025 Non-GAAP⁵ diluted earnings per share in 2025 was $0.96, an increase of 27% over the fourth quarter of 2024.
  
  
• In the fourth quarter of 2025, the company returned $153 million to shareholders through dividends and $286 million through repurchases of common stock. The company also repaid $100 million of senior unsecured notes in the quarter.
  
  

Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Highlights

Note: Adjusted and organic change for 4Q25 as compared to 4Q24 are equivalent as they include the same period over period adjustments. Refer to the footnotes to this press release for more information.

Adena Friedman, Chair and CEO said, “It was an excellent year of execution for Nasdaq, as we achieved strong organic growth, accelerated innovation, and successfully delivered across our three strategic priorities: Integrate, Innovate, and Accelerate. For the first time, Nasdaq exceeded $5 billion in annual net revenue and $4 billion in annual Solutions revenue, reflecting the power, resilience and adaptability of our platform.

Looking ahead, we are well‑positioned to build on our momentum in 2026 and deliver durable growth by deepening client relationships and unlocking greater value through our unified One Nasdaq platform.”

Sarah Youngwood, Executive Vice President and CFO said, “In 2025, Nasdaq delivered outstanding financial results, underscoring the durability and differentiation of our business model. We delivered strong growth across our platform, expanded operating leverage, and generated robust cash flow.

As we move into the new year, we remain focused on serving as a strategic partner to our clients and translating that performance into long‑term value for our shareholders.”

FINANCIAL REVIEW

• Net revenue in 2025 was $5.2 billion, reflecting 13% growth versus the prior year period. Adjusted net revenue growth was 12%. Fourth quarter 2025 net revenue was $1.4 billion, reflecting 13% growth versus the prior year period.
  
  
• Solutions revenue in 2025 was $4.0 billion, an increase of 12% versus the prior year period, or 11% on an adjusted basis. Fourth quarter 2025 Solutions revenue was $1.1 billion, up 13% versus the prior year period, or 12% on an organic basis, reflecting strong growth from Index and Financial Technology.
  
  
• ARR was $3.1 billion as of the fourth quarter of 2025, growing 10% year-over-year on both a reported and organic basis. Financial Technology ARR growth was 14%, or 12% on an organic basis, and Capital Access Platforms ARR growth was 8%, or 7% on an organic basis.
  
  
• Market Services net revenue was $311 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, up 16% versus the prior year period, or 14% on an organic basis.
  
  
• GAAP operating expenses in 2025 were $2.9 billion, an increase of 2% versus the prior year period, and fourth quarter GAAP operating expenses were $762 million, an increase of 7% versus the prior year quarter. These increases primarily reflect organic growth due to increased investments in technology and people to drive innovation and long-term growth. For the full-year 2025, merger and strategic initiative expense also increased, and was partially offset by a decrease in restructuring costs and general, administrative and other expenses. The fourth quarter expense increases were partially offset by a decrease in regulatory and merger and strategic initiatives expenses.
  
  
• Non-GAAP operating expenses in 2025 were $2.3 billion, an increase of 8% versus the prior year period, or 7% on an adjusted basis. Fourth quarter non-GAAP operating expenses were $609 million, an increase of 10% versus the prior year quarter, or 8% on an organic basis. The fourth quarter and full year 2025 increases primarily reflect organic growth due to increased investments in technology and people to drive innovation and long-term growth. For the full year 2025, this increase was partially offset by a decrease in general, administrative and other expenses.
  
  
• Cash flow from operations was $2.3 billion in 2025 and $625 million for the fourth quarter, enabling the return of capital through Nasdaq’s efficient capital allocation framework. In 2025, the company returned $601 million to shareholders through dividends and $616M through repurchases of common stock. In the fourth quarter of 2025, the company returned $153 million to shareholders through dividends and $286 million through repurchases of common stock. As of December 31, 2025, there was $1.1 billion remaining under the board authorized share repurchase program. The company repaid $826 million of debt in 2025, including $100 million of senior unsecured notes in the fourth quarter of 2025.
  
  
• Nasdaq surpassed its expanded efficiency program net expense target, with over $160 million in expense efficiencies actioned as of year-end 2025.
  

2026 EXPENSE AND TAX GUIDANCE UPDATE⁶

• The company is initiating its 2026 non-GAAP operating expense guidance at a range of $2.455 billion to $2.535 billion, and its 2026 non-GAAP tax rate guidance to be in the range of 22.5% to 24.5%.
  

STRATEGIC AND BUSINESS UPDATES

• Financial Technology delivered 12% quarterly organic revenue and organic ARR growth driven by sales momentum across all subdivisions. FinTech signed 129 new clients, 143 upsells, and 12 cross-sells in the fourth quarter, contributing to full-year totals of 291 new clients, 462 upsells, and 25 cross-sells. The strong cross-sell performance in the year brings the total to 42 cross-sells since the Adenza acquisition, reflecting the strength of the One Nasdaq strategy. Fourth quarter and full-year 2025 highlights included:
  
  
  • Financial Crime Management Technology continued its strong sales momentum while launching new product innovations and capabilities. Nasdaq Verafin delivered another strong quarter of new client signings, adding 119 new small-and-medium bank clients and 3 Enterprise deals. Total Enterprise signings in the year represent over four times both the number of signings and total annualized contract value (ACV) compared to the prior year. Verafin expanded its platform capabilities with two strategic partnerships signed during the year, and with the introduction of its Agentic AI Workforce, launched in the third quarter.
    
    
  • Regulatory Technology momentum continued with strong performance across Surveillance and AxiomSL driven by successful execution on cross-sells and upsells. The subdivision added 10 new clients, including 5 cross-sells, and 76 upsells in the fourth quarter, contributing to full-year totals of 35 new clients, including 12 cross-sells, and 245 upsells. AxiomSL steadily expanded its global footprint in 2025, which included deepening its partnership with Revolut after they consolidated their UK and European regulatory reporting onto the solution’s cloud-managed platform. Surveillance also drove strong client growth, with the business signing 26 new clients across securities exchanges, market participants, regulators, crypto trading venues, and crypto trading participants in 2025 to strengthen their protections across rapidly evolving markets.
    
    
  • Capital Markets Technology performance reflects strong client demand and engagement for market modernization solutions. The subdivision signed 9 new clients, including 5 cross-sells, and 67 upsells in the quarter, contributing to full-year totals of 20 new clients, including 8 cross-sells, and 214 upsells. Calypso continued to strengthen its relationship with central banks, ending the year with 24 central banks including 3 signed in the fourth quarter. In Market Technology, the business continued to execute on its blueprint for market modernization, securing a major financial market infrastructure client for a multi-product, cloud-based managed service solution in the fourth quarter.
    
    
• Index ETP assets under management (AUM) and net inflows reached new records. Index had net inflows of $35 billion in the fourth quarter and $99 billion over the last twelve months, both records levels. End-of-period ETP AUM was $882 billion and average ETP AUM in the fourth quarter was $860 billion, also setting new quarterly highs. In 2025, Nasdaq’s Index business launched 122 new products, an all-time high, with nearly half of the launches being international products and 32 new products in the institutional insurance annuity space.
  
  
• Nasdaq expanded the distribution of its private market data through partnerships with LSEG and Juniper Square. Through its collaboration with LSEG, Nasdaq will provide eVestment private markets datasets for delivery through the LSEG platform. The partnership with Juniper Square will make eVestment institutional intelligence available through Juniper Square’s fundraising platform, reaching more than 2,000 private market general partners.
  
  
• Nasdaq extended its listings leadership in 2025 with its seventh consecutive year as the top U.S. exchange by proceeds raised and executed the largest exchange transfer ever. For the year, Nasdaq welcomed eligible operating company IPOs that raised over $24 billion in total proceeds. Medline, which came to market in December 2025, headlined new listings as the largest IPO of the year. The listings business also welcomed the largest IPO in Europe, Verisure. Nasdaq capped a record-setting year for its listings switch program in 2025 with $1.2 trillion of market value switching to Nasdaq, including Walmart, the largest exchange transfer on record.
  
  
• Market Services set new net revenue records while launching proposals to advance the modernization of markets. Fourth quarter Market Services net revenue benefited from record industry volumes in U.S. cash equities and U.S. equity derivatives. Growth was also driven by index options revenue more than doubling for the second straight quarter, higher market share in European equities, and strong U.S. Tape Plan revenue. Nasdaq’s Closing Cross also set a new daily notional value record of $233 billion during the Triple-Witch event in December. This year, Nasdaq launched initiatives to drive the evolution of capital markets, including submitting a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to facilitate the trading of tokenized securities on its markets and announcing the plan to bring 23/5 trading to the Nasdaq Stock Market in the second half of 2026.
  

NASDAQ TO HOST 2026 INVESTOR DAY

• Nasdaq will host its 2026 Investor Day on Wednesday, February 25, 2026. The event will feature presentations on the company’s operations and strategy, as well as a question and answer session with members of Nasdaq’s senior leadership team including Adena Friedman, Chair and CEO, and Sarah Youngwood, Executive Vice President and CFO. Registration for the event webcast can be found on Nasdaq’s investor relations website.
  

____________
¹ Represents revenue less transaction-based expenses.
² Adjusted and organic change for 4Q25 as compared to 4Q24 are equivalent as they include the same period over period adjustments for changes in foreign exchange rates and divestitures. 2025 as compared to 2024 also adjusts for the AxiomSL accounting change implemented in 3Q24 to recognize on-premises contracts ratably which included a $34 million non-GAAP revenue adjustment in 3Q24, and excludes the impact of the previously announced one-time revenue benefit in our Index business in 1Q24 ($16 million). As it relates to ARR, organic changes only exclude the impacts of period over period changes in foreign currency exchange rates and divestitures as the AxiomSL ratable recognition adjustment and one-time revenue benefit had no impact on ARR.
³ Solutions revenue and Annualized Recurring Revenue (ARR) constitutes revenue and ARR from our Capital Access Platforms and Financial Technology segments as well as revenue and ARR from our Solovis business which was sold in October 2025. Solovis revenues and ARR were previously included in our Capital Access Platforms segment, and have been reclassified into “Other” for all prior periods presented.
⁴ ARR for a given period is the current annualized value derived from subscription contracts with a defined contract value. This excludes contracts that are not recurring, are one-time in nature or where the contract value fluctuates based on defined metrics. ARR is currently one of our key performance metrics to assess the health and trajectory of our recurring business. ARR does not have any standardized definition and is therefore unlikely to be comparable to similarly titled measures presented by other companies. ARR should be viewed independently of revenue and deferred revenue and is not intended to be combined with or to replace either of those items. For AxiomSL and Calypso recurring revenue contracts, the amount included in ARR is consistent with the amount that we invoice the customer during the current period. Additionally, for AxiomSL and Calypso recurring revenue contracts that include annual values that increase over time, we include in ARR only the annualized value of components of the contract that are considered active as of the date of the ARR calculation. We do not include the future committed increases in the contract value as of the date of the ARR calculation. ARR is not a forecast and the active contracts at the end of a reporting period used in calculating ARR may or may not be extended or renewed by our customers.
⁵ Refer to our reconciliations of U.S. GAAP to non-GAAP net income attributable to Nasdaq, diluted earnings per share, operating income, operating expenses and organic impacts included in the attached schedules.
⁶ U.S. GAAP operating expense and tax rate guidance are not provided due to the inherent difficulty in quantifying certain amounts due to a variety of factors including the unpredictability in the movement in foreign currency rates, as well as future charges or reversals outside of the normal course of business.

ABOUT NASDAQ

Nasdaq (Nasdaq: NDAQ) is a leading technology platform that powers the world’s economies. We architect the infrastructure of the world’s most modern markets, power the innovation economy, and build trust in the financial system. We empower economic opportunity by designing and deploying the technology, data, and advanced analytics that enable our clients to capture opportunities, navigate risk, and strengthen resilience. To learn more about the company, technology solutions and career opportunities, visit us on LinkedIn, on X @Nasdaq, or at www.nasdaq.com.

NON-GAAP INFORMATION

In addition to disclosing results determined in accordance with U.S. GAAP, Nasdaq also discloses certain non-GAAP results of operations, including, but not limited to, non-GAAP net income attributable to Nasdaq, non-GAAP diluted earnings per share, non-GAAP operating income, and non-GAAP operating expenses, that include certain adjustments or exclude certain charges and gains that are described in the reconciliation tables of U.S. GAAP to non-GAAP information provided at the end of this release. Management uses this non-GAAP information internally, along with U.S. GAAP information, in evaluating our performance and in making financial and operational decisions. We believe our presentation of these measures provides investors with greater transparency and supplemental data relating to our financial condition and results of operations. In addition, we believe the presentation of these measures is useful to investors for period-to-period comparisons of results as the items described below in the reconciliation tables do not reflect ongoing operating performance.

These measures are not in accordance with, or an alternative to, U.S. GAAP, and may be different from non-GAAP measures used by other companies. In addition, other companies, including companies in our industry, may calculate such measures differently, which reduces their usefulness as a comparative measure. Investors should not rely on any single financial measure when evaluating our business. This information should be considered as supplemental in nature and is not meant as a substitute for our operating results in accordance with U.S. GAAP. We recommend investors review the U.S. GAAP financial measures included in this earnings release. When viewed in conjunction with our U.S. GAAP results and the accompanying reconciliations, we believe these non-GAAP measures provide greater transparency and a more complete understanding of factors affecting our business than U.S. GAAP measures alone.

We understand that analysts and investors regularly rely on non-GAAP financial measures, such as those noted above, to assess operating performance. We use these measures because they highlight trends more clearly in our business that may not otherwise be apparent when relying solely on U.S. GAAP financial measures, since these measures eliminate from our results specific financial items that have less bearing on our ongoing operating performance.

Organic revenue and expense growth, organic change and organic impact are non-GAAP measures that reflect adjustments for: (i) the impact of period over period changes in foreign currency exchange rates, and (ii) the revenue, expenses and operating income associated with acquisitions and divestitures for the twelve month period following the date of the acquisition or divestiture and (iii) the impact of AxiomSL on-premises contracts for ratable recognition in comparable periods to align with current period presentation. Reconciliations of these measures are described within the body of this release or in the reconciliation tables at the end of this release.

Foreign exchange impact: In countries with currencies other than the U.S. dollar, revenue and expenses are translated using monthly average exchange rates. Certain discussions in this release isolate the impact of year-over-year foreign currency fluctuations to better measure the comparability of operating results between periods. Operating results excluding the impact of foreign currency fluctuations are calculated by translating the current period’s results by the prior period’s exchange rates.

Restructuring programs: In the fourth quarter of 2023, following the closing of the Adenza acquisition, our management approved, committed to and initiated a restructuring program to optimize our efficiencies as a combined organization. We further expanded this program in the fourth quarter of 2024 to accelerate our momentum and further optimize our efficiencies (efficiency program). We have incurred costs principally related to employee-related costs, contract terminations, asset impairments and other related costs and expect to incur additional costs in these areas in an effort to accelerate efficiencies through location strategy and enhanced AI capabilities. Actions taken as part of this program were completed as of December 31, 2025, while certain costs may be recognized in the first half of 2026. We expect to achieve benefits primarily in the form of expense synergies. In October 2022, following our September announcement to realign our segments and leadership, we initiated a divisional realignment program with a focus on realizing the full potential of this structure. As of September 30, 2024, we completed our divisional realignment program. Costs related to the Adenza restructuring and the divisional realignment programs are recorded as “restructuring charges” in our condensed consolidated statements of income. We exclude charges associated with these programs for purposes of calculating non-GAAP measures as they are not reflective of ongoing operating performance or comparisons in Nasdaq's performance between periods.

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Information set forth in this communication contains forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Nasdaq cautions readers that any forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and that actual results could differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking information. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to (i) projections relating to our future financial results, total shareholder returns, growth, dividend program, trading volumes, products and services, ability to transition to new business models, taxes and achievement of synergy targets, (ii) statements about the closing or implementation dates and benefits of certain acquisitions, divestitures and other strategic, restructuring, technology, de-leveraging and capital allocation initiatives, (iii) statements about our integrations of our recent acquisitions, (iv) statements relating to any litigation or regulatory or government investigation or action to which we are or could become a party, and (v) other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties or other factors beyond Nasdaq’s control. These factors include, but are not limited to, Nasdaq’s ability to implement its strategic initiatives, economic, political and market conditions and fluctuations, geopolitical instability, government and industry regulation, interest rate risk, U.S. and global competition. Further information on these and other factors are detailed in Nasdaq’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual reports on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, which are available on Nasdaq’s investor relations website at http://ir.nasdaq.com and the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Nasdaq undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

WEBSITE DISCLOSURE

Nasdaq intends to use its website, ir.nasdaq.com, as a means for disclosing material non-public information and for complying with SEC Regulation FD and other disclosure obligations.

Media Relations Contact:

David Lurie
+1.914.538.0533
David.Lurie@Nasdaq.com

Investor Relations Contact:

Ato Garrett
+1.212.401.8737
Ato.Garrett@Nasdaq.com

-NDAQF-