What is a cash flow waterfall?

A cash flow waterfall is a bar chart that walks from operating cash flow through capital expenditure to free cash flow, then shows how the remaining cash is allocated — acquisitions, buybacks, dividends, debt, and other financing — ending at the net change in cash. Each step is colour-coded: green bars add to the running total, red bars subtract.

How does CVS Health (CVS) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, CVS Health generated $10.3B of operating cash flow and $7.39B of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 71.6% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did CVS Health (CVS) return via buybacks and dividends?

The waterfall shows buybacks (share repurchases) and dividends paid as separate steps in the financing section. Together these represent CVS Health's shareholder returns for TTM through Q1 2026. You can compare these against free cash flow to assess the capital-return payout ratio.

CVS Health (CVS) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$10.3B

Capex

-$2.94B

Free Cash Flow

$7.39B

FCF Margin

+71.6%

Cash flow waterfall for CVS Health (CVS) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: $7.39B

Note: Other Investing is large — driven mainly by acquisitions and investment activity.

Cash flow breakdown for CVS Health (CVS) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$10.3B	$10.3B
Capital Expenditure	-$2.94B	$7.39B
Free Cash Flow	$7.39B	$7.39B
Other Investing	-$3.05B	$4.35B
Dividends Paid	-$3.4B	$945M
Net Debt Change	-$1.7B	-$750M
Other Financing & FX	$111M	-$639M
Net Cash Decrease	-$639M	-$639M

Operating Cash Flow$10.3B
Capital Expenditure-$2.94B
Free Cash Flow$7.39B
Other Investing-$3.05B
Dividends Paid-$3.4B
Net Debt Change-$1.7B
Other Financing & FX$111M
Net Cash Decrease-$639M

Want to see what drove the FCF change?Free Cash Flow Bridge

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