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 NVIDIA (NVDA) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q2 2026, NVIDIA generated $126B of operating cash flow and $119B of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 94.8% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did NVIDIA (NVDA) return via buybacks and dividends?

The waterfall shows buybacks (share repurchases) and dividends paid as separate steps in the financing section. Together these represent NVIDIA's shareholder returns for TTM through Q2 2026. You can compare these against free cash flow to assess the capital-return payout ratio.

NVIDIA (NVDA) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$126B

Capex

-$6.57B

Free Cash Flow

$119B

FCF Margin

+94.8%

Cash flow waterfall for NVIDIA (NVDA) — TTM through Q2 2026

Free cash flow: $119B

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

Cash flow breakdown for NVIDIA (NVDA) — TTM through Q2 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$126B	$126B
Capital Expenditure	-$6.57B	$119B
Free Cash Flow	$119B	$119B
Other Investing	-$66.9B	$52.2B
Share Buybacks	-$47.4B	$4.78B
Other Financing & FX	-$6.77B	-$2B
Net Cash Decrease	-$2B	-$2B

Operating Cash Flow$126B
Capital Expenditure-$6.57B
Free Cash Flow$119B
Other Investing-$66.9B
Share Buybacks-$47.4B
Other Financing & FX-$6.77B
Net Cash Decrease-$2B

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

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