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 Visa (V) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, Visa generated $22.8B of operating cash flow and $21.2B of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 93.1% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Visa (V) return via buybacks and dividends?

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

Visa (V) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$22.8B

Capex

-$1.57B

Free Cash Flow

$21.2B

FCF Margin

+93.1%

Cash flow waterfall for Visa (V) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: $21.2B

Cash flow breakdown for Visa (V) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$22.8B	$22.8B
Capital Expenditure	-$1.57B	$21.2B
Free Cash Flow	$21.2B	$21.2B
Acquisitions	-$705M	$20.5B
Other Investing	$1.81B	$22.3B
Share Buybacks	-$21.3B	$953M
Dividends Paid	-$4.88B	-$3.93B
Net Debt Change	$3B	-$931M
Other Financing	-$6M	-$937M
Forex Effect	-$712M	-$1.65B
Net Cash Decrease	-$1.65B	-$1.65B

Operating Cash Flow$22.8B
Capital Expenditure-$1.57B
Free Cash Flow$21.2B
Acquisitions-$705M
Other Investing$1.81B
Share Buybacks-$21.3B
Dividends Paid-$4.88B
Net Debt Change$3B
Other Financing-$6M
Forex Effect-$712M
Net Cash Decrease-$1.65B

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

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