Crown Castle (CCI) Earnings: Q3 2026 Results

The quarter ended September 30, 2026 and Crown Castle published the results on October 21, 2026. Revenue and diluted EPS are shown against Q3 2025, the same quarter a year earlier, which takes seasonal swings out of the comparison. Crown Castle reports EPS two ways: GAAP, under the accounting rules every US filer follows, and AFFO per share, which leaves out items the company considers outside its operating results. The release reconciles the two, and when they diverge, the reconciliation says why.

• Revenue on this page is Crown Castle's GAAP "Net revenues": site rental revenues plus services and other. Crown Castle is a REIT and reports AFFO (adjusted funds from operations) per share as its main per-share measure, shown here in place of adjusted EPS.
• Crown Castle sold its fiber solutions business to Zayo and its small cells business to EQT on May 1, 2026, for net cash proceeds of $8.4 billion. That Fiber Business is reported as discontinued operations, so revenue and AFFO here are towers only. GAAP net income and EPS include discontinued operations, which added $0.10 a share in Q3 2025.
• Crown Castle amended its Q3 2026 release on November 4, 2026 to reclassify $157 million paid in the quarter on the balance sheet and cash flow statement. The amendment did not change the statement of operations.
• Crown Castle terminated its master lease with DISH on January 12, 2026. Contracted revenue figures exclude about $3.5 billion Crown Castle says DISH owes.

Source: Crown Castle Q3 2026 results, October 21, 2026. Also in the Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026. Figures as reported; checked against the release on November 10, 2026.

How Crown Castle splits revenue in its own release, under its own labels, for Q3 2026 against Q3 2025. Indented lines are parts of the line above them.

• Crown Castle's Site rental revenue was $966 million in Q3 2026, down 5% from $1.0 billion in Q3 2025, 97% of total revenue.
• Crown Castle's Services and other revenue was $29.0 million in Q3 2026, down 52% from $60.0 million in Q3 2025, 3% of total revenue.

Segment lines are the figures writers cite most often, because they show where the growth in a quarter came from. Companies redraw their segments from time to time and restate the prior year to match, so a year-ago figure here can differ from the one printed a year ago. When that has happened, the note above says so.

From the earnings release

Crown Castle's outlook table gives full-year 2026 site rental revenues of $3,853 million to $3,898 million, AFFO per share of $4.54 to $4.66 and GAAP net income per diluted share of $1.76 to $2.41.

In its Q3 2026 release, Crown Castle said:

“We are increasing our full year 2026 guide for Adjusted EBITDA by $25 million and AFFO by $5 million to reflect higher ground lease buyout activity, additional operational efficiencies, and the impact of a customer agreement”

“We expect to finish the year towards the bottom end of the $60 million to $70 million full year 2026 Outlook range for core leasing activity.”

“Full year 2026 Organic Contribution to Site Rental Billings, excluding the impact of DISH Terminations and Sprint Cancellations, is expected to remain unchanged at approximately $135 million, or 3.4%, at the midpoint, or 3.6% if DISH revenues are excluded from prior year site rental billings.”

Source: Crown Castle Q3 2026 release (as amended November 4, 2026), Oct 21, 2026.

This is the company's own guidance as of Oct 21, 2026, quoted as given. Walnut does not make forecasts of its own. Analyst estimates for the coming quarters are on the CCI forecast page.

Revenue and diluted EPS for the last 5 quarters. Each date links to that quarter's release.

GAAP net revenues (continuing operations, excluding the Fiber Business) and GAAP net income per diluted share including discontinued operations, each as first reported in that quarter's release.

We do not hold a confirmed date for Crown Castle's next report. Companies post the date on their investor relations site a few weeks ahead, usually with the time of the conference call.

Each quarter keeps its own page with the figures as reported, so a link to one stays pointed at the same numbers after the next report.

• Q3 2026 (this page), reported Oct 21, 2026

Crown Castle's Q3 2026 net revenues were $995 million, down from $1,072 million a year earlier. Site rental revenues, the rent wireless carriers pay to put equipment on its roughly 40,000 U.S. towers, were $966 million, down $46 million or 4.5%. Services and other revenue fell to $29 million from $60 million. (Crown Castle Q3 2026 release (as amended November 4, 2026), Oct 21, 2026)

Crown Castle said the site rental decline came mainly from DISH and Sprint. Organic Contribution to Site Rental Billings was $35 million, or 3.5% growth, excluding a $61 million hit from DISH Terminations and $5 million from Sprint Cancellations. That organic figure was made up of $25 million of escalators, $16 million of core leasing activity and $7 million of non-renewals. Lower straight-lined revenues ($14 million) and amortization of prepaid rent ($3 million) also reduced reported revenue. (Crown Castle Q3 2026 release (as amended November 4, 2026), Oct 21, 2026)

Crown Castle's tenants are concentrated in three carriers. Based on Q3 2026 annualized site rental revenues, T-Mobile accounted for 42%, AT&T 28% and Verizon 23%, with all other tenants 7%. The 10-Q says about 93% of site rental revenues in the first nine months of 2026 came from those three carriers, and about 54% of its towers are leased or operated under agreements with AT&T and T-Mobile. (Crown Castle Q3 2026 supplemental information package (8-K/A Exhibit 99.2), Nov 4, 2026; Crown Castle Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Nov 4, 2026)

Crown Castle terminated its master lease with DISH on January 12, 2026, and excludes about $3.5 billion it says DISH owes from its contracted revenue figures. Crown Castle reported $28 billion of remaining contracted tenant receivables at September 30, 2026, with a weighted average remaining term of 5 years, and an average of 2.0 tenants per tower. (Crown Castle Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Nov 4, 2026; Crown Castle Q3 2026 supplemental information package (8-K/A Exhibit 99.2), Nov 4, 2026)

Crown Castle's GAAP net income per diluted share was $0.67, against $0.74. The year-ago figure included $0.10 from the since-sold Fiber Business; income from continuing operations rose to $0.67 a share from $0.64. AFFO, the REIT measure Crown Castle leads with, was $530 million, or $1.24 a share, up 8% and 11%. (Crown Castle Q3 2026 release (as amended November 4, 2026), Oct 21, 2026)

Crown Castle attributes the AFFO gain mainly to lower interest expense and fewer shares after it used the $8.4 billion of Fiber Business proceeds. Interest expense and amortization of deferred financing costs fell to $177 million from $247 million. In the second quarter it bought back about 11 million shares for $1.0 billion, and diluted weighted average shares fell to 426 million from 437 million. (Crown Castle Q3 2026 release (as amended November 4, 2026), Oct 21, 2026; Crown Castle Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Nov 4, 2026)

Crown Castle paid common dividends of about $452 million in Q3 2026, or $1.0625 a share, unchanged from a year earlier. It ended the quarter with 97% fixed rate debt and a weighted average debt maturity of about 7 years. (Crown Castle Q3 2026 release (as amended November 4, 2026), Oct 21, 2026)

Diluted EPS divides net income by the weighted average number of shares outstanding in the quarter, plus the shares that options and other equity awards could add. Buybacks shrink that count and lift EPS for the same profit; share issuance and stock awards enlarge it.

Crown Castle raised its full-year 2026 outlook with Q3 results. At the midpoint it now expects Adjusted EBITDA of $2,715 million (up $25 million), AFFO of $1,980 million (up $5 million) and AFFO per share of $4.60, up from $4.59, against $4.36 in 2025. Site rental revenues are guided to $3,875 million at the midpoint, up $20 million from the July outlook because of higher straight-lined revenues from contract term extensions. (Crown Castle Q3 2026 release (as amended November 4, 2026), Oct 21, 2026)

Crown Castle expects core leasing activity at the bottom end of its $60 million to $70 million range for 2026, and Organic Contribution to Site Rental Billings of about $135 million, or 3.4%, excluding DISH and Sprint. It also raised its discretionary capital expenditure outlook by $40 million for more ground lease buyouts. (Crown Castle Q3 2026 release (as amended November 4, 2026), Oct 21, 2026)

A consensus figure is the average of the models published by the analysts who cover Crown Castle, collected by a data provider and revised up to the day of the report. A quarter that lands above it says how expectations were set as much as how the business did, and the share price on the day also reflects the guidance and the lines no consensus covers.

The consensus figures on this page are Yahoo Finance's, as pulled on the date shown. Each comes with the number of analysts behind it; the smaller that number, the more one revised estimate can move the average.

The figures below are the ones Crown Castle's own release and filings put weight on for Q3 2026, with the latest reported value for each.

What the quarter means for a holding is a separate question from what it reported. The case for and against owning CCI is on is CCI a buy or a sell?, what analysts expect next is on the CCI forecast, and what the company does is on the Crown Castle (CCI) stock page.

Every number on this page can be traced to a document Crown Castle published. Checking one takes a couple of minutes, and it is worth doing before you quote a figure anywhere.

• The results release is the document linked in the source line above. Companies publish it on their investor relations site at the moment results go out, and it carries the headline tables: revenue, operating income, net income and EPS for the quarter and the year-ago quarter.
• The same release is filed with the SEC as Exhibit 99.1 to a Form 8-K under Item 2.02, usually on the day of the report. The SEC copy does not change after the fact, which makes it the safer thing to link when you cite a number.
• The quarterly report (Form 10-Q) follows within a few weeks and carries the full financial statements, the segment note and management's discussion of what changed. The fourth quarter is covered by the annual report (Form 10-K) instead.
• Restated comparisons are flagged in the notes on this page. When a company redraws its segments or changes how it adjusts EPS, it restates the year-ago column, so the year-ago figure in a new release can differ from the one printed a year ago. This page always uses the comparison in the newer release, because that is the like-for-like one.

A walk-through of every line in a release, with what each one tells you, is in how to read an earnings report.