Waste Management (WM) Earnings: Q3 2026 Results and Next Report Date

The quarter ended September 30, 2026 and WM published the results on October 27, 2026. Revenue and diluted EPS are shown against Q3 2025, the same quarter a year earlier, which takes seasonal swings out of the comparison. WM reports EPS two ways: GAAP, under the accounting rules every US filer follows, and adjusted, which leaves out items the company considers outside its operating results. The release reconciles the two, and when they diverge, the reconciliation says why.

• Segment rows are net operating revenues, after intercompany revenue. Healthcare Solutions is the former Stericycle, Inc., which WM acquired in 2024.
• Beginning in 2026, WM moved landfill accretion expense from operating expenses to depreciation, depletion, amortization and accretion, and updated its 2025 figures to match. Revenue and EPS are unaffected.

Source: WM Q3 2026 results, October 27, 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 WM 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.

• WM's Collection and Disposal revenue was $5.6 billion in Q3 2026, up 5% from $5.3 billion in Q3 2025, 81% of total revenue.
• WM's Recycling Processing and Sales revenue was $441 million in Q3 2026, up 19% from $372 million in Q3 2025, 6% of total revenue.
• WM's Renewable Energy revenue was $167 million in Q3 2026, up 45% from $115 million in Q3 2025, 2% of total revenue.
• WM's Healthcare Solutions revenue was $651 million in Q3 2026, up 4% from $628 million in Q3 2025, 10% of total revenue.
• WM's Corporate and Other revenue was $8.0 million in Q3 2026, up 14% from $7.0 million in Q3 2025, under 1% 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

In its Q3 2026 release, WM said:

“We are affirming our 2026 guidance ranges, as we remain on track to meet our financial objectives.”

“The Company expects to achieve its full-year financial guidance, with revenue expected to be at the high end of the guidance range of $26.275 to $26.475 billion, adjusted operating EBITDA to be within the guidance range of $8.15 to $8.25 billion, and free cash flow to be at the high end of the guidance range of $3.75 to $3.85 billion.”

“Through the first nine months of the year, the Company repurchased $1.58 billion of its shares and continues to expect to repurchase a total of $2 billion of its shares in 2026.”

Source: WM Q3 2026 release, Oct 27, 2026.

This is the company's own guidance as of Oct 27, 2026, quoted as given. Walnut does not make forecasts of its own. Analyst estimates for the coming quarters are on the WM forecast page.

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

GAAP operating revenues and diluted EPS, each as first reported in that quarter's release.

WM's next report is expected around January 27, 2027, a date estimated from its reporting history that the company has not yet confirmed. This page will show Q3 2026 until those results are out and have been checked against the release.

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 27, 2026

WM reported operating revenues of $6,846 million in Q3 2026, up 6.3% from $6,443 million. Collection and Disposal, its trash pickup, landfill and transfer business, accounted for $5,579 million. Healthcare Solutions contributed $651 million, Recycling Processing and Sales $441 million, Renewable Energy $167 million and Corporate and Other $8 million. (WM Q3 2026 release, Oct 27, 2026)

Within WM's Collection and Disposal business, net revenue was $1,494 million from commercial collection, $926 million from residential, $843 million from industrial and $878 million from other collection, with $1,018 million from landfill and $420 million from transfer. Core price was 5.8% and Collection and Disposal yield 3.4%. Volume declined 0.4%, or 0.5% on a workday adjusted basis, which WM attributes to its intentional shedding of lower-margin residential business and commercial declines largely related to prior national account broker losses. On that basis residential volume fell 2.6% and commercial 1.3%. (WM Q3 2026 release, Oct 27, 2026)

WM's internal revenue growth was $380 million, or 5.9%. Average yield added $326 million, of which energy surcharge and mandated fees were $112 million and recycling and renewable energy commodity prices $43 million, and acquisitions added $33 million. WM also cites higher volumes in the recycling and renewable energy businesses as a result of completed growth projects. Single stream recycled commodities sold for about $82 per ton, against about $68, and in the quarter WM began operating a renewable natural gas facility in New York, its eighteenth new facility completed since 2022. (WM Q3 2026 release, Oct 27, 2026)

WM's Healthcare Solutions segment came with its 2024 acquisition of Stericycle and provides regulated waste and compliance services and secure information destruction in the U.S., Canada and Western Europe. Its revenue grew 3.7% in the quarter, and its adjusted operating EBITDA margin was 22.4%, against 17.5%. Across WM, the largest customer represented less than 5% of annual revenues in 2025, and WM owns or operates 257 landfill sites and manages 342 transfer stations. (WM Q3 2026 release, Oct 27, 2026; WM Form 10-K, 2025, Feb 9, 2026)

WM's diluted EPS was $2.05 in Q3 2026, against $1.49, and adjusted EPS was $2.15, against $1.98. The adjusted figures exclude Stericycle acquisition and integration costs ($30 million pre-tax), collective bargaining agreement costs ($2 million) and asset impairments and unusual items ($18 million, mainly an impairment tied to accelerating the closure of a landfill in WM's East Tier), together $0.10 per share. A year earlier the same adjustments came to $0.49 per share, including a $152 million impairment charge related to the decision to suspend the operations of a business. (WM Q3 2026 release, Oct 27, 2026)

WM's operating expenses rose to 59.8% of revenue from 58.9%: operating efficiency in Collection and Disposal improved the ratio by 40 basis points, and higher fuel costs and increased risk management costs took 130 basis points the other way. SG&A fell to 9.6% of revenue from 10.3%, which WM credits to cost discipline and synergy capture in Healthcare Solutions. (WM Q3 2026 release, Oct 27, 2026)

WM's effective income tax rate was 21.5%, against 22.2%, mainly because of favorable adjustments to accruals and related deferred taxes. Diluted weighted average shares fell to 399.8 million from 404.3 million. WM made no share repurchases in 2025 and paid $1,583 million for its own stock in the first nine months of 2026, $580 million of it in the third quarter. (WM Q3 2026 release, Oct 27, 2026; WM Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Oct 28, 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.

WM gives full-year guidance in its release and affirmed its 2026 ranges with its Q3 results. It expects revenue at the high end of $26.275 to $26.475 billion, adjusted operating EBITDA within $8.15 to $8.25 billion, and free cash flow at the high end of $3.75 to $3.85 billion. It still expects to repurchase a total of $2 billion of its shares in 2026, after $1.58 billion through September. The release gives no EPS guidance. (WM Q3 2026 release, Oct 27, 2026)

A consensus figure is the average of the models published by the analysts who cover WM, 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 WM'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 WM is on is WM a buy or a sell?, what analysts expect next is on the WM forecast, and what the company does is on the Waste Management (WM) stock page.

Every number on this page can be traced to a document WM 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.