Essential Utilities (WTRG) Earnings: Q3 2026 Results

The quarter ended September 30, 2026 and Essential Utilities published the results on November 3, 2026. Revenue and diluted EPS are shown against Q3 2025, the same quarter a year earlier, which takes seasonal swings out of the comparison. Essential Utilities reports EPS two ways: GAAP, under the accounting rules every US filer follows, and adjusted EPS (non-GAAP), which leaves out items the company considers outside its operating results. The release reconciles the two, and when they diverge, the reconciliation says why.

• Essential Utilities is merging with American Water Works. Each Essential share is to be converted into 0.305 shares of American Water common stock; shareholders of both companies approved the deal on February 10, 2026, and the companies expect it to close in the first quarter of 2027.
• Revenue is seasonal: the natural gas business earns most of its revenue in the heating months, so Q1 and Q4 revenue run well above Q2 and Q3.

Source: Essential Utilities Q3 2026 results, November 3, 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 Essential Utilities 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.

• Essential Utilities's Regulated Water revenue was $381 million in Q3 2026, up 5% from $364 million in Q3 2025, 75% of total revenue.
• Essential Utilities's Regulated Natural Gas revenue was $123 million in Q3 2026, up 13% from $108 million in Q3 2025, 24% of total revenue.
• Essential Utilities's Other and Elims revenue was $5.1 million in Q3 2026, up 14% from $4.5 million in Q3 2025, 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, Essential Utilities said:

“Essential is on track to invest $1.7 billion in needed infrastructure investments in 2026.”

“Excluding the one-time items and the impact of abnormal weather, operations and maintenance expenses for the full year are expected to be in line with historic norms.”

“We continue to expect the merger to close in the first quarter of 2027.”

Source: Essential Utilities Q3 2026 release, Nov 3, 2026.

This is the company's own guidance as of Nov 3, 2026, quoted as given. Walnut does not make forecasts of its own. Analyst estimates for the coming quarters are on the WTRG 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. Report dates are the dates printed on each release.

We do not hold a confirmed date for Essential Utilities'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 Nov 3, 2026

Essential Utilities reported Q3 2026 operating revenues of $508.3 million, up 6.6% from $477.0 million a year earlier. The company named additional revenues from regulatory recoveries and purchased gas costs as the main growth drivers. (Essential Utilities Q3 2026 release (EX-99.1), Nov 3, 2026)

Essential Utilities' Regulated Water segment (the Aqua brand) produced $380.6 million, up 4.5% from $364.1 million, with regulatory recoveries and a larger customer base from acquisitions as the largest contributors. By service, the 10-Q splits that into water revenues of $312.7 million and wastewater revenues of $64.8 million. Residential customers paid $213.7 million of the water revenue. (Essential Utilities Q3 2026 release (EX-99.1), Nov 3, 2026; Essential Utilities Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Nov 4, 2026)

The Regulated Natural Gas segment (the Peoples brand) brought in $122.6 million, against $108.5 million a year earlier, because of higher rates and surcharges, higher purchased gas costs and more volume delivered as customer usage rose. Peoples serves about 747,000 gas customers, about 95% of them in western Pennsylvania, and Aqua Pennsylvania alone accounted for about 57% of Regulated Water revenue in 2025. (Essential Utilities Q3 2026 release (EX-99.1), Nov 3, 2026; Essential Utilities Form 10-K, 2025, Feb 26, 2026)

Revenue at a regulated utility rises when regulators approve higher rates. So far in 2026 the water segment has received rate awards or infrastructure surcharges worth $53.6 million of annual revenue and the gas segment $16.9 million. Water and wastewater requests for an estimated $78.5 million are pending in Texas, Virginia, Illinois, Indiana and New Jersey, and a Pennsylvania gas base rate case asks for $163.2 million. (Essential Utilities Q3 2026 release (EX-99.1), Nov 3, 2026)

Essential Utilities earned $0.36 per diluted share on a GAAP basis in Q3 2026, up from $0.33. Adjusted EPS of $0.38 excludes $4.9 million of costs tied to the pending merger with American Water, net of a $1.3 million tax effect; the 10-Q breaks the merger costs into $3.0 million of retention award accruals and $1.9 million of professional and filing fees. (Essential Utilities Q3 2026 release (EX-99.1), Nov 3, 2026; Essential Utilities Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Nov 4, 2026)

Essential Utilities' tax line stays small because of flow-through and other permanent items: the effective tax rate was 6.0% in the quarter against 4.5% a year earlier. Interest expense rose to $91.3 million from $82.3 million, partly because of additional senior note borrowing at the corporate level. (Essential Utilities Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Nov 4, 2026; Essential Utilities Q3 2026 release (EX-99.1), Nov 3, 2026)

Diluted shares rose to 285,021 thousand from 282,298 thousand. In the quarter Essential issued 2,479,036 shares under its at-the-market equity program for net proceeds of about $101.3 million. (Essential Utilities Q3 2026 release (EX-99.1), Nov 3, 2026; Essential Utilities Form 10-Q, Q3 2026, Nov 4, 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.

Essential Utilities' Q3 2026 release does not give an EPS or revenue outlook. It says the company is on track to invest $1.7 billion in infrastructure in 2026, after about $1.1 billion in the first nine months, and that full-year operations and maintenance expense, excluding one-time items and abnormal weather, should be in line with historic norms. (Essential Utilities Q3 2026 release (EX-99.1), Nov 3, 2026)

Essential Utilities expects the American Water merger to close in the first quarter of 2027. Regulators in Kentucky, Ohio and Virginia have approved it, and settlement agreements have been reached in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Texas, each still subject to commission approval. (Essential Utilities Q3 2026 release (EX-99.1), Nov 3, 2026)

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

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