Balance sheet: assets, liabilities and equity explained with Apple

A balance sheet lists everything a company owns, everything it owes, and the difference, which belongs to the shareholders. Unlike the income statement, which adds up a whole year, a balance sheet describes one moment: the close of business on a single date. Apple's latest annual one is dated September 27, 2025, the last day of its fiscal 2025.

It is the statement that answers questions about strength and safety. Can the company pay the bills due this year? How much does it borrow? How much cash could it hand back to owners tomorrow? What did investors actually put in, and what has the business kept? Lenders read it first; long-term investors should read it at least as closely as the income statement.

This guide walks through Apple's balance sheet line by line, checks that it balances, explains the lines that confuse almost everyone the first time (vendor non-trade receivables, an accumulated deficit at one of the most profitable companies on Earth, marketable securities in two places), works out book value per share, and shows how to compare two dates. Every figure comes from Apple's fiscal 2025 10-K.

The accounting equation

Every balance sheet rests on one identity:

It is true by construction. Every dollar a company holds came from somewhere: borrowed from lenders, owed to suppliers, invested by shareholders, or earned and kept. Assets are what the money became; liabilities and equity are who has a claim on it. The SEC's beginners' guide puts the same rule plainly: the two sides have to balance.

Current versus non-current

Both sides are sorted by time. Current assets are cash and things expected to become cash within a year (or one operating cycle, if longer): receivables, inventory, short-term investments. Current liabilities are obligations due within a year. Everything else is non-current. The split is what lets a reader judge short-term safety separately from long-term structure.

Two quick measures come straight from it:

A current ratio below 1.0 would worry a lender looking at a small manufacturer. At Apple it reflects a business that collects from customers quickly, holds almost no inventory and pays suppliers slowly, while keeping most of its investment portfolio in the non-current column. Our pages on Working capital and the cash conversion cycle, with Apple’s numbers and the Current ratio and quick ratio: measuring short-term liquidity explain how to tell a strong negative working capital position from a dangerous one.

Apple's assets, line by line

All figures in millions of dollars. The percentages are of total assets on September 27, 2025.

Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities

Cash and cash equivalents ($35.9 billion) are bank deposits, money-market funds and securities that mature within three months of purchase. Marketable securities are the rest of Apple's investment portfolio, mostly bonds: government debt, corporate bonds and similar holdings. Apple splits them by when they mature. Those due within a year are current ($18.8 billion); those due later are non-current ($77.7 billion).

That split matters because a quick glance at "cash" undercounts Apple's resources by almost three-quarters. All three lines together came to $132.4 billion.

Not every cash dollar is free to spend. On September 28, 2024, per the fiscal 2025 10-K, $2.6 billion of Apple's cash and $13.2 billion of its current marketable securities were held in escrow, restricted from general use, and designated to settle its obligation under the European Commission State Aid decision. When you compare cash balances across dates, read the note on restricted amounts.

Accounts receivable and vendor non-trade receivables

Accounts receivable ($39.8 billion) is money customers owe Apple for things already delivered: carriers, retailers and distributors who buy iPhones and pay on credit terms. It rose $6.4 billion (19.1%) in fiscal 2025, three times faster than sales. That is worth noticing, though one year proves little; see Accounts receivable.

Vendor non-trade receivables ($33.2 billion) are a line almost unique to Apple. Apple buys components (chips, displays, memory) and sells them to the contract manufacturers that assemble its products. Those manufacturers then owe Apple for the parts, and Apple buys back the finished devices. The 10-K describes these as receivables from certain manufacturing vendors resulting from the sale of components, and says any gain on the sales reduces products cost of sales. The 10-K also flags the concentration risk: the balances sit with a few vendors, mostly in Asia. Apple doesn't book this component flow as revenue, which is why it gets its own line, separate from trade receivables from customers.

Inventories

Apple's inventories were just $5.7 billion, 1.6% of assets and about nine and a half days of the $221 billion annual cost of sales ($5,718M ÷ $220,960M × 365 = 9.4 days). Because contract manufacturers hold most of the work in progress, Apple carries mainly finished goods in transit and in stores. For a retailer or a car maker, inventory is often the largest current asset and the one most likely to be written down.

Property, plant and equipment

PP&E, net ($49.8 billion) covers land, buildings, data centers, machinery and the tooling Apple owns at its suppliers' factories. "Net" means after accumulated depreciation: the gross cost was $125.8 billion, less $76.0 billion of depreciation recorded to date. Net PP&E rose $4.2 billion because Apple spent more on new assets than it depreciated. The How the three financial statements link, checked on Apple page reconciles that change.

Other assets

Other current assets ($14.6 billion) and other non-current assets ($83.7 billion) are catch-alls. Apple details their contents in the notes. When a catch-all line is large and growing fast, the note is worth reading: this is where items like deferred tax assets, capitalized costs and long-term prepayments sit.

Apple's liabilities, line by line

Accounts payable

Accounts payable ($69.9 billion) is what Apple owes suppliers for goods and services already received. It is Apple's single largest liability, more than twelve times its inventory. Suppliers are, in effect, lending Apple money interest-free for the weeks between delivery and payment. That is a sign of bargaining power, and it is one reason Apple's working capital is negative (Accounts payable).

Other current liabilities and deferred revenue

Other current liabilities ($66.4 billion) gather accrued expenses, taxes payable and similar obligations; the 10-K notes break them down. The line fell $11.9 billion in fiscal 2025. One piece the MD&A names: the remaining $8.8 billion of the one-time "deemed repatriation" tax imposed by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, payable within twelve months of September 27, 2025.

Deferred revenue ($9.1 billion current) is cash or billings Apple has received for things it has not yet delivered: the service portion of a device sale, AppleCare plans, subscriptions paid in advance. It is a liability because Apple owes the customer the service. Total deferred revenue, including a non-current part held in other non-current liabilities, rose from $12.8 billion to $13.7 billion. The Revenue recognition: the ASC 606 five steps, with Apple’s numbers page explains how it turns into sales.

Debt: commercial paper and term debt

Apple borrows in two ways. Commercial paper ($8.0 billion) is short-term unsecured borrowing, typically for a few months. Term debt is Apple's bonds: $91.3 billion of fixed-rate notes, of which $12.4 billion is due within twelve months (shown in current liabilities as $12,350M) and the rest later ($78,328M). Total debt fell from $106.6 billion to $98.7 billion as Apple repaid maturing notes faster than it issued new ones.

A company with $132 billion of investments also owing $99 billion looks odd at first. Gross debt and net debt answer different questions: gross debt is what must be refinanced or repaid as notes mature, while net cash shows that Apple could repay all of it from its portfolio. Our page on the Debt-to-equity ratio: formula, versions and when it misleads puts the numbers in context.

Other non-current liabilities

Other non-current liabilities ($41.5 billion) include long-term tax liabilities, the non-current part of deferred revenue and other items. The line fell $4.3 billion in fiscal 2025. Like the other catch-alls, it is worth a look in the notes whenever it moves by more than the business seems to explain.

Shareholders' equity, and three lines that surprise people

Common stock and paid-in capital

This line records the value of shares Apple has issued, mostly to employees through stock awards. Apple's shares have a par value of $0.00001 and 50.4 billion are authorized; 14,773.26 million were outstanding on September 27, 2025. The line rose $10.3 billion in fiscal 2025, mainly from share-based compensation, because each award adds to paid-in capital as employees earn it.

Accumulated deficit: buybacks, not losses

At most profitable companies this line is retained earnings: all the profit ever earned, minus all the dividends ever paid (Retained earnings). Apple's is negative, an accumulated deficit of $14.3 billion. Apple has not lost money. It has returned more cash than it kept. Apple charges the cost of share buybacks against this line, and it has repurchased hundreds of billions of dollars of stock over the past decade.

The full year of movements in every equity line is the subject of our Statement of shareholders’ equity: reading Apple’s equity roll-forward page.

Accumulated other comprehensive loss

AOCI is the running total of other comprehensive income: unrealized gains and losses on the bond portfolio, currency translation and some hedge results that bypass net income. Apple's balance was a $5.6 billion loss, $1.6 billion smaller than a year earlier, matching fiscal 2025's OCI gain of $1,601M. Bond prices fall when interest rates rise, so a company holding a large bond portfolio through a rate rise carries a negative AOCI until those bonds recover or mature.

Book value per share

Shareholders' equity is the accounting value of the owners' stake, also called book value. Dividing by the shares outstanding gives book value per share, the denominator of the Price-to-book ratio (P/B): book value, buybacks and ROE.

Apple's tiny book value is a product of two things: buybacks have drained equity, and the balance sheet doesn't record the assets that matter most to Apple's earnings. That second point deserves a section of its own.

What a balance sheet does not show

A balance sheet records assets at roughly what they cost, less depreciation, and only when they came from a transaction. That leaves out a great deal:

• Internally built brands and intangibles. The Apple brand, iOS, years of chip design, and the installed base of devices are worth far more than $73.7 billion, but Apple built them through expenses (R&D, marketing) that passed through the income statement. Under US GAAP, those costs are not capitalized as assets. Intangible assets and goodwill appear only when a company acquires them by buying another business; see Intangible asset and Goodwill.
• Current market values of many assets. Land bought decades ago stays at its old cost. Equipment is shown at depreciated cost, not resale value.
• People and know-how. Employees are not assets in accounting terms, however much they matter.
• Some commitments. Purchase obligations to suppliers and many contingent claims appear only in the notes, not on the face of the statement.
• Anything after the date. The balance sheet is stale the day after it is drawn up. A 10-Q balance sheet is about three months old by the next filing; an annual one is more than a year old by the time the next 10-K arrives.

This is why price-to-book is a useful measure for banks and insurers, whose assets are mostly financial and carried near market value, and a weak one for asset-light businesses like Apple.

Comparing two dates

Reading the two columns against each other turns a snapshot into a story. Here are Apple's biggest moves between September 28, 2024 and September 27, 2025:

Three habits make this kind of comparison useful. First, look at size and direction together: a change that is large relative to the line itself (receivables +19%) is more interesting than one that is large in dollars but small in percent. Second, connect each change to a cause on the income or cash flow statement; total assets fell $5.7 billion even in a record-profit year because Apple paid out more cash than it generated and drew down its securities. Third, compare against revenue: receivables growing faster than sales, or inventory growing faster than cost of sales, can be an early sign of trouble at many companies.

Pitfalls

• Treating cash as only the cash line. Apple's cash line is 27% of its cash and securities. Always add short-term and long-term investments, and subtract restricted amounts.
• Reading a low current ratio as distress. For companies with fast-turning sales and strong supplier terms, a ratio below 1.0 can be normal. For others, it is a warning. The business model decides which.
• Comparing book value across industries. A bank's book value approximates what its assets are worth; a software company's book value barely relates to it.
• Missing seasonality. A retailer's balance sheet at the end of December looks very different from the same company's in July. Compare the same date each year.
• Ignoring the notes. Lines labeled "other" can hold tens of billions of dollars. The notes and the MD&A in the 10-K say what they are.

The balance sheet compared with its neighbours

How Finabase does it

The Financials tab has a Balance sheet card with standardized lines: cash; current and non-current investments; receivables; inventory; current assets; PP&E net; goodwill and intangibles; tax assets; total assets; payables; deferred revenue; current, non-current and total debt; tax liabilities; current liabilities; total liabilities; retained earnings; accumulated other comprehensive income; and shareholders' equity. A line appears only if the newest period has a non-zero value, which is why some companies show fewer rows than others. Choose Annual to see fiscal year-ends or Quarterly for the latest 10-Q dates, and click any row to chart its history, the fastest way to compare many dates instead of two.

The provider's labels don't always match Apple's. Apple's vendor non-trade receivables, for instance, have no line of their own in the standardized card, so the receivables row may not equal the 10-K's accounts receivable. When a number matters, check it against the 10-K. For ratios built from the balance sheet, the Valuation tab charts ten fiscal years of the current ratio, quick ratio, debt-to-equity and price-to-book. The walk-through of every card is in How to read the Finabase financials tab.

Frequently asked questions

Why must a balance sheet always balance?

Because every asset is financed by either a liability or equity, so the two sides record the same dollars from different angles. If a company buys a $100 machine with a loan, assets and liabilities each rise by $100; if it pays cash, one asset falls as another rises. The equation can't break.

Why does Apple have negative retained earnings?

Apple's accumulated deficit comes from returning more cash to shareholders, through buybacks and dividends, than it has earned in total, not from losses. Apple charges buybacks against this line, and its buybacks have exceeded its cumulative retained profit. It shrank from −$19.2 billion to −$14.3 billion in fiscal 2025 because net income outran the cash returned.

What is the difference between book value and market value?

Book value is shareholders' equity on the balance sheet; market value is the share price times the shares outstanding. For Apple on September 26, 2025, book value was about $73.7 billion and market value about $3.77 trillion. The gap is mostly the value of assets the balance sheet doesn't record.

Is negative working capital bad?

Not necessarily: it depends on how the company gets paid. Apple's working capital was −$17.7 billion because it collects from customers faster than it pays suppliers. A company with slow customers and impatient lenders in the same position would be at risk.

Summary

A balance sheet is a one-date snapshot of what a company owns, what it owes and what is left for the owners, and it always satisfies assets = liabilities + equity. Apple's on September 27, 2025 shows $359.2 billion of assets, $285.5 billion of liabilities and $73.7 billion of equity, or $4.99 of book value per share. Read the current section for liquidity, the debt and investment lines for net cash ($33.8 billion), and the equity section for the history of buybacks behind Apple's accumulated deficit. Remember what the statement leaves out, especially internally built brands and know-how, then compare two dates and use the Cash flow statement: operating, investing and financing explained and Income statement: how to read one line by line, with Apple to explain every large change.