How Much Does Netflix Spend on Content? Cash Payments and Amortization Year by Year

Netflix spent $17.71 billion in cash on content in 2025

Content is by far the largest cost in the Netflix business. The 2025 cash payment equals 39.2 percent of the $45.18 billion of revenue the company reported for the year, and the amortization charge alone made up 70.6 percent of its $23.28 billion cost of revenues. Netflix calls content its single largest area of spend in its April 2026 letter to shareholders. The detailed income statement view of that cost is covered in our analysis of Netflix cost of revenues; this page focuses on the content line itself, measured both in cash and as an expense.

There is no single official number called content spend. Netflix reports two figures that are often confused. The first is the cash it actually pays to studios, producers and rights holders in a year. The second is amortization, which spreads the cost of each title over the period in which it is expected to be watched. Press reports mix the two, which is why published totals for the same year can differ by more than a billion dollars. Both are shown separately below, taken directly from the filings.

From $1.75 billion to $17.71 billion in thirteen years

In 2012, the year before House of Cards premiered, Netflix paid $1.75 billion in cash for streaming content, almost all of it licensed films and series. By 2025 the figure had grown to $17.71 billion, an increase of about 10.1 times and a compound growth rate of 19.5 percent a year. Over the same period revenue grew 12.5 times, from $3.61 billion to $45.18 billion, which is why content now takes a much smaller share of every dollar the company earns.

Three dips in one rising line: cash spend fell in 2020 (pandemic production halt), 2022 (a deliberate slowdown) and 2023 (the Hollywood strikes), then set a new record in 2025.

The growth came in three phases. From 2012 to 2019 Netflix raised cash spend every year, often by 30 to 50 percent, as it moved from licensing other studios libraries to commissioning its own originals in dozens of countries. The rise was steepest in 2016, when payments jumped 49.3 percent to $6.88 billion. Cash spend reached $14.61 billion in 2019.

The second phase, from 2020 to 2023, was irregular. Payments fell 14.2 percent to $12.54 billion in 2020 when the pandemic stopped most physical production, then rebounded to $17.47 billion in 2021 as delayed shoots restarted at the same time as new ones. In 2022 they eased to $16.66 billion, and in 2023 the writers and actors strikes pushed them down to $13.14 billion. Netflix said in its January 2024 letter that about $1 billion of 2023 spending had been delayed by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

The third phase began in 2024, when cash spend recovered 29.4 percent to $17.00 billion. In 2025 it rose a more modest 4.1 percent to $17.71 billion, the highest figure Netflix has ever reported and the first year above the 2021 level. Growth then picked up again in 2026, as the quarterly data later on this page shows.

Every year since 2012: cash, amortization, ratio and share of revenue

The table lists the figures behind every chart on this page. Cash spend and amortization come straight from the cash flow statements; the year on year change, the ratio and the shares of revenue are calculated by BusinessStats. Amounts are in billions of US dollars and rounded to two decimals.

2012 to 2018: additions to streaming content assets and change in streaming content liabilities. From 2019: additions to content assets and change in content liabilities. Revenue for 2012 to 2018 includes the DVD business, so the shares for those years slightly understate the weight of streaming content in streaming revenue.

Over fourteen years Netflix paid a combined $148.88 billion in cash for content and recognised $120.49 billion as amortization. The difference of about $28.4 billion is, in simple terms, the value of content that had been paid for but not yet expensed, which is why the net book value of content on the balance sheet kept growing over the same period.

Two numbers, two different questions

Netflix measures content in two ways, and each answers a different question. Cash spend tells you how much money left the company in a given year. Amortization tells you how much content cost was charged against that year of revenue. Over a long period the two must converge, because every dollar paid is eventually expensed, but in any single year they can be far apart.

This timing rule explains almost every pattern in the data. When Netflix shifts its slate towards titles it produces itself, it pays for them months or years before they start to be expensed, and cash spend runs ahead of amortization. When production slows, as in 2020 and 2023, cash spend falls immediately while amortization keeps rising on the back of titles already paid for. The chart below shows the two series side by side.

Only once below the line: 2023 is the single year in which Netflix expensed more content ($14.20 billion) than it paid for ($13.14 billion).

Amortization has risen every year since 2012 without a single decline, from $1.59 billion to $16.42 billion. Cash spend has been far more volatile. That is why analysts who want to know how much Netflix is investing in future content look at the cash figure, while those who want to know what the current catalogue costs look at amortization. For the asset side of the same story, the net value of the content library Netflix carries on its balance sheet, see our separate breakdown of Netflix content assets.

The ratio rose to 1.60x during the originals build out, then settled near 1.1x

Dividing cash spend by amortization produces the ratio Netflix itself now uses in its guidance. A ratio above 1.0 means the company is paying for more content than it is expensing, usually because it is building up a pipeline of titles still in production. A ratio below 1.0 means it is expensing content paid for in earlier years.

Peak in 2018: Netflix paid $1.60 for every $1 of content it expensed, the high point of the shift from licensed to produced content.

The 2018 and 2019 peaks matter because they explain the cash burn of those years. In 2019 cash spend exceeded amortization by $5.39 billion, and across 2016 to 2019 the gap added up to $14.71 billion. Netflix covered much of that gap with external financing, which it said in January 2021 it no longer needed for day to day operations. Once the slate of produced titles matured, more of the money spent each year went to titles already being amortized, and the ratio fell back towards 1.1x.

On the January 2026 earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann said the content cash to expense ratio should hold steady at about 1.1x, and that the company aims to grow content spend more slowly than revenue. The shareholder letters for Q1, Q2 and Q3 2026 repeat the same 1.1x expectation for the full year.

Content now absorbs 39 cents of each revenue dollar, half the 2016 level

Measured against revenue, Netflix content spending has fallen sharply, even as the absolute amount kept climbing. In 2016 cash payments for content equalled 77.9 percent of revenue. In 2025 they equalled 39.2 percent. The amortization share fell less steeply, from a peak of 54.2 percent in 2016 to 36.3 percent in 2025, because it was never inflated by the advance payments of the build out years.

Operating leverage in one chart: revenue grew faster than content cost in almost every year since 2017, which is the main source of the rise in the Netflix operating margin to 29.5 percent in 2025.

This shift is the core of the Netflix profit story. Subscription and advertising revenue rose with price increases, paid sharing and new members, while the content budget grew more slowly. Revenue per member and price changes are tracked in our page on Netflix monthly streaming revenue per customer, and the effect on the bottom line is shown in the history of Netflix net income. For 2026 Netflix guides to revenue of $51.1 billion, up 13 percent, while it expects amortization to grow about 10 percent, so the share should fall again.

Why free cash flow turned positive when the cash gap closed

Because Netflix records content payments in operating cash flow while amortization is a non cash charge that is added back, the gap between the two flows almost directly into free cash flow. Years in which Netflix paid far more for content than it expensed were years of negative free cash flow; years in which the gap shrank were years of positive free cash flow.

Free cash flow as defined by Netflix (net cash from operating activities less purchases of property and equipment and change in other assets), from the same letters.

The pattern is clear. Free cash flow was negative in every year from 2016 to 2019, reaching minus $3.27 billion in 2019, which Netflix said at the time it believed was the peak of its annual deficit. In January 2021 the company wrote that it no longer needed to raise external financing for day to day operations. The 2021 rebound in production briefly pushed free cash flow back to minus $0.16 billion, and since 2023, with the ratio near 1.1x, Netflix has generated $6.93 billion, $6.92 billion and $9.46 billion of free cash flow a year.

For 2026 Netflix expects free cash flow of about $12.0 billion, according to its 20 October 2026 letter, down from the $12.5 billion it projected earlier in the year. That figure includes a one time $2.8 billion cash receipt from the termination fee related to the Warner Bros. transaction, which Netflix booked in the first quarter, so it overstates the underlying cash generation of the content business.

How close Netflix has come to its own content budget

Netflix has published content spend expectations in several January letters. Comparing them with the cash flow statements filed a year later shows that the company has tended to land at or slightly below its stated figure. The widely quoted claim that Netflix spent $18 billion on content in 2025 comes from the forecast, not from the result.

The 2025 result came in $0.29 billion, or 1.6 percent, below the roughly $18 billion forecast. The 2024 result matched the upper limit almost exactly. In 2018 Netflix framed its budget as an expense rather than cash, and amortization of $7.53 billion landed at the bottom of the $7.5 billion to $8.0 billion range. Since January 2026 the company has stopped quoting a dollar figure and guides instead with a growth rate and a ratio.

Cash spend grew 18.5 percent in the first nine months of 2026

Quarterly figures show the 2026 acceleration more clearly than the annual totals. Cash payments were at least $4.80 billion in each of the first three quarters of 2026, compared with $3.96 billion and $4.05 billion in the first two quarters of 2025. Amortization grew 10.3 percent in Q1, 12.5 percent in Q2 and 5.8 percent in Q3, matching the Netflix comment in April 2026 that growth would peak in the second quarter and slow to mid to high single digits in the second half.

Highest quarter in the period shown: Q2 2026, with $5.11 billion of cash content payments; Q3 2026 followed with $5.07 billion.

For the nine months to September 2026, cash spend of $14.98 billion was 18.5 percent above the $12.64 billion paid a year earlier, while amortization of $12.76 billion was up 9.5 percent. Revenue over the same nine months rose 13.7 percent to $37.68 billion, so cash content spend equalled 39.7 percent of revenue and amortization 33.9 percent. The faster growth in cash than in expense means Netflix is again building a pipeline of titles that will be released and amortized in 2027 and later, which matches the 18.4 percent rise in content still in production on its balance sheet since December 2025.

What Netflix actually guided for 2026, and the $20 billion figure

Many reports in January 2026 said Netflix planned to spend $20 billion on content in 2026. That number does not appear in the shareholder letter or in the official earnings call transcript. What the January 2026 letter says is that the margin forecast reflects content amortization growth of about 10 percent and a cash content spend to amortization ratio of about 1.1x. The July 2026 letter repeated both points, and the October 2026 letter repeated the ratio.

Applying those two points to the 2025 base gives an implied range rather than an official budget. Amortization of $16.42 billion growing 10 percent would be about $18.1 billion, and 1.1 times that would be about $19.9 billion of cash spend. That is a BusinessStats calculation from Netflix guidance, not a Netflix figure. If the full year ratio ends closer to the 1.17x recorded through September, cash spend would be higher still.

Live events are a growing but still small part of the budget. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said in January 2026 that live is a small portion of content spend, and the July letter put it at just over 5 percent. The Q4 2026 slate includes what Netflix calls its biggest quarterly live slate to date, among them an NFL game on the eve of Thanksgiving. Most of the money still goes to scripted series and films.

Produced titles make up 64 percent of content assets but less than half of amortization

The balance sheet shows where past spending sits. At 30 September 2026 Netflix carried $34.61 billion of content assets, net of amortization. Produced content, titles Netflix makes and owns, accounted for $22.10 billion, or 63.9 percent, up from 63.0 percent at the end of 2025. Licensed content accounted for $12.51 billion. Within the produced total, $10.91 billion was still in production and $0.82 billion in development, so roughly a third of all content assets were titles members could not yet watch.

A pipeline worth $11.73 billion: titles in production or development, paid for in whole or in part but not yet released or amortized.

The income statement tells a different story. In the first nine months of 2026, licensed content accounted for $6.82 billion of amortization (53.4 percent) and produced content for $5.95 billion (46.6 percent). A year earlier the produced share was 46.3 percent. Because produced titles are paid for and capitalised long before release, they dominate the balance sheet, while licensed titles, paid roughly as they are amortized, weigh more heavily in each year of expense.

Both grew: licensed amortization rose 8.9 percent and produced amortization 10.2 percent year on year.

Licensing has not faded. Co-CEO Greg Peters said in January 2026 that Netflix stepped up licensing in 2023 and 2024 to fill gaps during the strikes, and Ted Sarandos noted new licensing deals including a Sony pay one film agreement and an expanded Universal deal. What the budget buys in titles is tracked in our data on Netflix library size worldwide, and what individual series cost to make is covered in our ranking of the most expensive Netflix original series per episode.

$25.22 billion of content already committed for future years

Future cash spend is partly locked in already. At 30 September 2026 Netflix reported total content obligations of $25.22 billion, up from $24.04 billion at the end of 2025. Only $5.6 billion of that sat on the balance sheet as current ($3.9 billion) and non-current ($1.7 billion) content liabilities. The other $19.6 billion related to agreements that did not yet meet the criteria for recognition as liabilities.

Next 12 months: $11.78 billion is due within a year, equal to about two thirds of the cash Netflix paid for content in all of 2025.

These commitments do not cover everything. Netflix states in its 2025 annual report that it also has obligations for titles that are not yet known, such as future seasons under output deals, and estimates them at about $1 billion to $4 billion over the next three years. A full history of the obligations total is in our page on Netflix streaming content obligations, and the split by current, non-current and off balance sheet items is in Netflix content obligations by type.

What $17.71 billion buys, and how to compare it

Netflix ended 2025 with more than 325 million paid memberships, according to its January 2026 letter. Dividing 2025 cash content spend by that figure gives a little over $54 per membership for the year, though the true number per member is higher because the count rose during the year. Membership trends up to the last reported quarter are in our tracker of quarterly Netflix subscribers worldwide, and the regional revenue that funds the budget is in Netflix revenue by region.

Comparisons with other media companies need care, because each one defines content spend differently. Some include sports rights, some report on an expense basis, and some include linear television. Our side by side view of content spend by media and streaming companies sets Netflix against its peers on a consistent footing, and the separate page on Disney content spending covers the largest traditional rival in detail. Content is not the only cost of winning viewers: Netflix also reports a separate marketing expenditure line.

How these figures were compiled

All annual figures come from the consolidated statements of cash flows published with the fourth quarter letter to shareholders for each year, filed with the SEC as Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8-K. Each letter shows the reported year and the prior year; where a figure appears in two letters, the later version is used. Quarterly figures for 2025 and 2026 come from the quarterly letters; Q2 and Q4 2025 values are derived by subtracting earlier quarters from year to date totals, and they reconcile exactly with the full year statement.

• Cash spend is additions to content assets plus the change in content liabilities, with the sign used in the cash flow statement. For 2025 that is $17,096.6 million plus $610.8 million, or $17,707.5 million.
• Until 2018 Netflix reported streaming and DVD content separately. The figures here are streaming only. DVD content purchases are excluded; Netflix reported them in separate or other line items.
• The 2014 additions figure uses the restated value from the Q4 2015 letter ($3,773.0 million); the original Q4 2014 letter showed $3,773.5 million.
• Ratios, year on year changes, shares of revenue, cumulative totals and the implied 2026 range are BusinessStats calculations. No figure on this page is a BusinessStats forecast.
• The previous version of this page labelled amortization as content spend, rounded several years and showed a $20 billion 2026 figure as Netflix guidance. Those values have been replaced with filed figures.

Netflix content spending in eight numbers

Questions about Netflix content spending