Oracle Capex 2026 and 2027: Guidance, Spend and Debt

Oracle expects to spend $90 billion to $95 billion on capex in fiscal 2027, while guiding to revenue of "at least $90 billion." It's the only large AI builder whose capex is about as big as its entire revenue.

Three years ago, Oracle spent $8.7 billion a year on capex. In the quarter that ended August 31, 2026, it spent $28.5 billion. The money builds data centers for AI customers that have signed contracts worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Oracle is paying for it with borrowed money, new shares and cash its customers pay in advance.

The short version

• Fiscal 2027 guidance (June 2026 to May 2027): $90 billion to $95 billion of capex, with "not more than $70 billion in net cash CapEx," CFO Hilary Maxson said on September 10, 2026.
• Fiscal 2026 actual: $55.7 billion, above the $50 billion Oracle had guided to. A year earlier, the plan was "more than $25 billion."
• The backlog: remaining performance obligations, contracted revenue not yet earned, reached $664 billion, up from $138 billion in May 2025. Oracle expects about 13% of it to become revenue in the next 12 months.
• The funding: $43 billion of debt and $5 billion of equity in fiscal 2026, plus about $40 billion more planned in fiscal 2027, including $19.9 billion of new shares already sold.
• The cash: free cash flow was −$23.7 billion in fiscal 2026, as Oracle reports it.

Figures are from Oracle's filings and earnings calls through its fiscal Q1 2027 report on September 10, 2026. We update after each quarterly report. Oracle's fiscal year ends May 31.

Oracle capex guidance: every change

The fiscal 2026 plan more than doubled in six months, then the actual spend still beat it by $5.7 billion. For fiscal 2027, the gross number has settled at $90 billion to $95 billion.

Two capex numbers: gross vs net cash

Oracle now reports capex two ways, and its guidance uses both:

• Capital expenditures is the gross cash spent on property and equipment, the number in its cash-flow statement.
• Net cash outlay for capex subtracts money customers prepay for capacity and some short-term financing. In fiscal Q1 2027, customers prepaid $11.4 billion, the main reason $28.5 billion of gross capex came to $18.0 billion net.

The gross figure tells you how much Oracle is building. The net figure tells you how much of it Oracle's own balance sheet pays for. Most comparisons with Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta use the gross figure, and so do we.

How much has Oracle spent?

Sources: Oracle Q1 FY27 release (capex and net cash outlay tables), fiscal 2026 Form 10-K and Q1 FY27 Form 10-Q.

Over the 12 months to August 2026, Oracle spent $75.7 billion on capex against $71.8 billion of revenue, our calculation from its filings. That's $1.05 of capex for every dollar of sales. Microsoft spent about 35 cents and Meta about 39 cents over a similar period, as we show in AI spending vs the dot-com bubble.

Worked example: what the rest of fiscal 2027 requires

This is the opposite of what Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta face. They must speed up in the second half to hit their plans (see the tracker). Oracle can slow down and still land in its range. Maxson warned that "our CapEx will not be linear throughout the year," and Q1 was heavy. At Q1's pace, a full year would come to about $114 billion, so a quarter well above $22 billion would suggest the range is going up again.

The backlog behind the build

Source: Oracle quarterly releases and filings.

RPO is revenue customers have signed contracts for but Oracle hasn't earned yet. It jumped by $317 billion in the quarter to August 2025, the quarter Oracle said it signed several multibillion-dollar contracts. In a June 2025 filing, Oracle disclosed one contract "expected to contribute more than $30 billion in annual revenue starting in FY28" (8-K). Oracle hasn't named the customer or put a dollar value on any OpenAI contract in a filing. The Wall Street Journal reported an OpenAI deal worth about $300 billion over roughly five years. In February 2026, Oracle named AMD, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, TikTok and xAI as contracted customers of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

Timing matters as much as size. Oracle's 10-Q says about 13% of the $664 billion becomes revenue in the next 12 months, 37% in months 13 to 36, and 34% in months 37 to 60. Most of the backlog pays out in 2028 and later, while most of the capex is being spent now.

The target Oracle is building toward: OCI revenue of $18.1 billion in fiscal 2026, up 77%, which management projected in September 2025 would rise to $32 billion, $73 billion, $114 billion and $144 billion over fiscal 2027 to 2030. OCI revenue was $7.4 billion in fiscal Q1 2027, up 121%.

How Oracle is paying for it

Sources: Oracle financing 8-Ks (September 2025 notes, February 2026 notes, February 2026 preferred), the Q4 FY26 release and the Q1 FY27 10-Q.

Three sources fund the gap between what Oracle earns and what it builds:

• Debt. Borrowings rose about $37 billion in fiscal 2026. Oracle said in June it doesn't expect to issue more debt in calendar 2026.
• New shares. Selling about 141 million shares raised $19.9 billion, but it dilutes existing shareholders.
• Customer prepayments. Customers prepaid $11.4 billion in fiscal Q1 alone. That's the reason "net cash capex" is so much lower than gross capex. Prepayments reduce what Oracle has to borrow, but they also tie it more tightly to a few large customers.

Oracle vs CoreWeave and the hyperscalers

Sources: CoreWeave's Q2 2026 earnings call and Q2 2026 release; Meta and Microsoft from the hyperscaler capex tracker and their filings. The Meta and Microsoft rows divide this year's guidance by last year's revenue, so they overstate the ratio slightly.

Oracle sits between the two groups. It doesn't spend as far beyond its revenue as CoreWeave, which builds capacity almost entirely with borrowed money. But it has much less room than Meta or Microsoft, which generate tens of billions of dollars of free cash flow after their capex.

Our read

Oracle has turned itself from a software company into the most leveraged large bet on AI demand in the stock market. Its fiscal 2027 capex is about equal to its revenue, it has raised or plans to raise about $90 billion of debt and stock across fiscal 2026 and 2027 to cover the gap, and most of its $664 billion backlog doesn't turn into revenue until 2028 or later.

That can work. The contracts are signed, customers are prepaying, and OCI revenue is growing more than 100% a year. But the margin for error is thin. If one large customer's plans change, Oracle carries the data centers, the debt and the leases. Microsoft or Alphabet could absorb that kind of miss from cash flow. Oracle would need the capital markets to keep lending.

What we'd watch next quarter: gross capex against the $22 billion-a-quarter pace that keeps fiscal 2027 in range, whether net cash capex stays under $70 billion, and how much of the RPO turns into revenue. Strong OCI revenue growth with capex inside the range would be the best sign. Another guidance raise funded with new debt would be the worst.

Frequently asked questions

What is Oracle's capex guidance for 2027?

Oracle guides to $90 billion to $95 billion of capital expenditures in fiscal 2027, which runs from June 2026 to May 2027, with "not more than $70 billion in net cash CapEx." CFO Hilary Maxson gave the range on the September 10, 2026 earnings call. The difference between the two figures is mostly customer prepayments and short-term financing. Oracle also guides to fiscal 2027 revenue of at least $90 billion, so its planned capex is roughly equal to its revenue. It spent $28.5 billion in the first quarter of the fiscal year.

How much did Oracle spend on capex in fiscal 2026?

$55.7 billion of gross capital expenditures in the year ended May 31, 2026, on $67.4 billion of revenue. Oracle had guided to $50 billion. Its net cash outlay for capex, after customer prepayments and short-term financing, was $47.7 billion.

What is Oracle's capex for calendar 2026?

Oracle doesn't report or guide on a calendar year. Its three most recent quarters, December 2025 to August 2026, add up to $63.6 billion of gross capex, and its fiscal 2027 guidance of $90 billion to $95 billion covers June 2026 to May 2027.

Why is Oracle's free cash flow negative?

Because its capex is larger than the cash its operations bring in. In fiscal 2026, operating cash flow was $32.0 billion and capex was $55.7 billion, leaving free cash flow of −$23.7 billion. Oracle filled the gap with $43 billion of debt and $5 billion of equity.

How much debt does Oracle have?

Notes payable and other borrowings were $125.3 billion at August 31, 2026, down slightly from $129.5 billion at May 31, 2026 and up from $92.6 billion a year earlier. Oracle said it does not expect to issue more debt in calendar 2026, and it raised $19.9 billion from new shares in fiscal Q1 2027 instead.

What is Oracle's RPO?

Remaining performance obligations, revenue under contract but not yet earned, were $664 billion at August 31, 2026, up from $138 billion in May 2025. Oracle expects about 13% to turn into revenue in the next 12 months and most of the rest over the following four years.

Limits of this data

• Some guidance was given only on earnings calls. We quote call transcripts, and the June 2025 figure comes from news reports of the call.
• Oracle's fiscal year ends in May, so its figures don't line up with the calendar-year hyperscalers.
• The OpenAI contract value is a press report, not an Oracle disclosure.
• Capex-to-revenue comparisons mix guidance and past revenue for some companies, as noted under the table.

Go deeper with member research

The filings show how much Oracle is borrowing. Member reports follow the AI financing chain and the suppliers who get paid first:

• Issue 05: NVIDIA Is Building the Credit Market for AI: how AI infrastructure is moving into private credit, insurance balance sheets and securitized debt, the market that Oracle and CoreWeave now depend on.
• Issue 02: The AI Capex Shock: where the next infrastructure dollar goes, which bottlenecks keep pricing power, and what could break first.
• GE Vernova and the value of delivering dependable power: why power equipment, not chips, may set the pace of the build Oracle is paying for.