Fiscal Year and Fiscal Quarters
A fiscal year is a company's own accounting year, and it does not have to match the calendar year. Nvidia's fiscal year ends in late January, Apple's in late September and Microsoft's at the end of June, so the same calendar quarter goes by different names at different companies.
How to read it
Most companies name a fiscal year after the calendar year in which it ends: Nvidia's fiscal year ending January 2026 is FY2026. Some retailers name it after the year in which it begins: Home Depot's fiscal year ending in early February 2026 is fiscal 2025.
Many companies use a 52/53-week fiscal year, so quarters end a few days either side of a month-end rather than on it (Coca-Cola's first quarter may end on April 3).
When comparing companies, match calendar periods, not quarter numbers: Nvidia's Q2 (May–July) and Microsoft's Q4 (April–June) are the periods that actually line up.
Common pitfalls
- There is usually no standalone quarterly report for the fourth quarter. Its numbers are folded into the annual report (10-K), and the Q4 figure has to be derived by subtracting the first three quarters from the full year.
On FinDog
Period labels on FinDog (FY2027 Q2, for example) follow each company's own convention, with the month and year the quarter ended shown alongside to avoid confusion.
See it on a stock page →Related terms
- Form 10-KForm 10-K is the annual report a public company files after each fiscal year ends. It contains audited financial statements and the most complete description available of the business, its competition and its risk factors.
- YoY and QoQYear over year (YoY) compares a quarter with the same quarter a year earlier; quarter over quarter (QoQ) compares it with the quarter just before. They answer different questions: YoY shows the growth trend, QoQ shows the most recent change.