Download Report PDF

2025 By the numbers

Revenue
$9.467B
Net Income1
$1.077B
Year-End Leverage
(Debt-to-EBITDA3)
2.75x
Adjusted EBITDA2
Margin Expansion
+50Basis
Points
Acquisition
Outlays
$967M
Improvement in
Employee Retention
17%
Adjusted
EBITDA2
$3.125B
Record Return
of Capital
$839M
Improvement in
Safety Scores
13%
Fifteen-year Per Share CAGR Since Inception of Dividend
13.9%

AT A GLANCE

Waste Connections is an integrated solid waste services company that provides non-hazardous waste collection, transfer and disposal services, including by rail, along with resource recovery primarily through recycling and renewable fuels generation. The Company serves approximately nine million residential, commercial, and industrial customers in mostly exclusive and secondary markets across 46 states in the U.S. and six provinces in Canada.

Waste Connections also provides non-hazardous oilfield waste treatment, recovery and disposal services in several basins across the U.S. and Canada, as well as intermodal services for the movement of cargo and solid waste containers in the Pacific Northwest.

To our shareholders

Sticking with a proven, differentiated strategy while also investing in the future drove industry-leading results in 2025 and positioned Waste Connections for continued value creation in the years ahead.

Excellence with Humility . . . our unifying theme for 2025 was an ongoing commitment to a proven strategy for delivering industry-leading results, while acknowledging the benefits of new ideas, innovation and technology to ensure we remain well-positioned for growth in 2026 and beyond.

We're proud of our accomplishments in 2025, beginning with record levels of performance in safety, our first operating value. We also achieved continuous improvement in employee retention to multi-year highs and delivered outsized margin expansion, while integrating another active year of solid waste-focused acquisitions and investing in human capital and technology-driven initiatives. Most notably, we provided consistent, projectable results in an otherwise uncertain and challenging macro environment, validating the resilience of our strategy, the quality of our assets and the integrity of Waste Connections' operating model regardless of the economic or political backdrop.

For WCN shareholders, 2025 provided another year of positive returns despite an uncertain macro environment and competition for capital among investors during what was arguably a transformative period in the market. The shift in focus to technology and anything related to Artificial Intelligence or “AI” prompted massive swings in capital allocation through sector rotation. That said, we maintained our proven playbook with a disciplined approach to growth and investment focused on solid waste. We know that short-term sentiment may shift, but consistent execution and a differentiated strategy ultimately drive value creation, as evidenced by our long-term track record, including positive shareholder returns in 21 of the last 22 years.

Historical Outperformance Since IPO

WCN TSR4 vs. S&P 500

Our Total Shareholder Returns of 7,911% since going public in May 1998 are a testament to our differentiated strategy and consistent execution.

We're well-positioned for 2026, as we're already realizing the benefits of technology and innovation. We look forward to expanding their application throughout our operations as we leverage the power of human capital to “Win from Within” in 2026. We see the dedication of our approximately 25,000 employees as the ultimate differentiator and remain humbled by their commitment to put our values into action.

In 2025, we deployed approximately $2.2 billion for capital expenditures and acquisitions to reinvest in and expand our business, while preserving the strength and flexibility of our balance sheet. We completed 19 acquisitions totaling approximately $330 million in annualized revenues across our footprint. These include new market entries providing platforms to expand in Florida and New York; strategic investments in recycling facilities in New Jersey complementing our leading position in the New York City commercial franchise zones; tuck-in acquisitions reinforcing existing positions across several of our markets; and new West Coast franchises. We also furthered our sustainability-related investments through continued progress on our portfolio of renewable natural gas facilities under development and a state-of-the-art recycling facility under construction.

During the year, we returned an aggregate of $839 million to shareholders, including through record share repurchases totaling over $505 million, plus cash dividends of $334 million. Our regular quarterly cash dividend has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 13.9% through fifteen consecutive, double-digit percentage annual per share increases since initiation.

During 2025, we further diversified our funding sources through an underwritten public offering of $500 million in senior notes, and remain well-positioned for future growth opportunities, with debt-to-EBITDA3 leverage of 2.75 times and liquidity of over $625 million.

Delivering in 2025: Excellence with Humility

2025 revenue of $9.467 billion reflects an increase of 6.1% from the prior year and drove adjusted EBITDA2 of $3.125 billion, up 7.7% from the prior year. Industry-leading reported adjusted EBITDA2 margin of 33.0% increased by 50 basis points. Moreover, underlying margin expansion in solid waste hauling, transfer and disposal increased by over 100 basis points in 2025.

We attribute our success to the strength of our operating teams to deliver on our commitments in the face of a challenging macro environment, which we addressed through our purposeful culture and disciplined execution. We overcame pressure on reported margins related to a second consecutive year of declines in values for recycled commodities and renewable energy credits, as well as continued weakness in underlying solid waste volumes. Outsized margin expansion from price-led organic growth in solid waste was augmented by a continued focus on human capital and the realization of benefits from ongoing improvements in employee retention and safety.

HUMAN CAPITAL DRIVES RESULTS: 2025 also marked our third consecutive year of outsized progress in employee retention and safety performance. Voluntary turnover declined by another 17% in 2025, bringing multi-year reductions to approximately 55%, providing increased employee engagement through optimized staffing levels and reduced overtime. We've also seen a corresponding increase in customer engagement and satisfaction from increased consistency in communication and service quality.

Along with improved employee retention, we saw another year of improvement in safety performance, with incident rates decreasing to historic Company levels resulting in a multi-year reduction of over 30%. That improvement included a 13% decrease during 2025, when over 65% of operating locations showed year-over-year improvement or had perfect safety scores for the year. We exited the year at our lowest levels, with monthly incidents down 15% year over year in spite of ongoing growth.

Looking Ahead to 2026: Investing in the Future

In 2025, we positioned ourselves for further growth and opportunities for value creation in 2026 and beyond. By completing another outsized year of solid waste-focused acquisition activity, we are set up for rollover contribution of approximately $125 million in 2026. We are also well-positioned for another year of price-led organic growth in solid waste to drive outsized underlying margin expansion, along with the improving trends in employee retention and safety already experienced.

Financial Highlights

Our performance in 2025 continues multi-year growth trends resulting in five-year compound annual growth rates of +11.7% in revenue and +13.5% in adjusted EBITDA2 for industry-leading margins up 250 basis points to 33.0%:

Revenue($ in billions)
Adjusted EBITDA2($ in billions)
Adjusted EBITDA2 Margin

Additionally, we're making long-term investments in AI technology and infrastructure to position the Company for continued growth and margin expansion. These investments target productivity and efficiency gains as we look to further digitize and automate operations, enhance forecasting through data analytics, and improve service delivery, all while enabling greater focus on customer experience via mobile connectivity. We're already seeing positive outcomes, including improved pricing retention, as we expand the utilization of AI and data analytics across multiple platforms. We look to build upon these efforts as we deploy additional applications and expand our efforts with a focus on operations and customer engagement in 2026 and beyond.

At Waste Connections, we're committed to a differentiated strategy that has driven industry-leading results and served us well regardless of the macro environment since our beginnings 28 years ago. We recognize that there are periods when capital markets may determine that defensive growth sectors like solid waste are out of favor. Market sentiment may create challenges as we compete for capital, but that doesn't change the fundamentals; and more importantly, it can create opportunity. We endeavor to be prepared to capitalize on such dislocations by having flexibility to increase return of capital to shareholders, while continuing to invest in the business and maintain rigor as we grow.

We appreciate the trust of all our stakeholders and remain committed to the core values that guide us, the strategy that differentiates us and the corporate culture that defines us. Recognizing the value of innovation and new ideas is integral to that culture and drives opportunity as we say, to Win from Within in 2026.

As always, we thank you for your continuing support,

Ronald J. Mittelstaedt President and
Chief Executive Officer
Mary Anne Whitney Executive Vice President and
Chief Financial Officer
  1. All references to “Net income” refer to the financial statement line item “Net income attributable to Waste Connections.”
  2. Non-GAAP measure. See Non-GAAP Financial Measures on pages 74-75 of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025.
  3. Leverage Ratio (total debt to EBITDA), a non-GAAP ratio, is used supplementally for the purpose of calculating financial covenants under our revolving credit agreement.
  4. Total Shareholder Return (“TSR”) defined as profit generated from all share appreciation and dividends. Source—FactSet financial data and analytics and historical dividends.
  5. Non-GAAP measure. See page 10 of our fourth quarter 2025 earnings press release for additional information.

This 2025 Annual Report should be read together with our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, including Item 1A—Risk Factors.