THOR Industries (THO) FY2026 10-K: Towable RV Units Fall 20.7% Behind Flat Sales
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The Hook
THOR Industries $THO, the largest RV maker in the world, reported fiscal 2026 net sales of $9.608B, up 0.3% from $9.579B. Flat. Except the filing says $179.4M of that came from foreign exchange. Take the currency out and sales fell about 1.6%.
Underneath the flat line, the product that defines the American RV market fell hard. THOR shipped 95,045 North American towable units, the travel trailers and fifth wheels that most first-time buyers finance and tow behind a pickup. That is down 20.7% in a year and down 60% from the 238,634 it shipped in fiscal 2022. Net income attributable to THOR fell 31% to $177.5M, and is down 84% from the $1.138B it earned at the peak.
The twist is in the backlog. North American towable orders on hand rose 74.6%, to $916.6M. THOR then declined to give fiscal 2027 guidance.
Company Snapshot
THOR builds recreational vehicles under Airstream, Jayco, Keystone, Thor Motor Coach, Heartland and a string of other brands, and in Europe under Erwin Hymer Group, which it bought in 2019. It reports three RV segments (North American Towable, North American Motorized and European) plus a components business, Airxcel and Postle, reported as Other.
This analysis covers the Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended July 31, 2026, filed September 22, 2026. THOR's fiscal year ends July 31, so fiscal 2026 runs from August 2025 through July 2026. The industry unit tables in the filing (RVIA wholesale, Stat Surveys retail) use calendar six-month periods ended June 30, and they are kept separate from fiscal-year figures below.
The Financial Story
Towables are the story, and they fell for the second time in four years. North American towable units collapsed from 238,634 in fiscal 2022 to 106,504 in fiscal 2023 as pandemic demand unwound, recovered modestly to 112,830 and then 119,790, and have now fallen again to 95,045. The filing is specific about where: travel trailer shipments fell 22.4%, and management attributes the decline "primarily" to "lower demand for the lower-cost travel trailer units." The cheapest, most financed RV is the one buyers walked away from. Segment sales fell 16.1% to $3.177B, a 4.6% rise in net price per unit coming from mix toward pricier fifth wheels rather than list increases.
| Fiscal year | NA towable units | Consolidated net sales | Net income to THOR |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2022 | 238,634 | $16.313B | $1,137.8M |
| FY2023 | 106,504 | $11.122B | $374.3M |
| FY2024 | 112,830 | $10.043B | $265.3M |
| FY2025 | 119,790 | $9.579B | $258.6M |
| FY2026 | 95,045 | $9.608B | $177.5M |
The margin squeeze was a choice, and the company says so. Consolidated gross margin fell from 14.0% to 12.6%. In MD&A, THOR writes: "During fiscal 2026, we intentionally did not fully pass along cost increases we incurred, including tariff-related costs, relative to raw material input costs in an effort to manage end-consumer affordability of our products." That is a manufacturer deciding its buyer cannot take another price increase. In North American Towable, cost of products sold rose from 86.9% to 88.8% of sales, and segment pre-tax income fell 40.4%, from $247.0M to $147.3M.
| FY2026 segment | Net sales | Change | Pre-tax income | Change | Pre-tax margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NA Towable | $3.177B | -16.1% | $147.3M | -40.4% | 4.6% |
| NA Motorized | $2.455B | +12.8% | $74.2M | -13.1% | 3.0% |
| European | $3.297B | +9.0% | $72.2M | -28.9% | 2.2% |
Europe is now THOR's largest RV segment, and its thinnest. European sales of $3.297B passed North American Towable in fiscal 2026, having trailed it in both prior years, but much of the 9.0% rise was currency, and pre-tax income fell to $72.2M. Two years ago the segment earned $231.4M before tax. Motorized was the only segment to grow units, up 12.4% on Class C motorhomes, and even there profit fell.
THOR is also losing share while the market shrinks. For the six months ended June 30, 2026, industry retail registrations fell 14.8% while THOR's North American retail fell 18.5%. Industry wholesale shipments fell 14.2%; THOR's fell 20.5%. Its trailing twelve-month retail share of travel trailers and fifth wheels slipped from 38.4% to 37.4%. The filing adds a new headwind by name: "elevated fuel prices resulting from the ongoing Iran conflict and the related disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz may negatively impact retail demand."
Net income fell faster than the business. Pre-tax income fell 19.4% to $238.7M, but net income attributable to THOR fell 31.3% because the effective tax rate doubled, from 13.4% to 26.8%. The filing explains both ends: fiscal 2025 was flattered by a foreign tax law change that revalued deferred tax liabilities, and fiscal 2026 was hurt by losses in foreign jurisdictions with no tax benefit. Pre-tax income was also propped up by other income of $78.5M, up $32.9M, including $36.7M of gains on selling property and higher gains on warrants and stock investments. Without that increase, pre-tax income would have fallen about 30%. Charged is not paid, and here the two run close: THOR charged $64.1M of income tax and paid $61.8M in cash.
Cash flow fell by almost half, and capital returns did not. Operating cash flow fell 44%, from $577.9M to $321.2M. After $152.4M of capital spending, free cash flow was $168.8M. THOR paid $108.8M of dividends and more than doubled buybacks to $115.1M, a combined $223.9M that exceeded free cash flow by about $55M. Cash fell from $586.6M to $482.0M. With long-term debt down to $868.0M, the balance sheet can carry that for a while. It cannot carry it indefinitely at this level of earnings.
The Backlog: Restock or Front-Running?
| Order backlog | Jul 31, 2026 | Jul 31, 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| NA Towable | $916.6M | $525.0M | +74.6% |
| NA Motorized | $728.2M | $1,004.6M | -27.5% |
| European | $1,654.0M | $1,525.6M | +8.4% |
| Total | $3,298.8M | $3,055.2M | +8.0% |
This is the most interesting table in the filing, and the hardest to read. In its fourth-quarter Q&A (Form 8-K, September 22, 2026), THOR says it "structured production so that wholesale shipments would operate below retail sales to influence independent dealer inventory levels." Dealer inventory of THOR's North American product fell from about 73,300 units to about 64,000. On that reading, the towable backlog is the bill coming due for a year of deliberately shipping less than dealers sold: lean lots, now refilling.
The other reading is that dealers are ordering ahead of price increases THOR has so far absorbed. The filing cannot settle it, and management chose not to either. It deferred fiscal 2027 guidance until after the Hershey and Elkhart dealer shows in late September, saying it will provide guidance "later this calendar year," and describing a "relatively flat retail environment" in fiscal 2027. It separately expects restructuring and its revised North American operating model to improve earnings by more than $100M a year once fully implemented.
Valuation: What It Is Worth as a Normal Business
Where it trades. THOR closed at $72.15 on September 25, 2026, a market capitalization of about $3.72B on 51.61M shares, near the bottom of a 52-week range of $67.31 to $122.83. The consensus rating is Hold with a mean price target of $84.91, and several firms cut targets after the fourth-quarter release (price, market cap, range and consensus per stockanalysis.com, September 25, 2026). The $2.08 annual dividend yields about 2.9%.
On filed figures: 21.3 times fiscal 2026 diluted earnings of $3.38, 0.39 times sales, and 0.87 times book value of $4.261B. Adding $868.0M of debt and subtracting $482.0M of cash gives an enterprise value of about $4.11B. Fiscal 2026 EBITDA, built from pre-tax income plus interest, depreciation and amortization, was about $542M, so the stock trades near 7.6 times EBITDA. Free cash flow of $168.8M is a 4.5% yield.
Scenario DCF. Perpetuity-growth on free cash flow, net debt of $386M, 51.61M shares. Assumptions are stated; the arithmetic is simple on purpose.
| Scenario | Free cash flow | WACC | Terminal growth | Implied EV | Implied per share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bear: fiscal 2026 is the new normal | $170M | 10.0% | 2.0% | $2.17B | about $34 |
| Base: three-year average (FY2024-FY2026) | $340M | 10.0% | 2.5% | $4.65B | about $83 |
| Bull: free cash flow back to the FY2025 level ($454.9M) | $450M | 9.5% | 3.0% | $7.13B | about $131 |
Peer and cycle re-rating. Holding today's 7.6 times multiple but applying it to average EBITDA over fiscal 2024 to 2026, about $624M, gives an enterprise value near $4.74B and roughly $84 a share. Book value alone is about $82.60 a share. Three separate approaches land in the low $80s.
What the price implies. At a 10% discount rate and 2.5% growth, today's $4.11B enterprise value is consistent with free cash flow of roughly $300M a year, well above the $168.8M of fiscal 2026 and a little below the three-year average. The market is pricing a partial recovery, not a return to 2022. Implied value under stated assumptions. Not a price target, and not investment advice.
Risks
The first is the credit cycle. THOR carries $3.316B of standby repurchase obligations on dealer floor-plan financing, down from $3.484B. If dealers fail, THOR may have to buy back inventory. Losses on these were not material in fiscal 2026 or 2025, and it is presented here as exposure, not loss. One dealer, FreedomRoads, accounted for about 13.0% of consolidated net sales and 13.0% of trade receivables. Tariffs remain a live cost the company has chosen to absorb, and it warns margins "will continue to be negatively impacted" if it cannot share future increases across the supply chain. Fuel prices tied to the Strait of Hormuz disruption are a named demand risk in both North America and Europe. And a European segment earning 2.2% before tax on $3.3B of sales has little room for another bad year.
The Bottom Line
THOR's flat top line is a currency effect sitting on top of a second leg down in the American entry-level RV. The company protected its buyers' affordability with its own margin, lost share doing it, and paid out more cash than it generated. The backlog says dealers are ready to order again; management's refusal to guide says it is not yet sure retail buyers will follow.
Watch three things: the fiscal 2027 guidance when it lands later this calendar year, whether North American towable shipments convert that $916.6M backlog without price cuts, and whether European pre-tax margin stops falling.
No analyst assembled this by hand. Every figure came out of THOR's own XBRL, read by the same pipeline that reads any SEC filer, and a private manufacturer reporting its segments in the same format is the same job.
Every figure above comes from THOR Industries' FY2026 Form 10-K (accession 0000730263-26-000027, filed September 22, 2026), with FY2022 through FY2024 comparisons from the FY2022 and FY2024 10-Ks, read directly from their XBRL. Dealer inventory is from the 10-K's MD&A; the shipping-below-retail and guidance commentary come from THOR's Q4 FY2026 Form 8-K (press release and Q&A exhibits); market price, market capitalization and consensus are attributed inline. Filing data via RoboSystems.