What Is Paid-in Capital?

What Is Paid in Capital?

By Catherine Brock – Updated Oct 13, 2025 at 7:05 PM

Key Points

Paid-in capital shows funds raised from stock sales, key for evaluating company funding.
Fluctuations in stock prices don't alter a company’s recorded paid-in capital.
Treasury stock reflects repurchased shares, reducing total shareholders’ equity.

Want to know how much money a company has raised by selling its stock shares? Paid-in capital is your answer, and you can find it on the shareholders equity section of a corporate balance sheet.

Read on to learn the nuances of paid-in capital and how it relates to other shareholders equity line items like additional paid-in capital, retained earnings, and treasury stock.

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Retained Earnings

Retained earnings, in the simplest terms, are the earnings a company kept and didn't pay its shareholders in dividends.

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Treasury Stock

A company's own stock that it has repurchased, meaning it's no longer held by external shareholders but is held by the company itself.

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Table data source: SEC.
Account	Value (millions)
Preferred stock, no par value; authorized – 165.0 million shares; issued – none	--
Common stock, $0.01 par value; authorized – 3.5 billion shares; issued – 1,660.6 million shares	$16.6
Additional paid-in capital	$8,635.5
Retained earnings	$60,235.0
Accumulated other comprehensive income (loss)	($2,489.4)
Common stock in treasury, at cost, 930.5 and 929.3 million shares	($72,173.8)
Total shareholders equity (deficit)	($5,776.1)

Catherine grew up in Southern California wearing a lot of black and trying to perfect the art of sarcasm. Prior to joining The Fool as a contract writer, Catherine was climbing the corporate ladder in marketing roles and dabbling in too many side hustles. When she's not writing, she can be found riding a horse in the country or shopping online for clothes.

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Catherine Brock has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.