Who Owns Audi?

Audi is owned by Volkswagen. AUDI AG was itself a listed company until 2020, when Volkswagen bought out the remaining minority shareholders and took it fully private — so Audi’s own shares stopped existing within living memory. There is no Audi sales company on the UK register; the brand is a division of Volkswagen Group United Kingdom Limited. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns the Audi brand?

AUDI AG is based at Ingolstadt in Bavaria and is wholly owned by Volkswagen AG. It has no outside shareholders.

Searching Companies House for Audi is unproductive — the results are audiology, audiobook and audience companies. The one genuine entry is AUDI MOTORSPORT TECHNOLOGY CENTRE UK LIMITED (16149822), incorporated 23 December 2024, whose person with significant control is Volkswagen AG (Germany, HRB 100484) with ownership of 75% or more of the voting rights.

That company is Audi’s British motorsport base, established for its entry into Formula One — which it made by taking over an existing team rather than starting one. Car sales are handled as a division of Volkswagen Group United Kingdom Limited (00514809), the same arrangement as Škoda and Cupra.

Parent company and ultimate owner

The chain is the familiar one:

1. AUDI AG — Ingolstadt, wholly owned by Volkswagen
2. Volkswagen AG — listed in Frankfurt
3. Porsche Automobil Holding SE — around 53% of Volkswagen’s voting shares
4. The Porsche and Piëch families

Lower Saxony holds around 20% of Volkswagen’s votes with statutory blocking rights.

Audi’s position in that group is more significant than a marque: it holds Lamborghini and Ducati beneath it, so Audi is a parent company as well as a subsidiary.

Brand owner vs operating company

AUDI AG owns the brand, builds the cars at Ingolstadt, Neckarsulm and elsewhere, and supplies the engineering that several other group marques use. UK dealerships are franchises owned by independent motor retail groups.

The four rings are a literal ownership diagram. They represent the four companies — Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer — that merged in 1932 to form Auto Union. Few logos record a corporate transaction quite so directly, and the modern company traces its name and emblem to that merger rather than to a single founder’s business.

When the ownership changed

Audi’s ownership has moved several times and ended in an unusual place:

• 1932 — Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer merge as Auto Union.
• 1958–1964 — Daimler-Benz acquires Auto Union, then sells it to Volkswagen.
• 1969 — merger with NSU creates Audi NSU Auto Union, later renamed AUDI AG.
• 2020 — Volkswagen buys out the remaining minority shareholders in a squeeze-out, and Audi’s shares are delisted.

That last step is the one most people miss. Audi was a listed company with its own minority shareholders for decades, and Volkswagen held a large majority without owning it outright. The 2020 squeeze-out — a procedure allowing a dominant shareholder to compel the remainder to sell — ended that. Audi shares no longer exist.

So an answer written before 2020 would have said Volkswagen owned most of Audi. Today it owns all of it.

Related brands in the same group

Audi holds Lamborghini and Ducati, making it the immediate parent of both — as this site’s Lamborghini page sets out. Bentley, by contrast, is held directly by Volkswagen AG rather than through Audi.

The wider Volkswagen Group includes Porsche, Škoda, SEAT and Cupra, Volkswagen and the commercial vehicle businesses.

Audi has no connection to Auto Union as a going concern — the name survives only in Audi’s history — nor to NSU, absorbed in 1969. Both appear in the company’s lineage rather than as separate businesses today.

Sources and verification

The Audi Motorsport Technology Centre UK company number, its December 2024 incorporation and the Volkswagen AG PSC entry are from the Companies House register, as is the absence of any Audi sales company and the registration of Volkswagen Group United Kingdom Limited.

Everything above the UK is filed in Germany. Volkswagen’s ownership of AUDI AG, the 2020 squeeze-out, Porsche SE’s holding and Lower Saxony’s stake come from German market disclosures and company reports rather than from any UK filing. Audi’s entry into Formula One via an existing team is a matter of company announcement rather than register evidence. Companies House does not verify most filed information.