Who Owns Netflix?

Netflix has no owner. It is Netflix, Inc., a company listed on NASDAQ and held by thousands of shareholders, none of whom control it. The largest are index-fund managers holding on behalf of other people — Vanguard at roughly 9% and BlackRock at around 8% — and the largest individual holder, co-founder Reed Hastings, has under 2%. In the UK it trades through Netflix Services UK Limited, whose registered controller is the US parent. Ownership verified 5 September 2026.

Who owns Netflix?

The question does not have the kind of answer it has for a private company. Netflix, Inc. is incorporated in Delaware (registration 2790864) and its shares trade publicly, so ownership is spread across institutions, funds and individual investors, changing every day the market is open.

The UK operating company is Netflix Services UK Limited (09091899), incorporated 18 June 2014. Its person with significant control is recorded at Companies House as Netflix, Inc., holding 75% or more of the shares and voting rights. Several other UK companies exist in the group — Netflix Studios UK (11233037), Netflix Productions UK (11905359), Netflix Animation UK (13477416) and Netflix Holdings UK (12822321) — and a number of dissolved companies share the name, including one called Netflix and Chill Ltd that was never connected to the business.

Parent company and ownership structure

Netflix, Inc. is the ultimate parent. There is no group above it: it is not a subsidiary, it has no controlling shareholder, and no single party can direct it.

That is genuinely different from most pages on this site. Where Harrods traces to the Qatar Investment Authority and Manchester City to a named individual, Netflix traces to a shareholder register with no one at the top of it.

Major shareholders or controlling interests

Reported holdings, which move continuously:

• The Vanguard Group — roughly 9%
• BlackRock — roughly 8%
• FMR (Fidelity) — around 5%
• Reed Hastings, co-founder and chair — under 2%

Institutions together hold the large majority of the shares. It is worth being precise about what that means, because it is routinely misread. Vanguard and BlackRock are asset managers: they hold shares inside index funds and ETFs on behalf of the millions of people whose pensions and savings are invested in them. They are not owners in any ordinary sense, they did not choose to buy Netflix on its merits, and describing Netflix as “owned by BlackRock” inverts what is actually happening.

Nobody here holds a stake that would appear on a UK PSC register as control. The largest is around 9%, well under the 25% threshold.

Other media assets in the group

Netflix is a single operating business rather than a holding group with a portfolio of separate media brands. Its UK subsidiaries are production and service entities supporting the same service, not distinct companies with their own catalogues.

This distinguishes it from most of the media ownership section, where a parent company sits above several mastheads or channels that were separately owned before acquisition.

Ownership history

Netflix was founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph and floated on NASDAQ in 2002. From that point ownership has been public. Hastings’ stake has declined steadily through sales and dilution — a normal pattern for a founder decades after listing — and he stepped back from co-CEO to executive chairman in 2023.

There has been no acquisition, no take-private and no change of control at any point.

Sources and verification

The UK company details and the parent relationship come from the Companies House register for company 09091899, which records Netflix, Inc. as the person with significant control.

The shareholder percentages are reported figures, not register-verified ones. There is no UK record of who owns a US-listed company; the authoritative sources are Netflix’s own SEC filings — the annual proxy statement for insider holdings, and Schedule 13G filings for institutions above 5%. Those change with each filing cycle, so any percentage on this page is a snapshot with a date attached, and should be treated as such.