Zscaler already told investors what fiscal 2027 looks like. Thursday is when it has to mean it

by Clara Borresen · September 1, 2026

Senior Earnings Analyst, Earnings Dispatch

Zscaler will report fourth-quarter and full-year fiscal 2026 results after the close on Thursday, September 3. The company announced the date on August 6 and said the conference call would begin at "1:30 p.m. Pacific time (4:30 p.m. Eastern time)." The report has not happened yet, and everything below is drawn from documents Zscaler has already published.

The most consequential number attached to Thursday is not a fourth-quarter number at all. In the shareholder letter accompanying its third-quarter results, released May 26, Zscaler wrote that "our view is for total ARR and revenue growth for fiscal 2027 of 16-17%." That is an unusually early framing of a year that has not begun reporting, and it is the figure Thursday's call will either firm up, raise, or quietly walk back.

Set it against what the same document guides fiscal 2026 to finish at. Zscaler's full-year fiscal 2026 revenue guidance is $3.3295 billion to $3.3325 billion, which the company puts at 24.6 to 24.7 percent growth, and its full-year annual recurring revenue guidance is $3.740 billion to $3.749 billion, or roughly 24 percent growth. Taking midpoints, a move from about 24.7 percent revenue growth to 16.5 percent is a deceleration of a little over eight percentage points. That subtraction is ours, from the company's own figures.

Run the 16 to 17 percent view forward and it implies fiscal 2027 revenue of roughly $3.86 billion to $3.90 billion, calculated off the midpoint of the fiscal 2026 revenue guide. Again, that is Earnings Dispatch's arithmetic; Zscaler has published a growth range, not a fiscal 2027 revenue range, and the two are not the same commitment.

The fourth-quarter guide itself is precise and worth quoting exactly. Zscaler guided to revenue of $875 million to $878 million, which it characterised as roughly 22 percent growth; non-GAAP income from operations of $206 million to $208 million; non-GAAP net income per share of approximately $1.08 to $1.09, assuming approximately 168 million fully diluted shares and a non-GAAP tax rate of 21 percent; and a non-GAAP gross margin of approximately 80 percent. Every one of those earnings figures is a non-GAAP measure. Zscaler published no GAAP earnings outlook for the quarter.

The shape of that guide is odd in a way that rewards a second look. Third-quarter non-GAAP income from operations was $195.8 million. The fourth-quarter guide of $206 million to $208 million is 5 to 6 percent higher sequentially. Yet the non-GAAP EPS guide of $1.08 to $1.09 is flat to a penny above the $1.08 the company delivered in the third quarter. Rising share count and the assumed tax rate absorb the operating improvement before it reaches the per-share line.

There is a similar tension in the ARR guide, and it is the number we will be watching hardest. Zscaler ended the third quarter with ARR of $3,525 million, up 25 percent — or 21 percent excluding the contribution from its Red Canary acquisition, on the company's own accounting — after adding $166 million of net new ARR in the quarter. The full-year ARR guide of $3.740 billion to $3.749 billion therefore implies fourth-quarter net new ARR of roughly $215 million to $224 million — about 30 to 35 percent more than the third quarter delivered. That implied figure is our subtraction from the two disclosed numbers, not a company-published metric, and fourth quarters are seasonally the largest for enterprise software. But it is a real step up, and it is the bar the company set for itself.

The gap between Zscaler's GAAP and non-GAAP results is large enough that it has to be stated every time. In the third quarter the company reported a GAAP loss from operations of $29.6 million, equal to negative 3 percent of revenue, against non-GAAP income from operations of $195.8 million, or 23 percent of revenue. GAAP net loss was $13.9 million against non-GAAP net income of $177.9 million. GAAP diluted EPS was a loss of $0.09; non-GAAP diluted EPS was a profit of $1.08.

The $191.8 million distance between the GAAP net loss and the non-GAAP net income is equivalent to about 22.6 percent of the quarter's $850.5 million of revenue. Zscaler states what drives it: its non-GAAP measures exclude stock-based compensation and related payroll taxes, amortisation of acquired intangible assets, acquisition-related expenses, and amortisation of debt issuance costs. Investors reading Thursday's headline earnings number should know which of the two it is.

On outside expectations, a Zacks-sourced preview published August 31 and accessed September 1 put the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the fourth quarter at revenue of $877.1 million, about 22 percent growth, and non-GAAP earnings of $1.09 a share, and said the earnings mark had been unchanged for 60 days. Both figures sit inside Zscaler's own guidance, with the earnings estimate pinned to the very top of the company's $1.08 to $1.09 range. A separate preview published August 28 by the research site TIKR noted the same company guidance and argued that the fiscal 2027 outlook is "the print that matters." A consensus is a particular vendor's aggregation of a particular panel of analysts, and where a compiler has essentially adopted a company's own guide, the estimate carries no independent information at all.

For context on where the business stood entering the final quarter: third-quarter revenue was $850.5 million, up 25 percent; free cash flow was $136.0 million, or 16 percent of revenue, up 14 percent year over year; and full-year free cash flow margin is guided to 22.8 to 23.3 percent. Chief executive Jay Chaudhry said in the third-quarter results release: "Zscaler is ideally positioned as the cybersecurity platform for the AI era. Our differentiated Zero Trust SASE architecture, which hides applications from attackers and eliminates lateral movement, has never been more essential in securing against threats exposed by frontier models and compromised AI agents." Chief financial officer Kevin Rubin said in the same release: "We delivered strong Q3 fiscal 2026 results with record profitability. ARR grew 25%, or 21%, excluding the contribution from the Red Canary acquisition, and non-GAAP operating margin reached an all-time high of 23%."

Thursday's report arrives into a crowded week and an unsettled tape. US markets were open as this published, with Friday's August payrolls report and a September Federal Reserve meeting still ahead. Zscaler's fiscal 2027 framing was written in May, before much of that. Whether the company repeats "16-17%", refines it into a formal guide, or changes it is the question the fourth-quarter numbers will be read around. Nothing in this article is investment advice.