F5 10-K 2025-09-30

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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

Form 10-K

(Mark One)

For the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025

or

Commission File Number 000-26041

F5, Inc.

(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its charter)

801 5th Avenue

Seattle, Washington 98104

(Address of principal executive offices, including zip code)

(206) 272-5555

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

None

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes ☐ No ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company” and "emerging growth company" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☒

If securities are registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act, indicate by check mark whether the financial statements

of the registrant included in the filing reflect the correction of an error to previously issued financial statements. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether any of those error corrections are restatements that required a recovery analysis of incentive-based compensation received by any of the registrant’s executive officers during the relevant recovery period pursuant to §240.10D-1(b). ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ☐ No ☒

As of March 31, 2025, the aggregate market value of the Registrant’s common stock held by non-affiliates of the Registrant was $15,351,963,269 based on the closing sales price of the Registrant’s common stock on the NASDAQ Global Select Market on that date.

As of November 12, 2025, the number of shares of the Registrant’s common stock outstanding was 58,089,614.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Information required in response to Part III of this Form 10-K (Items 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14) is hereby incorporated by reference to the specified portions of the Registrant’s Definitive Proxy Statement for the Annual Shareholders Meeting for fiscal year 2025, which Definitive Proxy Statement shall be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission pursuant to Regulation 14A within 120 days of the end of the fiscal year to which this Report relates.

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F5, INC.

ANNUAL REPORT ON FORM 10-K

For the Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 2025

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Forward-Looking Statements

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements about our plans, objectives, expectations, strategies, intentions or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including the Cyber Incident, as defined in Item 1. below, and are generally identified by the words "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "impact of the," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements are based on current information and expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially and adversely from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed under "Item 1A. Risk Factors" below and in other documents we file from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We assume no obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking statements.

Unless the context otherwise requires, in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, the terms "F5," "the Company," "we," "us," and "our" refer to F5, Inc. and its subsidiaries. Our fiscal year ends on September 30, and fiscal years are referred to by the calendar year in which they end. For example, "fiscal year 2025" and "fiscal 2025" refer to the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025.

General

F5 is a multicloud application delivery and security provider committed to bringing a better digital world to life. F5 partners with the world’s largest, most advanced organizations to optimize and secure every application and Application Programming Interface ("API") anywhere, including on-premises, in the cloud, and at the network edge. F5 enables businesses to continuously stay ahead of threats while delivering exceptional, secure digital experiences for their customers.

Our application delivery and security solutions are available in a range of deployment and consumption models. We sell packaged software in perpetual, subscription, and usage-based consumption models. We also sell our solutions in software-as-a-service ("SaaS") and managed services deployment models with subscription and usage-based consumption models. In addition, we sell high-performance systems, or hardware, as well as a broad range of global services including maintenance, consulting, training and other technical support services.

Our customers include large enterprise businesses, public sector institutions, governments, and service providers. We conduct our business globally and manage our business by geography. Our business is organized into three primary geographic regions: Americas; Europe, the Middle East, and Africa ("EMEA"); and the Asia Pacific region ("APAC").

F5 was incorporated in 1996 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Our website is www.f5.com and through a link on the Investor Relations section of our website, we make available the following filings as soon as reasonably possible after they are electronically filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"): our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act. All such filings are available free of charge. The information posted on our website is not incorporated into this report.

Cyber Incident

On October 15, 2025, we disclosed a security incident in which a threat actor maintained long-term, persistent access to F5 systems, and exfiltrated certain files, referred to as the "Cyber Incident." For further information about the Cyber Incident, see "Risk Factors" included in Item 1A of Part I of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and "Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations - Cyber Incident" included in Item 7 of Part II of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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Strategy and Priorities

We deliver a broad portfolio of solutions to help customers address the complexity and risk in today’s hybrid multicloud IT environments. We are able to deliver on this strategy through our solutions portfolio, specifically our F5 BIG-IP, F5 NGINX, and F5 Distributed Cloud Services product families, which deliver a range of integrated, application and delivery services leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities that support application performance and protect legacy, modern, and AI-powered applications and APIs across the data center, public clouds, and edge locations.

Key components of our strategy include:

Solving multicloud application delivery and security challenges

Our F5 BIG-IP family delivers essential application delivery and security services, ensuring applications operate efficiently and securely. It is optimized for traditional applications whether deployed on premises, in co-located data centers, or in cloud environments. Our F5 NGINX family also delivers essential application delivery and security services but is optimized for modern, container-native and microservices-based applications and APIs. Our F5 Distributed Cloud Services is a portfolio of SaaS and managed services designed for both traditional and modern applications where a SaaS deployment model is preferred. With our comprehensive portfolio, we are the only provider capable of supporting customers’ modern and legacy application delivery and security needs across any environment — on premises, co-located, in a cloud or at the edge.

Transforming how customers experience F5

We continue to leverage and grow our foundational capabilities in data and insights, digital sales, and SaaS-delivered capabilities to deliver consistent world-class customer experiences, including simple, integrated and friction-free consumption of our solutions. We will continue to improve customer awareness and understanding of F5’s portfolio with a focus on both user and buying personas, and business needs. We intend to enhance our digital customer experiences to deliver both growth and efficiency.

F5 is leveraging AI to accelerate the strength of both our current and future offerings. F5 uses AI in its application delivery and security solutions to support performance and efficacy. Today, our customers are able to further benefit from our four-pronged AI strategy. First, our current portfolio is solving security and performance challenges associated with AI model training and inference and in support of AI-driven workloads. We are selling F5 solutions in support of AI data delivery, AI runtime security and AI factory load balancing use cases. Second, we are leveraging AI models in our current data fabric in order to enhance our existing products. Third, we are innovating to create new offerings based on the rapidly evolving application and data security landscapes and the customer needs associated with these changes. Finally, we are pursuing partnerships with global leaders in AI to help deliver and secure AI workloads.

In response to customers' growing preference for a platform approach, in 2025 we introduced the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform ("ADSP"). The F5 ADSP aims to unify high-performance traffic management with advanced application and API security at scale across hybrid and multicloud environments. Unlike fragmented point solutions, the F5 ADSP is purpose-built to simplify hybrid multicloud complexity. With the F5 ADSP, we aim to leverage the full strength of our broad portfolio with capabilities to enhance security, scalability, and operational efficiency while enabling key capabilities such as policy management, analytics, and automation.

Capturing growth in security and SaaS

We continue to invest in expanding our SaaS-based F5 Distributed Cloud Services. Our F5 Distributed Cloud Services console extends visibility and simplifies management for F5 BIG-IP and F5 NGINX customers. With F5 Distributed Cloud Services, we enable customers to optimize application deployment across public, private, and edge clouds, providing flexibility in location and architecture while reducing the operational complexity of delivering and securing applications.

F5 Products and Solutions

F5’s portfolio of multicloud application delivery and security technologies enables customers to address the challenges of delivering differentiated digital experiences while safeguarding their applications across complex hybrid and multicloud environments. Our infrastructure-agnostic approach ensures customers can create a unified and optimized experience across diverse IT environments. We sell application delivery and security solutions for web application and API protection, hybrid multicloud networking, enterprise AI delivery and security, application migration, application modernization, zero trust architecture and post quantum cryptography readiness. Our product portfolio includes solutions across the following product families: F5 Distributed Cloud Services, F5 NGINX, F5 BIG-IP.

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F5 Distributed Cloud Services. A unified, security, networking, and application management service that enables customers to deploy, secure, and operate their applications wherever they may reside, regardless of platform or architecture. F5 Distributed Cloud Services leverages the F5 Global Network, a purpose-built, cloud-based, global private backbone to deliver performance, reliability, and control across hybrid, multicloud, or edge environments. F5 Distributed Cloud Service offerings are available as packaged software and SaaS-based consumption models and include the following:

• F5 Distributed Cloud Web App and API Protection ("WAAP").** A comprehensive SaaS-based security solution, F5 Distributed Cloud WAAP allows our customers to accelerate time-to-service, lower total cost of ownership, and increase security efficacy on a cloud native platform that is fully integrated across a single policy engine and management console. F5 Distributed Cloud WAAP can be leveraged through multiple deployment options, allowing organizations to simplify security and improve visibility while reducing operational complexity. The solution provides the following F5 application security technologies:

• Advanced Web Application Firewall ("WAF") capabilities through the F5 WAF engine available on BIG-IP and NGINX, allows our customers to quickly apply, secure, and manage uniform comprehensive security policies at scale, across data centers, public or private clouds, and edge computing environments.

• Mitigation against OSI Model Layer 3-Layer 7 application-based and volumetric DDoS attacks through advanced F5 Distributed Cloud DDoS Mitigation, a managed, cloud-delivered mitigation service that detects and mitigates large-scale network, SSL, and application-targeted attacks in real time.

• Enhanced API security, which leverages machine-based learning, auto-discovery, and anomaly detection, which automates the entire process of finding, securing, and monitoring APIs for anomalous behavior.

• Next-generation, AI enabled bot mitigation through F5 Distributed Cloud Bot Defense provides our customers the ability to defend applications and APIs from automated attacks. The solution leverages AI to analyze massive amounts of traffic and machine learning to ensure sustainable bot prediction models with high efficacy.

• Protection from sophisticated account takeover attempts.

• F5 Distributed Cloud Multi-Cloud Networking ("MCN").** Our MCN solutions simplifies networking with an integrated service stack that securely connects both networks and application workloads, lowering operational costs and increasing agility. Under our MCN solutions we offer the following product solution:

• F5 Distributed Cloud Network Connect.** A networking solution that offers easy, secure, and consolidated connectivity across public and hybrid clouds, data centers, and edge sites. It provides unified policies and single-pane-of-glass management, reducing complexity and increasing efficiency, including full multi-tenancy and segmentation, enabling self-service capabilities for DevOps, NetOps and SecOps. Network Connect automates the configuration of native public cloud networking resources and seamlessly connects multiple clouds using site-to-site connectivity over a private backbone or the F5 Global Network.

• F5 Distributed Cloud App Connect.** An application delivery and deployment solution for application-level connectivity across various cloud providers and regions. App Connect offers orchestrated awareness for API endpoints on all connected clusters, allowing cross-cluster service discovery and advertisement for seamless app-to-app communication with fine-grained API control. Connections between sites are self-maintaining, redundant, and fully automated, which reduces the need for administrative tasks such as establishing VPNs and routing. App Connect provides end-to-end visibility for customers, who can choose their underlying transport, including the F5 Global Network.

• F5 Distributed Cloud DNS.** A cloud-based Domain Name System ("DNS") solution that offers DNS delivery across multicloud environments and modern applications. F5 Distributed Cloud DNS can be distributed globally as either a primary or secondary DNS, providing authoritative DDoS protection, Domain Name System Security Extensions ("DNSSEC"), and the flexibility to automatically scale to meet our customers growing application demands.

• F5 Distributed Cloud CDN.** A high-performance, multicloud and edge focused content delivery network ("CDN") solution that allows our customers to efficiently connect, secure, and optimize applications and workloads across multi- and hybrid-cloud environments through efficiently leveraging the integrated tools and technologies in the F5 Distributed Cloud Platform. F5 Distributed Cloud CDN can be purchased with other F5 Distributed Cloud offerings or as a stand-alone service.

• F5 Distributed Cloud App Stack.** A SaaS-based solution that provides our customers the ability to deploy and orchestrate applications on a managed Kubernetes platform with centralized management of distributed applications through a single pane of glass. F5 Distributed Cloud App Stack simplifies the management of application deployments as one across on-premises, cloud, and edge locations.

F5 NGINX. Built from the F5 NGINX open-source software that powers hundreds of millions of websites and applications across the world, our F5 NGINX technology suite delivers a lightweight, agile ADC and API connectivity solution

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for modern, container-native, micro-services-based applications and APIs. F5 NGINX delivers a range of capabilities including web server, load balancer, proxy, API gateways and caches in packaged software subscription consumption models. F5 NGINX product offerings include the following:

• F5 NGINX Plus.** F5 NGINX Plus, our all-in-one, high performance load balancer, web server, content cache, and API gateway for modern applications, is offered as packaged software in a subscription consumption model. F5 NGINX Plus software delivers cloud-native, Kubernetes-friendly solutions that drive mission-critical applications and APIs with scalability, visibility, security, and governance*.* F5 NGINX Plus can be easily integrated into enterprise application workflows and CI/CD pipelines, as well as automation frameworks and ecosystems. F5 NGINX Plus is lightweight and can be used as a per-application ADC, but also scalable and performant enough for an enterprise’s largest and most critical applications. F5 NGINX Plus is also offered as a fully managed native service on the Microsoft Azure Cloud allowing teams to lift-and-shift their applications to the cloud with no configuration change removing the operational burden of self-managed instances from teams.

• F5 NGINX One Console.** The F5 NGINX One Console is a unified SaaS management platform designed to streamline the deployment, configuration, monitoring, and administration of NGINX instances across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Tailored for organizations leveraging NGINX for modern application delivery, the NGINX One Console provides centralized visibility and real-time analytics to optimize application performance, ensure security, and monitor traffic flows. Its intuitive interface simplifies the management of NGINX instances and supports automated workflows, integration with DevOps pipelines, and role-based access controls ("RBAC"). By empowering teams to manage containerized and microservices-based applications efficiently, the NGINX One Console enables enterprises to deliver reliable, scalable, and secure applications in increasingly distributed environments.

• F5 NGINX Ingress Controller.** The F5 NGINX Ingress Controller provides traffic management for Kubernetes clusters. This solution is deployed at the central point of entry into a Kubernetes cluster and reduces complexity, increases uptime, and provides better insights into application health and performance at scale. This offering is sold in a subscription consumption model that scales with the customer’s Kubernetes cluster size.

• F5 WAF for NGINX.** F5 WAF for NGINX is a comprehensive WAF security and denial-of-service ("DoS") defense solution designed to protect applications and API’s from advanced Layer 7 attacks. It is a lightweight solution that seamlessly integrates into DevOps environments and is platform-agnostic running across distributed architectures and hybrid environments to deliver consistent protection. It can be used in a variety of the use cases where F5 NGINX Plus is deployed and integrate easily into CI/CD pipelines for automation. F5 WAF for NGINX can be added to subscriptions and is bundled into "advanced" offerings for F5 NGINX Ingress Controller.

F5 BIG-IP. Our F5 BIG-IP family of product offerings provide feature-rich, highly programmable and configurable application delivery and security solutions for legacy applications in enterprises and service providers. Also known as traditional applications, legacy applications are based on monolithic, three-tier, or client-server architectures. Such legacy applications are the most ubiquitous application architecture today, and many organizations continue to rely exclusively on legacy applications to power the most mission-critical business applications, customer-facing digital interfaces and internally used applications. For most organizations, the priority around legacy applications is maximizing operational efficiency and minimizing the total cost of ownership. F5 BIG-IP's "best-of-suite" approach helps standardize and consolidate application delivery and security functions into a single solution, automating functions and reducing operational cost. The F5 BIG-IP family of products includes packaged software, which are available in subscription and perpetual consumption models, and F5 BIG-IP system offerings.

• F5 BIG-IP Packaged Software.** F5 BIG-IP packaged software includes a growing portfolio of products that provide the performance and security to deliver applications to end users. F5 BIG-IP Packaged Software offerings include the following:

• F5 BIG-IP Security.** F5 BIG-IP application security products include F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager that secures and protects user access to applications, F5 BIG-IP Advanced Web Application Firewall that protects applications with behavioral analytics, bot defense and application layer encryption, and F5 BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator that maximizes infrastructure security with encryption/decryption and traffic steering. We also offer F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager which drives accurate detection with machine learning, stress monitoring, dynamic signatures, and attack mitigation, F5 BIG-IP Carrier Grade NAT which provides carrier-grade scalability with a high number of IP address translations, fast network address translation setup rates and high-speed logging, and F5 BIG-IP DDoS Hybrid Defender which delivers advanced cloud and on-premises DDoS defenses to ensure real-time protection against volumetric DDoS threats and dynamic network and applications attacks.

• F5 BIG-IP Application Delivery.** F5 BIG-IP Application Delivery products include F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager which manages network traffic ensuring applications are always fast, available, and secure; F5 BIG-IP DNS which provides hyperscale and security during high query volumes and DNS DDoS attacks; F5 BIG-IP Policy Enforcement Manager which improves network performance through effective policy management; and F5

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BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes which supports ingress and egress traffic management for integration to multiple networks.

• F5 BIG-IP Automation Tool Chain.** F5 BIG-IP Automation Tool Chain is a set of automation tools that make it faster and easier to deploy and configure F5 application services. Via the F5 Automation Tool Chain, F5 BIG-IP capabilities easily integrate into orchestration frameworks such as Ansible, HashiCorp Terraform, OpenShift, and Cloud Foundry as part of a CI/CD pipeline.

• F5 BIG-IQ Centralized Management.** F5 BIG-IQ simplifies, enhances management of, and reduces customer operational costs associated with F5 BIG-IP deployments through central management, analytics, and automation for F5 BIG-IP instances.

• F5 BIG-IP Systems.** F5 BIG-IP systems are designed to enhance the performance of our software by leveraging a combination of custom field-programmable gate array ("FPGA") logic and off-the-shelf silicon, providing customers a balance of cost and flexibility. All of our systems run all available F5 BIG-IP software modules. Our next-generation hardware, rSeries systems and VELOS chassis and blades are designed to enable enhanced automation and multi-tenancy, a capability that enables running multiple versions of F5 BIG-IP software on the same system thereby making it easy to migrate from one version to another with minimal or no downtime.

Competition

As F5 expands its reach and role into a broader set of hybrid multicloud application delivery and security solutions, our competitive set evolves and includes vendors with capabilities associated with application delivery, application security, and multicloud networking.

The principal competitive factors in the markets in which we compete include deployment model, consumption model, ecosystem integrations, features and performance, customer support, brand recognition, scope of distribution and sales channels, and pricing. We believe we generally compete favorably on the basis of these factors because of our robust solutions and services, our ability to deliver and secure any application, and any API, anywhere, and our platform approach.

To provide a unified experience across all our offerings, we have introduced the F5 ADSP. With the F5 ADSP, customers can leverage the full strength of our broad portfolio with capabilities to enhance security, scalability, and operational efficiency while enabling key capabilities such as policy management, analytics, and automation.

While customers broadly are expressing increasing preference for a platform approach that simplifies complexity and eliminates operational burden, we also compete on a point-solution basis. Within application delivery, our customers have the best of both worlds: reliability that F5’s always been known for – across any environment from on-premises to multicloud; and agility and flexibility enabled by lightweight modern technologies, without compromising security or manageability. Our F5 BIG-IP offerings compete against Citrix and Broadcom. Our lightweight, agile, developer-friendly F5 NGINX offerings, which provide capabilities like optimizing Kubernetes traffic management and load balancing cloud-native and hybrid cloud applications compete against Amazon Web Services ("AWS"), Google Cloud Platform, Envoy, and HAProxy.

In application security, we compete with vendors that offer web application firewall, bot detection and mitigation, API protection, carrier-grade firewall, carrier-grade network address translation ("NAT"), SSL orchestration, access policy management, and DDoS mitigation including Akamai, Cisco, Cloudflare, Fortinet, Juniper Networks, Palo Alto, Radware, and Thales (Imperva).

F5 Distributed Cloud Services use cases include application and API security delivered as SaaS, as well as multicloud networking. F5 competes with traditional edge players including Akamai, Cloudflare and Fastly, as well as networking vendors including Broadcom and Cisco, and pure-play vendors like Aviatrix, and public cloud providers.

Manufacturing

We outsource the manufacturing of our products to various manufacturing partners, including our primary third-party manufacturer service provider, Flex Ltd. ("Flex"), to manufacture our hardware systems according to our specifications. Assembly, quality control and systems testing are carried out at Flex's facilities in Guadalajara, Mexico and Zhuhai, China. Additionally, Flex manages material procurement and fulfillment activities on our behalf, ensuring we maintain high standards of efficiency and scalability across our operations. Systems built in Guadalajara are shipped to the Flex fulfillment center in Memphis, Tennessee for distribution primarily to distributors, value-added resellers, or end-users in the Americas and EMEA. Systems built and fulfilled in Zhuhai are distributed to partners and customers in APAC. Title to the products transfers from Flex to us and then to our customers upon shipment from a designated fulfillment location.

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Our sales and operations planning cadence provides Flex and other partners with a rolling demand forecast. This approach enables our manufacturing partners to plan for the appropriate stock levels of raw materials and manufacturing line capacity, resulting in the right finished goods inventories to meet our end-user demand. The components for our hardware products consist of commodity parts and custom components. The component parts within our products are either sourced by our manufacturing partners or by us from various component suppliers. F5 has established a robust and resilient global hardware supply chain. We continuously monitor areas of potential impact within our supply chain, such as geopolitical, supplier, and other risk factors, as well as proactively take steps to minimize disruptions, including securing alternate supply when applicable.

Acquisitions

We evaluate opportunities to acquire complementary businesses, technologies, services, and intellectual property to complement our organic innovation and research and development efforts, advance the development of our platforms, and enable further investment in our key priority areas. Our evaluation of acquisition opportunities seeks to confirm that any potential transaction would accelerate our strategy, represent an attractive customer opportunity, address a customer need, align with our customer base and go-to-market strategy, and present a clear timeline and path for value accretion. Our acquisitions enable us to gain access to talent, technology, products and features, and can range in size and complexity, from those that enhance or complement existing products and accelerate development of features to those that result in new offerings.

In September 2025, we completed the acquisition of CalypsoAI Corp. ("CalypsoAI") which is expected to integrate into our F5 ADSP to create a complete solution for securing AI inference. Additionally, we also completed several other immaterial acquisitions in 2025 and in prior years to enhance various aspects of our platform.

Backlog

Backlog is primarily systems-based and represents orders confirmed with a purchase order for products to be fulfilled and invoiced to customers with approved credit status. Orders are subject to cancellation, rescheduling by customers, or product specification changes by customers. Although we believe that the backlog orders are firm, purchase orders may be canceled by the customer prior to fulfillment without significant penalty. For this reason, we believe that our product backlog at any given date is not a reliable indicator of future revenues.

Human Capital Management

F5’s commitment to its employees is to be a human-first and high-performing team equipped with the tools and expertise to deliver extraordinary impact on what matters most to F5, our customers, and our partners. This commitment is delivered through our culture and engagement, our investment in employees’ growth and development, our focus on diversity and inclusion, and our compensation, benefits, and wellbeing offerings.

As of September 30, 2025, we had 6,578 employees – over 99% of whom were full-time employees. Our employees are based in 47 countries with 47% of employees based in the United States. None of our employees in the United States are represented by a labor union. We have experienced no work stoppages and believe that our employee relations are in good standing, as evidenced by our annual employee engagement survey results, described in the section below entitled "Culture and Engagement."

Culture and Engagement

We have been able to sustain our strong company culture because BeF5 and LeadF5 behaviors are key to executing our strategy.

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We measure the success of and identify areas of improvement for our company culture through global surveys of employee experience and sentiment at least once each year. As of March 2025, employees reported high satisfaction with F5’s culture on several key questions:

• 85% of employees favorably rate "I am proud to work for F5."

• 90% of employees favorably rate "I trust my manager."

• 91% of employees favorably rate "F5 shows a commitment to ethical business decisions and conduct."

One survey measure that F5 tracks closely as a gauge of our culture increased from fiscal year 2024. As of March 2025, 80% of employees favorably rate "I feel a sense of belonging at F5." This increase in Belonging, compared to 73% a year prior, is critical to F5's efforts to foster the culture that is so important to our employees' and our company's performance.

Growth and Development

We provide employees with opportunities to improve their technical and professional knowledge, nurture our innovation ecosystem, strengthen management and leadership, as well as maintain our high standards of business integrity through ongoing compliance training. These development opportunities are available through both live employee events and third-party on-demand tools and are led by a mix of individual and AI coaches. In fiscal year 2025, F5 invested in tailored coaching and skills-building for its people managers to help continuously raise the bar on performance at F5.

Diversity and Inclusion

F5 is steadfast in its commitment to create a diverse and inclusive workplace. We believe our differences—when embraced with humility and respect—drive smarter decisions, increased innovation, stronger performance, and a culture where everyone can be themselves and reach their full potential.

The most critical drivers of our diversity and inclusion efforts year after year are represented in our seven Employee Inclusion Groups ("EIGs") – F5 Ability, F5 Asian and Pacific Islanders, F5 Appreciates Blackness, F5 Connects Women, F5 Latinx e Hispanos Unidos, F5 Military Veterans, and F5 Pride. Since our first EIG was established in 2013, these global communities represent a space for all F5ers to collaborate, share experiences, and learn.

Compensation, Benefits and Wellbeing

F5 aims to attract, reward, and retain extraordinary talent from diverse backgrounds by offering a total compensation package that is equitable, flexible, and market competitive.

This includes the pay, incentive plans, restricted stock unit grants ("RSUs"), Employee Stock Purchase Plan, retirement plans, healthcare, paid time off and family leave F5 provides to employees, as well as the programs that support the diverse needs of our employees’ overall health and wellbeing. In fiscal year 2025, F5 also renewed our popular Wellness Weekends to provide one weekend a quarter when all employees have a set Friday through Monday off to reset and refresh.

Environmental, Social and Governance

F5's Environmental, Social and Governance ("ESG") programs are guided by our fundamental principle to "do the right thing" for each other, our customers, our shareholders, and our communities.

Environmental. F5's 2030 climate target, verified by the Science Based Target Initiative, is to reduce both absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 50% and absolute Scope 3 emissions by 43% from a 2021 baseline. We plan to meet this climate target by

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optimizing our energy use, sourcing more renewable energy, and enhancing the sustainability of our products and supply chain processes.

As evidence of our progress towards our climate target, F5’s most recent annual ESG report in March 2025 disclosed a reduction in our total emissions from fiscal year 2023 to fiscal year 2024. This was driven by a 16% year-over-year reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions and a 10% year-over-year reduction in Scope 3 emissions. To ensure the integrity of our emissions reporting, F5 also secured third-party verification for our Scope 1 and 2 emissions data from fiscal year 2024. The auditor’s verification letter is available on page 19 of F5’s 2024 ESG report at f5.com under the ‘‘Company — Investor Relations — ESG’’ section.

Social. In addition to the employee programs and benefits outlined in the Human Capital Management section above, we continue to prioritize F5 Global Good, the community development initiative that amplifies our employee engagement and diversity and inclusion programs. We are proud that employees direct the entirety of Global Good’s donations, through both the Company matching program and grant selection committees. In fiscal year 2025, 72% of all employees worldwide participated in Global Good programs, volunteering over 13,400 hours and directing the entirety of F5’s donations, through both the Company matching program and grant selection committees. F5 and our employees donated over $3.9 million to more than 3,900 non-profits worldwide in fiscal year 2025.

Governance. In fiscal year 2025, F5 completed its second Double Materiality Assessment, to help identify and assess the most significant ESG issues impacting both our financial performance and our broader societal and environmental impact. Aligned with the definitions and required value chain scope set by the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive ("CSRD"), this bi-annual assessment reflected shifts in our stakeholders’ views, as well as changes in the geopolitical and macro-economic environment over the last two years. The Double Materiality Assessment is available on page 7 of F5’s 2024 ESG report at f5.com under the "Company — Investor Relations — ESG" section.

Executive Officers of the Registrant

The following table sets forth certain information with respect to our executive officers as of November 25, 2025:

François Locoh-Donou has served as our President, Chief Executive Officer and member of our Board of Directors since April 2017. Prior to joining F5, Mr. Locoh-Donou served as Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Ciena Corporation. During his more than 15 years at Ciena, Mr. Locoh-Donou served in several leadership positions. From August 2011 to October 2015, he served as Ciena’s Senior Vice President, Global Products Group. Previously, he served as Ciena’s Vice President and General Manager, Europe, Middle East and Africa from June 2005 to August 2011. He holds an M.B.A. from Stanford University, a 'Mastere' in Optical Telecommunications from the National Institute of Telecommunications of Paris, and a 'Diplome d'Ingenieur' in Physics Engineering from the National Institute of Physics in Marseille, France. Mr. Locoh-Donou serves on the board of Capital One Financial Corporation. He is also the co-founder of Cajou Espoir, a cashew-processing facility that employs several hundred people in rural Togo, 80 percent of whom are women. Cajou Espoir exports more than 400 tons of cashew kernels annually to the U.S. and Europe.

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Edward Werner has served as our Chief Financial Officer since November 2024. Mr. Werner joined F5 in 2001, and progressively took on roles of increasing responsibility. He served as F5’s Senior Vice President, Finance from 2012 until November 2024. He oversees F5's worldwide financial planning, analysis, accounting, reporting, and internal auditing procedures, as well as investor relations. Mr. Werner holds a B.A. in Business Administration with an Accounting Concentration from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington.

Tom Fountain has served as our Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer since September 2024. From June 2020 through August 2024, he served as Executive Vice President of Global Services and Chief Strategy Officer. Mr. Fountain joined F5 in January 2018 as Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer. Mr. Fountain is responsible for overseeing F5’s global services organization, including global support, consulting, and services teams. He is also responsible for leading F5's digital transformation to accelerate critical solution delivery to customers and for driving execution, productivity and efficiency company wide. From November 2012 to January 2018, Mr. Fountain served as Senior Vice President for Strategy and Corporate Development at McAfee LLC, Vice President of Strategy and Operations at Intel Corporation, and Senior Vice President for Strategy and Corporate Development at McAfee Incorporated. Previously, Mr. Fountain served as Vice President and General Manager of the Content and Media Business Unit at Juniper Networks from December 2011 to November 2012 and Vice President of Corporate Strategy at Juniper Networks from February 2009 to December 2011. Earlier in his career, Mr. Fountain was a venture capitalist at Mayfield Fund from June 2003 to February 2009 and co-founder and engineering leader at Ingrian Networks from December 1999 to June 2004. He holds an M.B.A., an M.S. in Computer Science, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering, and a B.S. in Computer Systems Engineering, each from Stanford University.

Chad Whalen has served as our Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer since September 2024. He is responsible for F5’s global sales go-to-market strategy and brings over 20 years of experience leading global teams across Europe, Asia, and North and South America in network infrastructure, security, and SaaS. From July 2018 to August 2024, he was Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales. Mr. Whalen joined F5 in 2017 to lead the Cloud Sales team. Prior to joining F5, he ran strategic alliances at Fortinet, worldwide sales and services at Jasper, Americas sales and field operations at Ciena and global sales and marketing at World Wide Packets. He holds a B.A. in Business Administration and Management from Eastern Washington University.

Lyra Schramm has served as our Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer since April 2024. She is responsible for driving people initiatives that support F5’s purpose to help bring a better digital world to life and position the company for continued growth. Prior to joining F5, Ms. Schramm spent nine years at Google in various leadership roles including Vice President, Strategy & Innovation where she spearheaded Google’s first enterprise-wide people strategy supporting the transformation to an AI-first company. In addition, she led human resources for the Global Advisory Functions, was the Chief of Staff to the Chief Human Resource Officer, and led the people strategy for a new business line, Google Technical Services. Previously, Ms. Schramm played a pivotal HR leadership role at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where she was instrumental in the Foundation’s global expansion. Her early career with Amazon set the stage for AWS’s growth, where she developed key recruitment strategies that significantly increased headcount and revenue. Ms. Schramm holds a BA in Marketing from Washington State University.

Kunal Anand has served as our Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer since October 2025. From October 2024 to October 2025, he served as our Chief Innovation Officer. He joined F5 in April 2024 as Chief Technology Officer. He is responsible for driving the Company’s technology and AI vision and innovation, with a focus on incorporating rapid AI adoption across F5’s product solutions. Prior to F5, Mr. Anand held the dual role of Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Security Officer at Imperva. He joined Imperva in 2018 with the acquisition of Prevoty, an application security startup he co-founded in 2013. Before joining Prevoty, he was the Director of Technology at BBC Worldwide. Mr. Anand has a deep history of innovation and technical expertise, and has held roles leading security, data, technology, and engineering teams at Gravity, MySpace, and the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. He holds a B.S. degree from Babson College.

John Maddison has served as our Chief Marketing Officer since October 2025. He joined F5 in December 2024 as Chief Product Marketing and Technology Alliances Officer. Mr. Maddison is responsible for overseeing F5’s global marketing, business development, and corporate communications teams. He is also responsible for increasing F5’s market impact and delivering on the Company’s brand promise through its products and partnerships. Prior to joining F5, Mr. Maddison spent twelve years at Fortinet, most recently as Chief Marketing Officer and EVP of Product Strategy. He previously held leadership positions at Trend Micro, Vina Communications, and Octel Communications. Mr. Maddison holds a B.S. in Engineering from Plymouth University in Devon, England.

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Angelique Okeke has served as our Executive Vice President and General Counsel since March 2025. She is responsible for leading F5's legal, regulatory, compliance, and corporate governance functions. Ms. Okeke brings more than 20 years of legal and operational leadership experience to F5. Prior to joining F5, she spent eight years at Nike, Inc., most recently as Global Vice President where she led strategic legal counsel on enterprise-wide initiatives that transformed Nike’s retail business model and accelerated its digital commerce strategy. Ms. Okeke has held legal leadership roles at AWS and Lotame. Okeke holds a B.A. in Political Science and Communications from Boston College, a Master of Arts in Public Communication from American University, and a Juris Doctor from Howard University School of Law.

Michael Montoya has served as our Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Operations Officer since October 2025. He previously served on our Board of Directors from 2021 to 2025. Prior to joining F5, Mr. Montoya served as Chief Operating Officer at BlueVoyant, overseeing Product, Engineering, and Operations. He previously held Chief Information Security Officer roles at Equinix and Digital Realty, leading enterprise, product, and physical security, as well as compliance. Mr. Montoya holds a B.A. in Economics from The University of New Mexico.

In addition to the other information in this report, the following risk factors should be carefully considered in evaluating our company and operations.

Risk Factor Summary

Operational and Execution Risks

• Security vulnerabilities or control failures in our IT infrastructure or multicloud application delivery and security products and services as well as unforeseen product errors could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations, financial condition and reputation;

• The Cyber Incident has had and may continue to have an adverse effect on our business, reputation, customer, employee and partner relations, results of operations, financial condition and cash flows;

• We are dependent on various information technology systems, and failures of or interruptions to those systems could harm our business;

• Our success depends on our key personnel and our ability to hire, retain and motivate qualified executives, sales and marketing, operations, product development and professional services personnel;

• Cloud-based and SaaS computing trends present competitive and execution risks;

• Our success depends upon our ability to effectively plan and manage our resources and restructure our business;

• Our business may be harmed if our contract manufacturers are not able to provide us with adequate supplies of our products or if a single source of hardware assembly is lost or impaired;

• Our business could suffer if there are any interruptions or delays in the supply of hardware components from our third-party sources;

• It is difficult to predict our future operating results because we have an unpredictable sales cycle;

• We may not be able to sustain or develop new distribution relationships, and a reduction or delay in sales to significant distribution partners could hurt our business;

• Reliance on fulfillment at the end of the quarter could cause our revenue for the applicable period to fall below expected levels;

• Our operating results are exposed to risks associated with international commerce;

• The average selling price of our products may decrease and our costs may increase, which may negatively impact revenues and profits; and

• Acquisitions present many risks and we may not realize the financial and strategic goals that are contemplated at the time of the transaction.

Strategic and Industry Risks

• Our success depends on our timely development of new software and systems products and features, market acceptance of new software and systems product offerings and proper management of the timing of the life cycle of our software and systems products;

• Our success depends on sales and continued innovation of our application delivery and security product lines;

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• Issues related to the development and use of artificial intelligence ("AI") could give rise to legal and/or regulatory action, damage our reputation or otherwise materially harm our business;

• Our business could be adversely impacted by conditions affecting the markets in which we compete;

• Industry consolidation may result in increased competition;

• We may not be able to compete effectively in the application delivery and security market; and

• Misuse of our products could harm our reputation.

Legal and Regulatory Risks

• Our failure to adequately protect personal information could have a material adverse effect on our business;

• A portion of our revenue is generated by sales to government entities, which are subject to a number of challenges and risks;

• We face litigation risks;

• We may not be able to adequately protect our intellectual property, and our products may infringe on the intellectual property rights of third parties;

• We are subject to governmental export and import controls that could subject us to liability or impair our ability to compete in international markets; and

• Changes in governmental regulations could negatively affect our revenues.

Financial Risks

• We may have exposure to greater than anticipated tax liabilities;

• We are exposed to fluctuations in currency exchange rates, which could negatively affect our financial condition and results of operations;

• Changes in financial accounting standards may cause adverse unexpected revenue fluctuations and affect our reported results of operations; and

• If we are unable to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting, the accuracy and timeliness of our financial reporting may be adversely affected.

Risks Related to our Common Stock

• Our quarterly and annual operating results may fluctuate in future periods, which may cause our stock price to fluctuate;

• Anti-takeover provisions could make it more difficult for a third party to acquire us;

• Our stock price could be volatile, particularly during times of economic uncertainty and volatility in domestic and international stock markets; and

• If securities or industry analysts publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, or discontinue publishing research about our business, the price and trading volume of our securities could decline.

General Risks

• Macroeconomic downturns or uncertainties may harm our industry, business, and results of operations;

• We face risks associated with having operations and employees located in Israel;

• Our business is subject to the risks of earthquakes, fire, power outages, floods, and other catastrophic events, and to interruption by man-made problems such as terrorism; and

• Climate change and associated regulation may have an impact on our business.

Operational and Execution Risks

Security vulnerabilities or control failures in our IT infrastructure or multicloud application delivery and security products and services as well as unforeseen product errors could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations, financial condition and reputation

In the ordinary course of business, we store sensitive data, including intellectual property, personal data, our proprietary business information and that of our customers, suppliers and business partners on our networks. In addition, we store sensitive data through cloud-based services that may be hosted by third parties and in data center infrastructure maintained by third parties. The secure maintenance of this information is critical to our operations and business strategy. Our IT infrastructure and

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those of our partners and customers are subject to the increasing threat of intrusions by a wide range of bad actors and malicious parties, including computer programmers, hackers or sophisticated nation-state and nation-state supported actors, or they may be compromised due to employee error or wrongful conduct, malfeasance, or other disruptions. Despite our security measures, and those of our third-party vendors, our IT infrastructure has experienced breaches or disruptions, including the Cyber Incident, and may be vulnerable in the future to breach, attacks or disruptions. If any breach or attack, including the Cyber Incident, compromises our IT infrastructure, creates system disruptions or slowdowns or exploits security vulnerabilities therein, the information stored on our networks or those of our customers could be accessed and modified, publicly disclosed, or lost or stolen, and we may be subject to liability to our customers, individuals, suppliers, business partners and others, and may suffer reputational and financial harm.

Our multicloud application delivery and security products and services are used by our customers to manage their critical applications

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Not applicable.

Risk Management and Strategy

We recognize the importance of identifying, assessing, and managing material risks associated with cybersecurity threats. These risks include, among other things: operational risks; intellectual property theft; fraud; extortion; harm to employees or customers; violation of privacy or security laws and other litigation and legal risks; and reputational risks. Our process for identifying and assessing material risks from cybersecurity threats operates in conjunction with our overall risk management systems and processes, covering all company risks.

Our cybersecurity risk management program is led by our Chief Information Security Officer ("CISO"), who manages our security team and is principally responsible for our cybersecurity risk assessment processes, our security controls, and our detection and response to cybersecurity incidents. Our program includes protocols for preventing, monitoring, detecting and responding to cybersecurity events and incidents, and cross-functional coordination and governance of business continuity and disaster recovery plans. Components of our program include:

• risk assessments designed to help identify cybersecurity threats to our products and related supportive infrastructure, critical IT systems, information, and our broader enterprise IT environment;

• monitoring, detection and collection and analysis of information regarding evolving, ongoing, and emerging threats and vulnerabilities, and corresponding actions to assess and remediate corresponding risks;

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• regular testing and assessments to identify vulnerabilities;

• the periodic engagement of independent security firms and other third-party experts, where appropriate, to assess, test, and certify components of our cybersecurity program, and to otherwise assist with aspects of our cybersecurity processes and controls;

• annual cybersecurity awareness training for our employees;

• regular assessments of the design and operational effectiveness of the program’s key processes and controls by our internal audit team as well as external consultants; and

• a risk management process for third-party service providers and vendors that includes due diligence in the selection process and periodic monitoring regarding adherence to applicable cybersecurity standards.

We also have a cybersecurity incident response plan to assess and manage cybersecurity incidents, which includes escalation procedures based on the nature and severity of the incident, including, where appropriate, escalation to the Risk Committee and the Board. We periodically perform tabletop exercises to test our incident response procedures, identify gaps and improvement opportunities, and assess team preparedness.

As part of our overall risk mitigation strategy, we maintain insurance coverage that is intended to address certain aspects of cybersecurity risks; however, such insurance may not be sufficient in type or amount to cover us against claims related to cybersecurity breaches, cyberattacks and other related breaches. We periodically review our cybersecurity insurance program.

As of the date of this report, other than with respect to the Cyber Incident, we do not believe that any risks from cybersecurity threats, including as a result of any previous cybersecurity incidents, have materially affected or are reasonably likely to materially affect our Company, including our business strategy, results of operations or financial condition. For more information on the Cyber Incident, see Part II, Item 7. "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations - Cyber Incident". Despite our security measures, however, there can be no assurance that we, or third parties with whom we interact, will not experience a cybersecurity incident in the future that will materially affect us. For more information on our cybersecurity related risks, see Part I, Item 1A. "Risk Factors," including "Security vulnerabilities or control failures in our IT infrastructure or multicloud application delivery and security products and services as well as unforeseen product errors could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations, financial condition and reputation," and "The Cyber Incident has had and may continue to have an adverse effect on our business, reputation, customer, employee and partner relations, results of operations, financial condition and cash flows."

Governance

Our Board of Directors is actively involved in overseeing risks from cybersecurity threats and is assisted in that oversight by its Risk Committee. The Risk Committee reviews and assesses the Company’s cybersecurity risk exposure and evaluates the adequacy and effectiveness of related risk management processes and policies.

As part of the oversight process, the Risk Committee has the following responsibilities, among others:

• reviews and advises on our cybersecurity and operational risk strategy, resiliency, crisis and incident management, and security-related information technology planning processes, and reviews strategy and implementation for investing in related systems, controls, and procedures with management;

• reviews our compliance with applicable global data protection and security laws and regulations, and the Company’s adoption and implementation of systems, controls and procedures designed to comply with such laws and regulations;

• reviews plans for periodic assessments and related findings and remediation of our cybersecurity and operational risk and incident response and disaster recovery programs by outside professionals;

• reviews analyses of our cybersecurity and operational risks by management and third parties, as applicable; and

• evaluates our disclosure controls and procedures related to cybersecurity to ensure timely and accurate reporting of cybersecurity and operational risks and incidents, as appropriate.

The Risk Committee meets at least four times a year and regularly reports to the full Board, including regarding its review and assessment of cybersecurity risk oversight matters and related recommendations. The Board of Directors discusses our programs and policies related to cybersecurity and risk initiatives and considers them closely both from a risk management perspective and as part of F5’s business strategy.

The Risk Committee receives periodic updates from our CISO, and other persons the Risk Committee deems appropriate, on a range of cybersecurity matters, including those referenced above as well as on the status of the Company’s cybersecurity posture and risk mitigation efforts. If cyber-related issues arise between Risk Committee meetings that the CISO believes could

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have a material adverse impact on the Company, the CISO, or another appropriate risk management leader, will report to the Chair of the Risk Committee.

At the management level, our CISO leads our enterprise-wide cybersecurity program in partnership with other business leaders, including our General Counsel and Chief Operating Officer. These members of management are informed about and monitor the prevention, mitigation, detection, and remediation of cybersecurity incidents through their management of, and participation in, the cybersecurity risk management and strategy processes described above. Our CISO has over 25 years of experience in technology and information security operations across a diverse range of business sectors. In addition, on October 15, 2025 Michael Montoya, a former member of our Board of Directors, was appointed as the Company's Chief Technology Operations Officer. In his role, Mr. Montoya will lead the enterprise-wide strategy and execution of our enterprise-wide cybersecurity program with our CISO, and in partnership with other business leaders, including our General Counsel and Chief Operating Officer to further embed security into every aspect of how F5 operates.

We lease our principal administrative, sales, marketing, research and development facilities, which are located in Seattle, Washington and consist of approximately 515,000 square feet. In May 2017, we entered into a lease agreement for the building in Seattle, Washington that now serves as our corporate headquarters. This lease will expire in 2033 with an option for renewal.

We believe that our existing properties are in good condition and suitable for the conduct of our business. We also lease additional office space for product development and sales and support personnel in the United States and internationally. We believe that our future growth can be accommodated by our current facilities or by leasing additional space if necessary.

Corporate Functions

Customer Services and Technical Support

We believe that our ability to provide consistent, high-quality customer service and technical support is a key factor in attracting and retaining large enterprise and service provider customers. Accordingly, we offer a broad range of support services that includes technical support, hardware repair and replacement, software updates, online tools, consulting, and training services.

We provide these services directly to customers and also utilize a multi-tiered support model, leveraging the capabilities of our broad base of channel partners. Our technical support staff is strategically located in regional service centers to support our global customer base.

Product Development

We believe our future success depends on our ability to maintain technology leadership by continuing to innovate and to improve our products and by developing new products to meet the changing needs of our customers and partners. Our engineering organization uses standard processes for the development, documentation, and quality control of services, software, and systems that are designed to meet these goals. These processes include working with our business development and marketing teams, customers, and partners to identify technology innovation opportunities to better meet the evolving needs of our addressable markets. We have had dedicated teams focused on testing new disruptive innovations in technology, business models, or customer segments. We expect innovations resulting from the work of these teams will be complementary to our goal of delivering the broadest and most consistent portfolio of solutions across cloud and on-premises environments.

We rely on a combination of patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws and restrictions on disclosure to protect our intellectual property rights. F5 holds various patents in the United States and internationally (with applications pending for various aspects of our technology). We file patent applications to protect our intellectual property and believe that the duration of our issued patents is sufficient when considering the expected lives of our products. Our future success depends in part on our ability to protect our proprietary rights to the technologies used in our principal products. Despite our efforts to protect our proprietary rights, unauthorized parties may attempt to copy aspects of our products or to obtain and use trade secrets or other information that we regard as proprietary. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries do not protect our proprietary rights as fully as the laws of the United States. Any issued patent may not preserve our proprietary position, and competitors or others may develop technologies similar to or superior to our technology.

In addition to our own proprietary software, we incorporate software licensed from several third-party sources into our products. These are generally term licenses which may renew annually and that generally provide for certain rights and licenses to support our customers post termination. While we may not be able to renew all of these licenses in the future, we believe that alternative technologies for these licenses are available both domestically and internationally.

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Sales and Marketing

Our customers include a wide variety of large enterprise businesses, public sector institutions, governments, and service providers, including many among Fortune 1000 and Business Week Global 1000 companies. Our customers include businesses in technology, telecommunications, financial services, transportation, education, manufacturing, healthcare, and government. In fiscal year 2025, sales outside of the Americas represented 44.2% of our net revenues. Refer to Note 15 of our consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional information regarding our revenues by geographic area.

Sales

Our sales teams sell our products and services directly to customers working closely with our channel partners including distributors, value-added resellers ("VARs"), managed service providers ("MSPs"), and systems integrators.

F5 sales teams. Our inside sales team generates and qualifies leads from marketing and helps manage accounts by serving as a liaison between the field and internal corporate resources. Our outside sales team works directly with partners and customers across the globe. Our field sales personnel are located in major cities across our three sales regions. Field sales personnel work closely with our channel partners to sell our products and services to their customers. We reward partners that identify new business and provide sales expertise for our portfolio of products and solutions through various incentive programs. Systems engineers, with deep technical domain expertise, support our regional sales account managers and channel partners providing pre-sale technical solution engineering and support, as needed.

Distributors, VARs, and MSPs. As a key component of our sales strategy, we have established relationships with a number of large national and international distributors, local and specialized distributors, VARs, and MSPs. We derive a majority of our product sales from VARs and MSPs, relying on our large distributors for fulfillment, training, and partner enablement.

Our agreements with our channel partners are not exclusive and do not prevent them from selling competitive products. These agreements typically have one-year terms with no obligation to renew, and typically do not provide for exclusive sales territories or minimum purchase requirements.

Our agreements with distributors are standard, non-exclusive distribution agreements that renew automatically on an annual basis and generally can be terminated by either party with 90 days written notice prior to the start of any renewal term. The agreements grant certain distributors the right to distribute our products to resellers, with no minimum purchase requirements.

Systems integrators. We also market our products through strategic relationships with systems integrators who include our products as core components of application deployments or network-based solutions they deploy for their customers. In most cases, systems integrators do not directly purchase our products for resale to their customers. Instead, they typically recommend and/or manage our products as a part of broader solutions supporting enterprise applications and internet facing systems that incorporate our technology for security, high availability, and enhanced performance.

Resellers and technology partners. Historically, our ability to compete with much larger companies has been strengthened through partnerships with large systems and software vendors. Currently, we partner with many technology partners and public cloud providers who resell our products. We have ongoing partnerships with the major cloud providers such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform and have expanded our reseller routes to market to include their public cloud marketplaces. We are actively engaged with AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform on private offers leveraging our software on all three cloud providers. Our business development team manages these relationships and closely monitors adjacent and complementary markets for opportunities to partner with those whose solutions are complementary to ours and could enable us to expand our addressable market.

Marketing

As we continue to expand our offerings, we are focused on driving the compelling and unique value proposition of F5's solutions among our existing customers, including new buying centers within existing customers, as well as with new customers. To do so, we are revitalizing our brand, informing current customers about our expanded portfolio, and broadening our reach with new customers. We continue to focus on our core NetOps buying persona while seeking to expand our relationships with DevOps, SecOps, Chief Information Security Officer and Cloud Architect audiences.

We are investing in driving brand, demand, and advocacy experiences, addressing touchpoints across the customer journey to ensure we do all we can to enable our customers to realize value in their investments with F5. To maximize our reach and impact, we continue to meet customers where they are by increasing our focus and investments in more digitally enabled, personalized, and frictionless experiences at scale.

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See Note 12 - Commitments and Contingencies of the Notes to Financial Statements (Part II, Item 8 of this Form 10-K) for information regarding legal proceedings in which we are involved.

Not applicable.

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PART II

Market Prices of Common Stock

Our common stock is traded on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol "FFIV." The following table sets forth the high and low sales prices of our common stock as reported on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.

The last reported sales price of our common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on November 12, 2025 was $240.17.

As of November 12, 2025, there were 36 holders of record of our common stock. As many of our shares of common stock are held by brokers and other institutions on behalf of shareholders, we are unable to estimate the total number of beneficial holders of our common stock represented by these record holders.

Dividend Policy

Our policy has been to retain cash for use in our business, for investment in acquisitions and to repurchase shares of our common stock. Accordingly, we have not paid dividends and do not anticipate declaring dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future.

Unregistered Securities Sold in 2025

We did not sell any unregistered shares of our common stock during the fiscal year 2025.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

On October 25, 2024, we announced that our Board of Directors authorized an additional $1.0 billion for our common stock share repurchase program. This authorization is incremental to the existing $6.4 billion program, initially approved in October 2010 and expanded in subsequent fiscal years. Acquisitions for the share repurchase programs will be made from time to time in private transactions, accelerated share repurchase programs, or open market purchases as permitted by securities laws and other legal requirements. The programs can be terminated at any time.

During fiscal year 2025, we repurchased and retired 1,879,403 shares of common stock at an average price of $266.04 per share and as of September 30, 2025, we had $922.4 million remaining authorized to purchase shares.

Shares repurchased and retired during the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025 are as follows (in thousands, except shares and per share data):

(1)Includes 7,267 shares withheld from restricted stock units that vested in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 to satisfy minimum tax withholding obligations that arose on the vesting of restricted stock units.

(2)Shares withheld from restricted stock units that vested to satisfy minimum tax withholding obligations that arose on the vesting of such awards do not deplete the dollar amount available for purchases under the repurchase program.

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Performance Measurement Comparison of Shareholder Return

The following graph compares the annual percentage change in the cumulative total return on shares of our common stock, the Nasdaq Composite Index, the S&P 500 Index, and the S&P 500 Information Technology Index for the period commencing September 30, 2020, and ending September 30, 2025.

Comparison of Cumulative Total Return

On Investment Since September 30, 2020*

The Company’s closing stock price on September 30, 2025, the last trading day of the Company’s 2025 fiscal year, was $323.19 per share.

• Assumes that $100 was invested September 30, 2020 in shares of common stock and in each index, and that all dividends were reinvested. Shareholder returns over the indicated period should not be considered indicative of future shareholder returns.

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The following discussion of our financial condition and results of operations contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements about our plans, objectives, expectations, strategies, intentions or other characterizations of future events or circumstances and are generally identified by the words "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements are based on current information and expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed under "Item 1A. Risk Factors" herein and in other documents we file from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We assume no obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking statements.

Overview

F5 is a global leader in application delivery and security solutions which enables its customers to deploy, operate, secure, optimize, and govern every application and API across on-premises architectures, in the cloud, and at the network edge. Our cloud, software, and hardware solutions enable our customers to deliver fast, available, and secure digital experiences to their customers at scale. Our application services are available as hardware, software, SaaS, and software-only solutions optimized for hybrid, multicloud environments, with modules that can run independently, or as part of an integrated solution on our high-performance appliances. We market and sell our products primarily through multiple indirect sales channels in our Americas; Europe, the Middle East, and Africa ("EMEA"); and Asia Pacific ("APAC") regions. Enterprise customers (Fortune 1000 or Business Week Global 1000 companies) in the technology, financial services, transportation, education, manufacturing, and health care industries, along with government customers, and service providers continue to make up the largest percentage of our customer base.

Our management team monitors and analyzes a number of key performance indicators in order to manage our business and evaluate our financial and operating performance on a consolidated basis. Those indicators include:

• Revenues. Our revenue is derived from the sales of both products and services. The majority of our product revenues are derived from sales of our application delivery and security solutions including our F5 BIG-IP software and systems, F5 NGINX software, and our F5 Distributed Cloud Services offerings. Our F5 BIG-IP software solutions are sold both on a subscription and perpetual license basis. We sell F5 NGINX on a subscription basis as deployable software or SaaS. F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides security, multicloud networking, and edge-based computing solutions and are offered on a subscription basis, under a unified SaaS platform and managed service platform. Our services revenue includes annual maintenance contracts, training and consulting services.

We monitor the sales mix of our revenues within each reporting period. We believe customer acceptance rates of our new products, feature enhancements and consumption models are indicators of future trends. We also consider overall revenue concentration by geographic region as an additional indicator of current and future trends. In fiscal 2025, we benefited from improving customer demand, which began to stabilize and improve following macroeconomic uncertainties at the start of fiscal 2024.

• Cost of revenues and gross margins. We strive to control our cost of revenues and thereby maintain our gross margins. Significant items impacting cost of revenues are hardware costs paid to our contract manufacturers, third-party software license fees, technology costs, including cloud hosting and software licenses expenses, amortization of developed technology and personnel and overhead expenses. In addition, factors such as sales price, product and services mix, inventory obsolescence, returns, component price increases, warranty costs, and global supply chain constraints could significantly impact our gross margins.

• Operating expenses. Operating expenses are substantially driven by personnel and related overhead expenses. Existing headcount and future hiring plans are the predominant factors in analyzing and forecasting future operating expense trends. Other significant operating expenses that we monitor include costs associated with cyber and enterprise-wide security, marketing and promotions, travel, professional fees, technology costs, including cloud hosting and software licenses expenses, related to the development of new products and provision of services, facilities and depreciation expenses.

• Liquidity and cash flows. Our financial condition remains strong with significant cash and investments. The increase in cash and investments for fiscal year 2025 was primarily due to cash provided by operating activities of $949.7 million, partially offset by $502.1 million of cash used for the repurchase of outstanding common stock under our stock repurchase program, including the payment of related excise taxes. In addition, $171.1 million of cash was used for the acquisition of businesses during fiscal 2025, and $43.3 million of cash was used for capital expenditures related to the expansion of our facilities to support our operations worldwide, as well as investments in technology, including cloud hosting and software licenses, and equipment purchases to support our core business activities. Going forward, we believe the primary driver of cash flows will

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continue to be net income from operations. We will continue to evaluate possible acquisitions of, or investments in businesses, products, or technologies that we believe are strategic, which may require the use of cash. Additionally, on January 31, 2020, we entered into a Revolving Credit Agreement (the "Revolving Credit Agreement") that provides for a senior unsecured revolving credit facility in an aggregate principal amount of $350.0 million (the "Revolving Credit Facility"). On January 31, 2025, the Revolving Credit Facility expired. At the time of expiration, there were no outstanding borrowings under the Revolving Credit Facility.

• Balance sheet. We view cash, short-term and long-term investments, deferred revenue, accounts receivable balances and days sales outstanding as important indicators of our financial health. Deferred revenues continued to increase in fiscal 2025 due to an increase in deferred subscription contracts, including SaaS and maintenance associated with licensed-based subscriptions, which includes sales as part of our Flexible Consumption Program. Our days sales outstanding for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025 was 46. Days sales outstanding is calculated by dividing ending accounts receivable by revenue per day for a given quarter.

Cyber Incident

On October 15, 2025, we disclosed information about a Cyber Incident in which a highly sophisticated nation-state threat actor had gained unauthorized long-term, persistent access to certain Company systems, and exfiltrated certain files, some of which contained certain portions of our BIG-IP source code and information about undisclosed vulnerabilities that our engineering teams were working on in BIG-IP. Upon identifying the threat, we immediately activated our incident response process and took extensive actions to contain the threat actor, which included engaging leading external cybersecurity experts. Our investigation, monitoring, and related activities related to the incident are ongoing. To date, we believe our containment actions have been successful, and since the initiation of these efforts, we have not observed any evidence of new unauthorized activity.

To date, we are not aware of any undisclosed critical or remote code vulnerabilities, and we are not aware of active exploitation of any undisclosed vulnerabilities within our products. Further, to date, we have no evidence of modification to our software supply chain, including our source code and our build and release pipelines. This assessment has been validated through independent reviews by leading cybersecurity research firms. We have no evidence that the threat actor accessed or modified the NGINX source code or product development environment, nor do we have evidence they accessed or modified our F5 Distributed Cloud Services or Silverline systems. In response to the incident, we have prioritized delivering reliable software release updates to address all undisclosed high vulnerabilities in BIG-IP source code, with a significant number of our largest customers having completed these updates with minimal disruption. We have, and will continue to prioritize steps to bolster our security posture in implementing further measures to strengthen our security environment and protect our customers.

To date, this incident has not had a material impact on our operations. As a result of the incident, we anticipate near-term disruption to our sales cycles with demand impacts more pronounced in the early part of the fiscal year and normalizing in the second half of the fiscal year 2026. These disruptions may also lead to a near term impact on our operating margin within fiscal year 2026. We expect to continue to incur additional professional services and other expenses associated with incident response during fiscal year 2026. As of the date of this filing these expenses were not material. See Note 12. Commitments and Contingencies in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Item 8 of Part II of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information.

Critical Accounting Estimates

Our consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. The preparation of these financial statements requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses, and related disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that are believed to be reasonable under the circumstances. Actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions.

We believe that, of our significant accounting policies, which are described in Note 1 of the notes to the consolidated financial statements, the following accounting policy involves a greater degree of judgment and complexity. Accordingly, we believe the following policy is the most critical to aid in fully understanding and evaluating our consolidated financial condition and results of operations.

Revenue Recognition. The majority of our contracts with our customers include various combinations of our products and subscriptions and support. Our hardware products and software licenses are distinct from our subscriptions and support services as the customer can benefit from the product without these services and such services are separately identifiable within the contract. We account for multiple agreements with a single customer as a single contract if the contractual terms and/or substance of those agreements indicate that they may be so closely related that they are, in effect, parts of a single contract. The

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amount of consideration we expect to receive in exchange for delivering on the contract is allocated to each performance obligation based on its relative standalone selling price.

When estimating standalone selling price, we first consider the prices charged for a deliverable when sold separately. If the standalone selling price is not observable through past transactions, we estimate it based on our pricing model and our go-to-market strategy, which include factors such as target gross margins, the geographies in which our offerings were sold, and offering type (products or services). As our business offerings evolve over time, we may be required to modify our estimated standalone selling prices, and as a result the timing and classification of our revenue could be affected.

Impact of Macroeconomic Conditions

Our overall performance depends in part on worldwide economic and geopolitical conditions and their impacts on customer behavior. Uncertain economic conditions, including inflation, tariffs and other duties, higher interest rates, slower growth, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, and other changes in economic conditions, may adversely affect our results of operations and financial performance. For further discussion of the potential impacts of recent macroeconomic events on our business, financial condition, and operating results, see Part I, Item 1A titled "Risk Factors."

Results of Operations

The following discussion and analysis comparing our fiscal 2025 financial results to fiscal 2024 should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements, related notes and risk factors included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. For discussion and analysis related to our financial results comparing fiscal 2024 to 2023, refer to Part II, Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal 2024, which was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on November 18, 2024.

Net Product Revenues. Net product revenues increased 18.5% in fiscal year 2025 from fiscal year 2024. The increase of $235.8 million in net product revenues for fiscal year 2025 was due to an increase in revenues associated with systems and software of $168.2 million and $67.6 million, respectively.

Net Service Revenues. Net service revenues increased 2.3% in fiscal year 2025 from fiscal year 2024. The increase of $36.1 million in service revenue for fiscal year 2025 was primarily the result of increased initial purchases and renewals of maintenance contracts.

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The following presents net product revenues by systems and software (in thousands):

Total systems revenue increased 31.3% in fiscal year 2025 from 2024 was primarily due to increases in customer demand and pricing increases on system offerings. Total systems revenue decreased 19.9% in fiscal year 2024 from 2023 primarily due to a lower level of shipments due to 2022 supply chain constrained demand fulfilled in 2023. Total software revenue was $803.1 million, $735.5 million, and $664.0 million for fiscal years 2025, 2024, and 2023, respectively. Total software revenue increased by 9.2% in fiscal year 2025 from 2024 primarily due to increases in renewals and initial purchases of subscription offerings. Total software revenue increased by 10.8% in fiscal year 2024 from 2023 primarily due to increases in renewals and initial purchases of subscription offerings. Total SaaS and managed services revenue did not account for 10% or more of total net revenues for any period presented.

The following distributor customers accounted for more than 10% of total net revenue:

The following distributor customers accounted for more than 10% of total receivables:

No end-user customers accounted for more than 10% of total net revenue or receivables. No other distributor customers accounted for more than 10% of total net revenue or receivables, other than those noted above.

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Cost of Net Product Revenues. Cost of net product revenues consist of finished products purchased from our contract manufacturers, personnel costs, including the salaries, stock-based compensation, and related benefits of our personnel, manufacturing overhead, freight, warranty, provisions for excess and obsolete inventory, technology costs, including cloud hosting and software licenses expenses, facilities and depreciation expenses, and amortization expenses in connection with developed technology from acquisitions. Cost of net product revenues increased primarily due to systems and software revenue growth. The increase was largely offset by an improvement in product margins driven by a more favorable product mix.

Cost of Net Service Revenues. Cost of net service revenues consist of personnel costs, including the salaries, stock-based compensation, and related benefits of our professional services personnel, travel, technology costs, including cloud hosting and software licenses expenses, facilities and depreciation expenses. Cost of net service revenues increased $14.5 million, or 6.6% in fiscal year 2025 from the prior year. The increase in cost of net service revenues was primarily due to an increase in personnel costs.

Sales and Marketing. Sales and marketing expenses consist of personnel costs, including the salaries, commissions, stock-based compensation, and related benefits of our sales and marketing personnel, the costs of our marketing programs, including public relations, advertising and trade shows, travel, facilities, technology costs, including cloud hosting and software licenses expenses, facilities and depreciation expenses. Sales and marketing expense increased $28.2 million, or 3.4% in fiscal year 2025 from the prior year. The increase in sales and marketing expense for fiscal year 2025 was primarily due to an increase of $20.6 million in personnel costs. Sales and marketing headcount at the end of fiscal year 2025 increased to 2,186 from 2,165 at the end of fiscal year 2024. In addition, technology expenditures to support the sales and marketing organization increased $6.5 million in fiscal year 2025 from the prior year.

Research and Development. Research and development expenses consist of personnel costs, including the salaries, stock-based compensation, and related benefits of our product development personnel, prototype materials and other expenses related to the development of new and improved products, technology costs, including cloud hosting and software licenses expenses,

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facilities, depreciation and amortization expenses. Research and development expense increased $49.7 million, or 10.1% in fiscal year 2025 from the prior year. The increase in research and development expense for fiscal year 2025 was primarily due to an increase of $31.4 million in personnel costs. In addition, technology costs to support the research and development organization increased $18.9 million in fiscal year 2025 from the prior year.

General and Administrative. General and administrative expenses consist of personnel costs, including the salaries, benefits and related costs of our executive, finance, information technology, human resource and legal personnel, third-party professional service fees, bad debt charges, technology costs, including cloud hosting and software licenses expenses, facilities and depreciation expenses. General and administrative expense increased $53.5 million, or 19.9% in fiscal year 2025 from the prior year. The increase in general and administrative expense for fiscal year 2025 was primarily due to an increase of $25.8 million in personnel costs. General and administrative headcount at the end of fiscal year 2025 increased to 898 from 875 at the end of fiscal year 2024. In addition, fees paid for professional services increased $19.7 million in fiscal year 2025 from the prior year, primarily due to activity related to acquisitions.

Restructuring charges. In the first and fourth fiscal quarters of 2025, and the first fiscal quarter of 2024, we completed restructuring plans to better align strategic and financial objectives, optimize operations, and drive efficiencies for long-term growth and profitability. As a result of the first and fourth quarters of fiscal 2025 restructuring initiatives, we recorded charges of $11.3 million and $14.3 million, net of adjustments, related to reductions in workforce that are reflected in our results for fiscal 2025. As a result of the first quarter of fiscal 2024 restructuring initiative, we recorded a charge of $8.7 million, net of adjustments, related to a reduction in workforce that is reflected in our results for fiscal 2024.

Other Income, Net. The change in other income, net for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025 was primarily driven by interest income and expense, investment income, and foreign currency transaction gains and losses compared to the same periods in the prior year.

Provision for Income Taxes. We recorded a 14.3% provision for income taxes for fiscal year 2025, compared to 18.5% in fiscal year 2024. The decrease in effective tax rate from fiscal year 2024 to 2025 is primarily due to the tax impact from stock-based compensation and tax reserves.

We record a valuation allowance to reduce our deferred tax assets to the amount we believe is more likely than not to be realized. In making these determinations we consider historical and projected taxable income, and ongoing prudent and feasible tax planning strategies in assessing the appropriateness of a valuation allowance. The net decrease in the valuation allowance of $5.4 million for fiscal year 2025 was primarily related to tax net operating losses and credits incurred in certain foreign jurisdictions, and state tax carryforwards. Our net deferred tax assets as of September 30, 2025 and 2024 were $444.5 million and $358.8 million, respectively.

Our worldwide effective tax rate may fluctuate based on a number of factors, including variations in projected taxable income in the various geographic locations in which we operate, the impact of stock-based compensation, changes in the valuation of our net deferred tax assets, resolution of potential exposures, tax positions taken on tax returns filed in the various geographic locations in which we operate, and the introduction of new accounting standards or changes in tax laws or interpretations thereof in the various geographic locations in which we operate. We have recorded liabilities to address potential tax exposures related to business and income tax positions we have taken that could be challenged by taxing authorities. The

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ultimate resolution of these potential exposures may be greater or less than the liabilities recorded, which could result in an adjustment to our future tax expense.

On July 4, 2025, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act ("OBBBA") was enacted into law. The new legislation did not have a material impact for fiscal year 2025. The Company is currently evaluating the impact on future years but does not expect a material impact to the consolidated financial statements.

The Company operates in countries that have enacted, or have committed to enact, a minimum tax in accordance with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Pillar Two framework. The Pillar Two legislation was effective for the Company starting fiscal year 2025 but did not have a material impact. The Company will continue to monitor for additional guidance but does not expect a material impact to the consolidated financial statements for future years.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

We have funded our operations with our cash balances and cash generated from operations.

Cash and cash equivalents, short-term investments and long-term investments totaled $1,360.0 million as of September 30, 2025, compared to $1,083.2 million as of September 30, 2024, representing an increase of $276.8 million. The increase was primarily due to cash provided by operating activities of $949.7 million for fiscal 2025, partially offset by cash used for the repurchase of outstanding common stock and the payment of related excise taxes of $502.1 million. In addition, $171.1 million of cash was used for the acquisition of businesses during fiscal 2025, and $43.3 million of cash was used for capital expenditures related to the expansion of our facilities to support our operations worldwide, as well as investments in technology, including cloud hosting and software licenses, and equipment purchases to support our core business activities. As of September 30, 2025, 64.0% of our cash and cash equivalents and investment balances were outside of the U.S. The cash and cash equivalents and investment balances outside of the U.S. are subject to fluctuation based on the settlement of intercompany balances.

Cash provided by operating activities during fiscal year 2025 was $949.7 million compared to $792.4 million in fiscal year 2024. Cash provided by operating activities resulted primarily from cash generated from net income, after adjusting for non-cash charges such as stock-based compensation, depreciation and amortization charges and changes in operating assets and liabilities. Cash provided by operating activities for fiscal year 2025 increased from the prior year primarily due to growth of our business as reflected by increases in collections during fiscal 2025, partially offset by higher cash expenditure to support our business growth.

Cash from operations could be affected by various risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to the risks detailed in Part I, Item 1A titled "Risk Factors." However, we anticipate our current cash, cash equivalents and investment balances and anticipated cash flows generated from operations will be sufficient to meet our liquidity needs.

Cash used in investing activities during fiscal year 2025 was $219.5 million compared to cash used in investing activities of $59.2 million in fiscal year 2024. Investing activities include purchases, sales and maturities of available-for-sale securities, business acquisitions and capital expenditures. Cash used in investing activities for fiscal year 2025 was primarily the result of $171.1 million in cash paid for acquisitions and $43.3 million in capital expenditures related to maintaining our operations worldwide. Cash used in investing activities for fiscal year 2024 was primarily the result of $32.9 million in cash paid for acquisitions and $30.4 million in capital expenditures related to maintaining our operations worldwide, partially offset by $6.2 million in maturities of investments.

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Cash used in financing activities was $464.8 million for fiscal year 2025, compared to cash used in financing activities of $457.0 million for fiscal year 2024. Cash used in financing activities for fiscal year 2025 included $502.1 million of cash used for the repurchase of outstanding common stock and the payment of related excise taxes, as well as $21.9 million in cash used for taxes related to the net share settlement of equity awards. Cash used in financing activities was partially offset by cash received from the exercise of employee stock options and stock purchases under our employee stock purchase plan of $59.2 million. Cash used in financing activities for fiscal year 2024 included $500.6 million of cash used for the repurchase of outstanding common stock and the payment of related excise taxes, as well as $11.5 million in cash used for taxes related to the net share settlement of equity awards. Cash used in financing activities was partially offset by cash received from the exercise of employee stock options and stock purchases under our employee stock purchase plan of $55.1 million.

On January 31, 2020, we entered into a Revolving Credit Agreement (the "Revolving Credit Agreement") that provides for a senior unsecured revolving credit facility in an aggregate principal amount of $350.0 million (the "Revolving Credit Facility"). On January 31, 2025, the Revolving Credit Facility expired. At the time of expiration, there were no outstanding borrowings under the Revolving Credit Facility.

Based on our current operating and capital expenditure forecasts, we believe that our existing cash and investment balances, together with cash generated from operations should be sufficient to meet our operating requirements for the next twelve months. Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including our rate of revenue growth, the expansion of our sales and marketing activities, the timing and extent of expansion into new territories, the timing of introductions of new products and enhancements of existing products, the continuing market acceptance of our products, cash paid for future strategic initiatives such as our share repurchase program and acquisitions, and macroeconomic events or conditions.

Obligations and Commitments

As of September 30, 2025, we had approximately $99.3 million of tax liabilities, including interest and penalties, related to uncertain tax positions (See Note 8 to our Consolidated Financial Statements). Because of the high degree of uncertainty regarding the settlement of these liabilities, we are unable to estimate the years in which future cash outflows may occur.

As of September 30, 2025, our principal commitments consisted of obligations outstanding under operating leases and purchase obligations with one of our component suppliers.

In October 2022, we entered into an unconditional purchase commitment with one of our suppliers for the delivery of systems components. Under the terms of the agreement, we are obligated to purchase $10 million of component inventory annually, with a total committed amount of $40 million over a four-year term. As of September 30, 2025, we had no remaining purchase commitments under the third year of the agreement. Our total non-cancelable long-term purchase commitments outstanding as of September 30, 2025 was $10.0 million.

We have a contractual obligation to purchase inventory components procured by our primary contract manufacturer in accordance with our annual build forecast. The contractual terms of the obligation contain cancellation provisions, which reduce our liability to purchase inventory components for periods greater than one year. In order to support our build forecast, we will, from time-to-time prepay our primary contract manufacturer for inventory purchases.

Recently Issued Accounting Pronouncements

Refer to "Recently Issued Accounting Pronouncements" in Note 1. Summary of Significant Accounting Policies in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for a description of recent accounting pronouncements and our expectation of their impact, if any, on our results of operations and financial condition.

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Interest Rate Risk. Our current cash and cash equivalents consist of money market funds as allowed and specified in our investment policy guidelines. Due to the current nature of our investment portfolio, we do not believe an immediate 10% increase or decrease in interest rates would have a material effect on the fair market value of our portfolio. Therefore, we do not expect our operating results or cash flows to be materially affected by a sudden change in interest rates.

Inflation Risk. We are actively monitoring the macroeconomic inflationary environment, including the impact from changes in foreign trade policies, tariffs, and other duties, but we do not believe that inflation has had a material effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. If our costs were to become subject to significant inflationary pressures, we may not be able to fully offset such higher costs through price increases. Our inability or failure to do so could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. If the inflationary environment constrains our customers’ ability to procure goods and services from us, we may see customers reprioritize these investment decisions. These macroeconomic conditions could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Foreign Currency Risk. The majority of our sales, cost of net revenues, and operating expenses are denominated in U.S. dollars ("USD"). While we conduct transactions in foreign currencies and expect to continue to do so, to date we have not, and do not anticipate that related foreign currency transaction gains or losses will be significant at our current level of operations. However, as we operate in and continue to expand our operations internationally, fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates relative to the USD, could impact our foreign currency-denominated costs and may result in operating margin volatility. To date, such fluctuations have not had a material impact on our financial results.

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F5, INC.

INDEX TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

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Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm

To the Board of Directors and Shareholders of F5, Inc.

Opinions on the Financial Statements and Internal Control over Financial Reporting

We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of F5, Inc. and its subsidiaries (the "Company") as of September 30, 2025 and 2024, and the related consolidated statements of income, of comprehensive income, of shareholders' equity and of cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended September 30, 2025, including the related notes (collectively referred to as the "consolidated financial statements"). We also have audited the Company's internal control over financial reporting as of September 30, 2025, based on criteria established in Internal Control - Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO).

In our opinion, the consolidated financial statements referred to above present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company as of September 30, 2025 and 2024, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended September 30, 2025 in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. Also in our opinion, the Company maintained, in all material respects, effective internal control over financial reporting as of September 30, 2025, based on criteria established in Internal Control - Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the COSO.

Basis for Opinions

The Company's management is responsible for these consolidated financial statements, for maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting, and for its assessment of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, included in Management’s Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting appearing under Item 9A. Our responsibility is to express opinions on the Company’s consolidated financial statements and on the Company's internal control over financial reporting based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm registered with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB) and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.

We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audits to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the consolidated financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud, and whether effective internal control over financial reporting was maintained in all material respects.

Our audits of the consolidated financial statements included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the consolidated financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the consolidated financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the consolidated financial statements. Our audit of internal control over financial reporting included obtaining an understanding of internal control over financial reporting, assessing the risk that a material weakness exists, and testing and evaluating the design and operating effectiveness of internal control based on the assessed risk. Our audits also included performing such other procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinions.

Definition and Limitations of Internal Control over Financial Reporting

A company’s internal control over financial reporting is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A company’s internal control over financial reporting includes those policies and procedures that (i) pertain to the maintenance of records that, in reasonable detail, accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of the company; (ii) provide reasonable assurance that transactions are recorded as necessary to permit preparation of financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, and that receipts and expenditures of the company are being made only in accordance with authorizations of management and directors of the company; and (iii) provide reasonable assurance regarding prevention or timely detection of unauthorized acquisition, use, or disposition of the company’s assets that could have a material effect on the financial statements.

Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.

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Critical Audit Matters

The critical audit matter communicated below is a matter arising from the current period audit of the consolidated financial statements that was communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that (i) relates to accounts or disclosures that are material to the consolidated financial statements and (ii) involved our especially challenging, subjective, or complex judgments. The communication of critical audit matters does not alter in any way our opinion on the consolidated financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit matter below, providing a separate opinion on the critical audit matter or on the accounts or disclosures to which it relates.

Revenue Recognition for Certain Products and Services

As described in Note 1 to the consolidated financial statements, the Company sells hardware and perpetual software products and offers several products by subscription, either through term-based license agreements or as SaaS offerings. Evidence of a contract generally consists of a purchase order issued pursuant to the terms and conditions of a distributor, reseller or end

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None.

Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

The Company maintains disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act")) that are designed to ensure that required information is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the required timeframe, as specified in the rules set forth by the Securities Exchange Commission. Our disclosure controls and procedures are also designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed is accumulated and communicated to management, including the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosures.

Our management, with the participation of our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, evaluated the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures as of September 30, 2025 and, based on this evaluation, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer have concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective as of September 30, 2025.

Management’s Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting

Management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting, as such term is defined in Exchange Act Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f). Internal control over financial reporting is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.

Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate. Management conducted an assessment of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of September 30, 2025. In making this assessment, management used the criteria set forth by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission in Internal Control — Integrated Framework (2013). Based on the results of this assessment and on those criteria, management concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was effective as of September 30, 2025.

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The effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting as of September 30, 2025, has been audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, an independent registered public accounting firm, as stated in their report which appears herein.

Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting

During the fourth fiscal quarter, there were no changes to our internal control over financial reporting that materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

Rule 10b5-1 and Non-Rule 10b5-1 Trading Arrangements

During the fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2025, no officers or directors adopted or terminated a "Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement" or a "non-Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement".

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PART III

Certain information required by this item regarding the Company’s directors and executive officers is incorporated herein by reference to the sections entitled: "Board of Directors — Nominees and Continuing Directors" and "— Director Nomination;" and "Corporate Governance — Governance — Committees of the Board — Audit Committee," "— Insider and Derivatives Trading and Hedging Policies and Arrangements" and "— Code of Ethics for Senior Financial Officers" in the Company’s definitive Proxy Statement that is expected to be furnished to the SEC no later than January 28, 2026 (the "Proxy Statement"). Additional information regarding the Company’s executive officers is set forth in Item 1 of Part I of this Annual Report on Form 10-K under the caption "Business — Executive Officers of the Registrant."

The information required by this item is incorporated by reference to the sections entitled "Executive Compensation" and "Corporate Governance — Governance — Committees of the Board — Talent and Compensation Committee" and "— Compensation Committee Interlocks and Insider Participation" and "Executive Compensation — Compensation Committee Report" in the Proxy Statement.

The information required by this item is incorporated by reference to the section entitled "Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management" in the Proxy Statement.

The information required by this item is incorporated by reference to the sections entitled "Board of Directors — Director Independence" and "Corporate Governance — Related Person Transactions Policy and Procedures" and "— Certain Relationships and Related Person Transactions" in the Proxy Statement.

The information required by this item is incorporated by reference to the section entitled "Audit Committee Report and Auditor Information — Fees Paid to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP," "— Audit Committee Pre-Approval Procedures" and "— Annual Independence Determination" in the Proxy Statement.

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PART IV

(a)Documents filed as part of this report are as follows:

1.Consolidated Financial Statements:

Our Consolidated Financial Statements are listed in the Index to Consolidated Financial Statements.

2.Financial Statement Schedule:

Financial statement schedules have been omitted because the information required to be set forth therein is not applicable, material, or is shown in the Consolidated Financial Statements or the notes hereto.

3.Exhibits:

The required exhibits are included at the end of this Annual Report on Form 10-K and are described in the Exhibit Index immediately preceding the first exhibit.

Not applicable.

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EXHIBIT INDEX

• Filed herewith.

§ Indicates a management contract or compensatory plan or arrangement.

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(1)Incorporated by reference from Current Report on Form 8-K dated November 12, 2021 and filed with the SEC on November 15, 2021.

(2)Incorporated by reference from Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 30, 2022.

(3)Incorporated by reference from Exhibit 4.1 of Registration Statement on Form S-1, File No. 333-75817.

(4)Incorporated by reference from Exhibit 10.1 of Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 30, 2023.

(5)Incorporated by reference from Current Report on Form 8-K dated May 3, 2017 and filed with the SEC on May 3, 2017.

(6)Incorporated by reference from Exhibit 10.1 of Registration Statement on Form S-1, File No. 333-75817.

(7)Incorporated by reference from Current Report on Form 8-K dated March 9, 2023 and filed with the SEC on March 10, 2023.

(8)Incorporated by reference from Current Report on Form 8-K dated April 29, 2009 and filed with the SEC on May 4, 2009.

(9)Incorporated by reference from Registration Statement on Form S-8 File No. 333-231802.

(10)Incorporated by reference from Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2019.

(11)Incorporated by reference from Registration Statement on Form S-8 File No. 333-236228.

(12)Incorporated by reference from Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 30, 2020.

(13)Incorporated by reference from Registration Statement on Form S-8 File No. 333-252616.

(14)Incorporated by reference from Registration Statement on Form S-8 File No. 333-260656.

(15)Incorporated by reference from Current Report on Form 8-K dated January 27, 2017 and filed with the SEC on January 30, 2017.

(16)Incorporated by reference from Registration Statement on Form S-8 File No. 333-269532.

(17)Incorporated by reference from Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 30, 2024.

Table of Contents

SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized.

Dated: November 25, 2025

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, this report has been signed below by the following persons on behalf of the Registrant and in the capacities and on the dates indicated.