Companies Owned by AT&T (2026)

Is AT&T a Delaware company, and why does that matter here?

AT&T Inc., the publicly traded parent at the top of the AT&T group, is a holding company incorporated in Delaware in 1983, with its principal executive offices in Dallas, Texas. The legal entity has a longer history than the brand suggests: it was originally chartered as Southwestern Bell Corporation, became SBC Communications, and took the AT&T name in 2005 after acquiring the old AT&T Corp. Through every one of those renamings, the company stayed a Delaware corporation. That split — incorporated in Delaware, headquartered somewhere else — is the single most important fact for understanding how AT&T owns anything. The parent itself does not run cell towers or sell phone plans. It holds the equity of the subsidiaries that do.

This is the standard shape of nearly every large US public company, and it is the reason Delaware sits at the center of American corporate law. A Delaware parent can own a deep stack of subsidiaries cleanly, with a predictable legal framework and the specialized Court of Chancery to resolve ownership and governance questions. Understanding AT&T as a Delaware holding company — rather than as one monolithic business — is what makes the rest of this page make sense, and it is the same structural idea behind a single-owner Delaware LLC.

Throughout this article we only name brands and entities that public records and AT&T's own filings show it currently owns. Where a well-known brand is commonly but wrongly attributed to AT&T, we say so explicitly rather than padding the list. Corporate ownership changes frequently through sales and spin-offs, so treat specific dates as approximate and verify the current structure against AT&T's latest SEC filings before relying on it. AT&T publishes a yearly list of its principal subsidiaries as Exhibit 21 to its annual report, and that exhibit is the authoritative source whenever a list like this one goes stale.

What companies does AT&T actually own in 2026?

AT&T's owned portfolio today is much narrower than it was during its short-lived media era, and that is the headline. After unwinding its entertainment acquisitions, AT&T refocused on connectivity. Its core wholly owned operating subsidiaries are wireless and communications businesses, not media brands.

• AT&T Mobility LLC— the wholly owned subsidiary that provides US wireless service. It descends from Cingular Wireless and became 100% AT&T-owned after AT&T acquired BellSouth's stake. It is the operating heart of the company, serving the large majority of AT&T's wireless subscriber base.
• Cricket Wireless LLC— AT&T's prepaid wireless brand, acquired through the purchase of Leap Wireless International in 2014. It runs on AT&T's network but keeps a distinct brand identity, a textbook example of one parent owning multiple market brands.
• AT&T Corp.— the legacy long-distance entity, the historical “Ma Bell” corporate descendant that AT&T Inc. acquired in 2005 and continues to hold within its structure.
• AT&T Communications— the umbrella under which AT&T's mobility, broadband, and business-connectivity operations sit, rather than a single consumer-facing brand.
• AT&T Mexico — its Mexican wireless operation, built from the Iusacell and Nextel Mexico carriers AT&T acquired in 2014-2015. Note that AT&T has reportedly been in talks to sell this unit, so its ownership status may change; as of the latest reporting it remained an AT&T business.

The pattern across all of these is the one a founder should notice: each is a separate legal entity, often a Delaware LLC, sitting under the Delaware parent. The parent owns them; their liabilities and contracts live inside each entity. That containment is the whole point of a holding structure, and it is achievable with a single Delaware LLC formation if you are running one business rather than dozens.

Notice, too, how AT&T uses brand names that differ from its legal entity names. Cricket is marketed as Cricket, not as “AT&T Mobility prepaid,” even though it is owned through the AT&T stack and runs on AT&T's network. A single founder can do the same thing at small scale: one Delaware LLC can operate under a trade name or a product brand that is different from the LLC's registered name, so long as the underlying entity is the one signing contracts and holding the bank account. The brand is the marketing face; the LLC is the legal owner. Keeping that distinction clear is part of what preserves the liability protection the entity exists to provide, and it is a habit worth building from day one rather than retrofitting later.

One more thing worth stating plainly: this list is deliberately short and conservative. AT&T files extensive subsidiary schedules with the SEC, and many of those entries are internal financing or regional holding vehicles with no public-facing brand, named things like regional communications or digital-services entities. We have not padded this article with every internal shell, because the useful takeaway is the structure — a Delaware parent owning operating businesses — not an exhaustive roll-call of legal entities. If you need the complete current schedule, AT&T's most recent Exhibit 21 is the authoritative source, and it changes from year to year as the company buys, sells, and reorganizes.

Which brands are wrongly assumed to be owned by AT&T but are NOT?

This is the section most ownership lists get wrong, so it earns its own place. Because AT&T spent four years owning a media empire and a decade owning a satellite-TV business, the internet is full of outdated “companies owned by AT&T” lists. Several huge brands routinely appear on them that AT&T no longer owns — or never owned in the ownership sense at all. Getting this right matters, because a list that includes divested assets is simply wrong.

The honest version of an AT&T ownership map in 2026 is a connectivity company, not a media-and-satellite conglomerate. WarnerMedia — HBO, CNN, Warner Bros., and the Turner networks — left in 2022 when AT&T merged it with Discovery to create Warner Bros. Discovery, a separate public company. DirecTV left in stages: AT&T sold a majority stake to TPG in 2021 and its remaining 70% interest in a deal that closed in mid-2025, so DirecTV is now a TPG company. FirstNet is a different kind of confusion entirely — it is owned by the First Responder Network Authority, a US federal entity, and AT&T simply operates it under a 25-year contract awarded in 2017.

That precision is the real lesson. “Owned” has a specific legal meaning — equity ownership of an entity — that is distinct from operating something under a contract, holding a minority stake, or licensing a brand. The same precision applies when you set up your own company: your Delaware LLC owns what its operating agreement and its contracts say it owns, and nothing more. Clarity about what an entity does and does not own is not a detail for lawyers alone; it is what keeps a structure honest, whether the entity is a telecom giant or a one-person business.

How does a Delaware holding-company structure actually work?

A holding company is an entity whose main purpose is to own other entities. At the top sits the Delaware parent — for AT&T, that is AT&T Inc. Below it sit operating subsidiaries, each its own legal entity with its own assets, contracts, employees, and liabilities. The parent owns the membership interests or shares of each subsidiary, and that ownership of equity is what makes the subsidiaries “owned” in the legal sense.

The benefit of this design is separation. If one subsidiary faces a lawsuit or a debt, that exposure is generally contained within that entity rather than spreading across the whole group, provided each entity is kept genuinely distinct. Delaware is the preferred home for the parent because its corporate-law framework is predictable, its Court of Chancery is expert in business disputes, and its body of precedent makes financing, governance, and eventual sales cleaner. That is why a company can be headquartered in Texas, like AT&T, while incorporating in Delaware.

A solo founder does not need a multi-tier structure to use the same core idea. A single Delaware LLC already provides the central benefit — a wall between the business and the owner's personal assets — at a scale that fits one product or one service. If your business genuinely grows into multiple ventures, you can later add separate LLCs or convert to a Delaware C-Corpfor outside investment. Most founders start with one entity and expand only on signal, which is exactly how AT&T's own structure grew over decades of acquisitions.

It also helps to understand what a holding structure does not magically do. Owning a subsidiary through a parent does not erase the subsidiary's obligations, and the separation only holds if each entity is respected as genuinely distinct — separate books, separate bank accounts, and decisions documented at the right level. Courts can, in rare cases of abuse, look through a thinly run entity, which is why even a one-person LLC should keep clean records and an operating agreement that sets out how the business is owned and run. The discipline that keeps AT&T's subsidiaries legally distinct is the same discipline that keeps a solo founder's liability shield intact: treat the company as a real, separate thing, because legally that is exactly what it is.

Why does AT&T incorporate in Delaware instead of Texas?

The reasons AT&T incorporates in Delaware are not exotic — they are the same reasons a one-person business benefits from a Delaware entity. The state has spent more than a century building a corporate-law system designed for clarity and speed, and that system scales both up to a telecom giant and down to a freelancer with a laptop. For a large holding company, Delaware's appeal is the Court of Chancery, the depth of case law, and the ease of managing many subsidiaries under one recognized framework. For a small founder, the appeal is recognition and simplicity: a Delaware LLC is widely understood by US banks, payment processors, and partners, and its ongoing compliance is light — a flat franchise tax and no annual report.

It is worth being concrete about what a holding company does and does not do day to day. AT&T Inc. does not, by itself, employ the engineers who maintain the wireless network or sign the contracts with handset makers — those relationships live inside AT&T Mobility and the other operating entities. The parent's job is to own, to raise capital across the group, and to set strategy, while each subsidiary carries its own commercial activity. That division is why a problem inside one subsidiary does not automatically become a problem for every other entity in the group.

For a founder, the same principle means a lawsuit aimed at the business is, in the ordinary case, aimed at the LLC and the assets inside it, not at your house or personal savings — provided you keep the entity genuinely separate from your personal finances. That separation is a habit, not just a filing: keep business money in the business account, sign contracts in the company's name, and avoid blurring the line between you and the entity. The legal machinery that makes Delaware attractive to AT&T is the same machinery working in your favor when you form a single LLC.

How does a founder form the same Delaware vehicle AT&T uses?

You will not be replicating AT&T's subsidiary stack, but you can use the same foundational entity: a Delaware company that owns your business and separates it from you personally. The path is the standard Delaware LLC formation process, routed so the EIN and banking steps work even for a founder with no US SSN or address.

• Day 0 — Name and structure. Confirm an available Delaware name and decide whether you are a single owner or have co-founders.
• Day 1-2 — Certificate of Formation. We file with the Delaware Division of Corporations, the state fee is included in our price, and your LLC legally exists in about 48 hours, with a registered agent included for year one.
• Weeks 1-4 — EIN. We file Form SS-4 with the IRS even without an SSN. For non-resident applicants this is the slowest step, taking 2 to 4 weeks. See our EIN for a Delaware LLC guide.
• After EIN — Banking and payments. With the EIN, apply for a US business account and Stripe; each provider makes its own approval decision.

The full walkthrough lives on our how it works page. None of this requires you to travel to Delaware or the US — the entire process is handled remotely, the way most non-resident founders set up.

A realistic sense of timing helps set expectations. The formation itself is fast and rarely the bottleneck; Delaware accepts properly prepared filings routinely, and the Certificate of Formation is typically back in about 48 hours. The slow link in the chain for non-residents is the EIN, because the IRS processes SS-4 applications without an SSN by fax or mail rather than instantly online, which is why the realistic window is two to four weeks. Banking and Stripe come after the EIN, since providers need the federal tax number to open an account, and approval there is each provider's own decision rather than something we or you can guarantee. Sequencing matters: applying to a bank before the EIN is issued is one of the most common avoidable reasons an early application stalls, so we deliberately order the steps to avoid it.

What does it cost to run a Delaware entity, year one and after?

A holding-company stack like AT&T's carries substantial ongoing legal and franchise-tax cost across many entities. A single founder's Delaware LLC is dramatically simpler. Our service is a flat $397, all-inclusive, with the Delaware state filing fee already included — there is no separate state charge to add. That covers formation, the EIN application, a registered agent for year one, your operating agreement, and US bank and Stripe application support.

From year two, the only required Delaware cost for an LLC is the flat $300 franchise tax, due June 1, plus about $99 to renew your registered agent. Miss the June 1 deadline and Delaware adds a $200 penaltyplus 1.5% interest per month, and the LLC loses good standing — which is why we track the date for you. One important clarification: the “authorized shares” and “assumed par value” franchise-tax methods you may read about apply only to Delaware corporations, never to LLCs. An LLC simply pays the flat $300, with no share-based math and no annual report. See our Delaware franchise tax page and our Delaware LLC cost breakdown for the full picture. So while AT&T keeps tax teams working through corporate franchise-tax methods across many entities, your single LLC owes one predictable number each June.

What taxes and filings apply to a founder's Delaware LLC?

AT&T's tax position is its own complex matter; a single-owner Delaware LLC is far simpler, but it is not zero-obligation. By default a single-member Delaware LLC is a pass-through for US federal tax — the company itself does not pay income tax, and profit flows to the owner. Whether a non-resident owner owes US income tax is a fact-specific question that depends on whether the activity is a US trade or business and on any applicable tax treaty, so confirm your position with a CPA rather than relying on a general rule. Our Delaware LLC taxes overview covers the general shape.

The filing most non-resident owners must not miss is Form 5472. A foreign-owned (25% or more non-US) single-member Delaware LLC treated as a disregarded entity must file Form 5472 each year, attached to a pro forma Form 1120, reporting transactions between the owner and the LLC such as capital contributions. It is due April 15 and can be extended with Form 7004. The penalty for failing to file is $25,000 under IRC 6038A, so non-resident owners should treat it as mandatory. The detail is in our Form 5472 for Delaware LLCs guide, and the full non-resident path is on our Delaware LLC for non-residents page.

It is worth separating two things people often blur: the Delaware franchise tax and federal income tax. The franchise tax is a flat state fee a Delaware LLC pays to stay in good standing — $300 a year, due June 1, regardless of profit. Federal income tax is an entirely different question, handled with the IRS, and for a single-member LLC it generally flows to the owner rather than the entity. The two are not connected, and paying one does not satisfy the other. For a non-resident owner the practical checklist each year is short but firm: pay the $300 franchise tax on time, file Form 5472 with the pro forma 1120 if the LLC is foreign-owned, and work with a CPA on whether any US income tax is actually due. None of this is as heavy as a multinational's tax footprint, but it is real, and treating it casually is how otherwise-healthy LLCs slide out of good standing or into penalty territory.

How do banking and payments work for your Delaware LLC?

AT&T's subsidiaries bank through major institutions; a founder's LLC banks through US fintechs that open business accounts for non-residents online. Once your EIN is issued, you can apply to providers such as Mercury, Relay, or Wise without visiting the US. Approval is each provider's own decision — never guaranteed — and typically lands within 1 to 5 business days after the EIN is in hand, so your specialist helps you apply to more than one until you are live with at least one account. Our Delaware LLC banking guide covers the options in depth.

If you sell online, you will likely want Stripe as well. Stripe reviews each application independently and may approve or decline based on its own risk assessment, so we help you present a clear, consistent application — matching details across your formation documents, EIN letter, and business description — rather than promising any approval rate. On payouts, the current 1099-K reporting threshold is more than $20,000 and more than 200 transactions after the 2025 federal change, not the old lower figures that still circulate online. As with everything else, the goal is to set up the entity correctly so banks and processors see a clean, legitimate US business.

How does the AT&T structure compare to a founder's single LLC?

Putting the two side by side makes the relationship clear: the principle is identical, the scale is wildly different, and the founder version is intentionally simple. You are using the same Delaware building block AT&T uses, just one of it instead of a sprawling stack.

The takeaway is not that you should imitate AT&T's complexity — you should not. A holding company with many subsidiaries makes sense precisely when you have many separate businesses to keep apart, each with its own liabilities, contracts, and possible buyers. That is the situation a multinational lives in every day, and it is why Delaware subsidiaries stacked under a parent are worth the overhead for them. For a founder with one business, that same machinery is pure unnecessary cost — more filings, more annual franchise taxes, more bookkeeping, and no added protection you would actually use.

So start with one Delaware LLC. It gives you the recognized US identity, the liability separation, and the clean banking base that the giants get from their Delaware subsidiaries, without the apparatus they carry to manage hundreds of them. If you later raise outside money, investors typically prefer a Delaware C-Corp, and you can convert when the time comes. For most founders starting out, one Delaware LLC is the clean default — the same Delaware framework AT&T's subsidiaries rely on, available to you for a flat $397 with the state filing fee included.

Is a Delaware LLC reported under BOI / FinCEN rules?

Beneficial-ownership reporting under the Corporate Transparency Act has changed significantly and remains in flux. In March 2025, FinCEN issued an interim final rule that removed BOI reporting obligations for US domestic reporting companies. Under that rule, only certain foreign reporting companies registered to do business in the US must report, and US persons are generally exempt from providing their information.

Because this area is evolving and the rules may shift again, do not treat any summary as final. Before relying on your filing status, confirm the current FinCEN requirements at the source or with a professional. We monitor these changes and flag them to founders we work with, but the responsibility to file if required ultimately rests with the company owner. This is general information, not legal or tax advice — the same caution we apply to every ownership and compliance claim on this page.

Many of these companies chose Delaware for the same reasons founders do today — the Court of Chancery, flexible LLC statutes, and strong privacy protections. Form your Delaware LLC for $397, all-inclusive, in 48 hours. Form your Delaware LLC → | Read the complete Delaware LLC guide →