Disney Reveals Highest Earning International Theme Park With $500 Million Profit Payout

Shanghai Disneyland has been revealed as Disney's highest-earning international theme park, paying out over $500 million in profits since its opening a decade ago. This surpasses Disneyland Paris, which generates more revenue but yields less profit for the parent company. The park's success is attributed to its "authentically Disney, distinctly Chinese" ethos, with attractions and food tailored to the local market. It recently welcomed its 100 millionth guest, and attendance rose 5% to 14.7 million in 2024, making it the world's fifth most-visited park. A significant boost came from the new *Zootopia* land, capitalizing on the film's immense popularity in China. Disney, holding a 43% stake, receives substantial dividends, revealed through UK financial filings.

Disney has revealed that the total profit payout it receives from one of its theme parks outside the United States passed the $500 million mark last year making it the studio's highest-earning international outpost based on its share of the bottom line.

Surprisingly, the accolade doesn't go to Disneyland Paris even though it generates more revenue than any other Disney park outside the U.S. Instead, Shanghai Disneyland takes the crown of paying more of its profit to its parent than any other international Disney park with the total coming to an eye-watering $516.2 million since the doors to the resort swung open a decade ago.

The sprawling site on the eastern edge of Shanghai encompasses two hotels, a lake, an entertainment district and a fairytale-themed park which Disney's former chief executive Bob Iger famously described as being "authentically Disney, distinctly Chinese." There is good reason for this. Instead of creating a carbon-copy of Disney's American theme parks, its designers, who are known as Imagineers due to their imaginative use of engineering, tailored the Shanghai site to the local market. Everything was customized, from the park's layout and attraction lineup right down to its wide range of Chinese food.

It has cast a powerful spell as Shanghai Disney welcomed its 100 millionth guest in November last year and it isn't stopping there. At an event marking its tenth anniversary last month the resort announced that it is building a third on-site hotel, called the Disney Enchanted Star, with a fourth property also under development to cater for the surging demand.

According to the latest data from the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA), attendance at Shanghai Disneyland rose 5% to 14.7 million in 2024 driven by the opening of a new land themed to the Oscar-winning computer animated movie Zootopia. This made it the world's fifth most-visited theme park but the magic touch it has on Disney's bottom line has remained a closely-guarded secret. Until now.

Disney doesn't list the results of individual parks in its filings in the United States and China's companies register isn't public. However, recent filings for an obscurely-named company in the United Kingdom have lifted the curtain on the fortunes of Shanghai Disneyland.

Unlike Disney's theme parks in the United States, the resort is a public-private partnership between the media giant and China's state-owned Shanghai Shendi Group.

Disney only has a 43% stake in the company which owns the resort itself with the remainder in Shendi's hands. In contrast, Shendi is a minority shareholder in the resort's management company which is controlled by Disney through its 70% stake. In return, Disney receives royalties as well as a management fee based on the operating performance of the resort.

Disney’s shares in the resort and the management company are held by a wholly-owned subsidiary called WD Holdings (Shanghai) in Burbank, California. It pays dividends from its profits to the Disney companies which directly own it. Precisely 47% of WD Holdings is owned by The Walt Disney Company Limited in London which files publicly-available financial statements. Its latest set of filings were released recently and show that its dividends from WD Holdings began in 2019 and peaked at $57.7 million (£43.1 million) last year as I recently revealed in the Daily Mail.

This only represents 47% of the dividend so the full amount for 2025 is $122.7 million (£91.7 million) as the chart below shows. The dividend hit its lowest level in 2021 when it crashed by 60.3% to $25.9 million (£18.9 million) the midst of the pandemic. It has surged since then, thanks partly to the opening in December 2023 of the new Zootopia land. Is the first and only theme park area based on the film which was a huge hit in China.

A massive 23.1% of Zootopia's $1 billion box office was generated in China while a sequel last year did even better. It hauled in $630 million from China making it the highest-grossing Hollywood film in Chinese history. The theme park land capitalizes on this.

Home to a cutting-edge roving simulator ride, it is filled with brightly-colored buildings which have robotic replicas of the characters from the film peering out of their windows. Disney put more than 260 Zootopia products on sale in the park and created themed food for its restaurants. More than 532 tons of its pink paw-shaped pawpsicles alone have been sold. It has given a glow to Disney's bottom line.

Three of its four international parks either don’t pay a dividend or only pay small sums. Disney doesn’t own its resort in Tokyo, which is run by specialist leisure operator Oriental Land Company (OLC). In return for licensing its intellectual property, OLC pays Disney royalties but not a a share of its profits. Disneyland Paris pays both but the only time it has paid out a share of its profits was in 1993 when its dividend yielded just $10.2 million (FF56.6 million) for Disney as I recently reported in The Guardian.

Likewise, Hong Kong has one of the smallest Disney parks and in 2024, following the opening of a land themed to the Oscar-winning film Frozen it made its highest-ever profit of $107.8 million (HK$838 million) which is lower than the dividend its counterpart in Shanghai paid out last year.

Shanghai's total profit payout of $516.2 million (£392.8 million) is the highest of any of Disney's international parks and doesn't even include any royalties as they are paid directly to one of its U.S. subsidiaries so they aren't shown on the U.K. filings. The total dividend for last year will actually be even higher than the amount reported in the financial statements as Disney shuffled its Shanghai shares into yet another subsidiary mid-way through 2025 and the filings for this entity are confidential.

Disney’s theme parks produced 57% of its $17.6 billion operating income and nearly 40% of its $94.4 billion revenue in 2025 which explains why the company is doubling down on them. It has earmarked $60 billion for investment in its theme park division by 2033 with a new Spider-Man themed roller coaster coming to Shanghai and a second park widely expected to get the green light as this report explained.

Nevertheless, in line with its ownership stake, it is understood that Disney covered around 43% of the estimated $5.5 billion construction cost of its resort in Shanghai so despite banking a string of blockbuster dividends from it, the studio is still waiting for its happy ending.