Caterpillar is headquartered in Texas, trades on the NYSE, and has built construction and mining equipment in America since 1925.
Is Caterpillar an American Company?
Yes. Caterpillar Inc is an American company, incorporated and headquartered in the United States, publicly traded on a US stock exchange, and rooted in nearly a century of domestic industrial history. It's also one of the most recognizable names in heavy machinery anywhere in the world.
Headquarters in Irving, Texas
Caterpillar's corporate headquarters sits in Irving, Texas. That address anchors the company's leadership and operations firmly on American soil, even as its business reaches customers across the globe.
A Century of American Roots
The company traces its founding back to 1925, making it nearly a hundred years old. That kind of longevity is rare in heavy industry, and it places Caterpillar among the long-running institutions of American manufacturing.
Public Since the Roaring Twenties
Caterpillar went public with an IPO in December 1929 — timing that puts its Wall Street debut right at one of the most turbulent moments in American financial history. It has remained a publicly traded company ever since.
Trading on the New York Stock Exchange
Today, shares of Caterpillar trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CAT. A US stock listing alone doesn't make a company American, but combined with its Texas headquarters and incorporation, it's another clear marker of its domestic footing. The company's market capitalization stands at $416.5 billion.
What Caterpillar Actually Builds
Caterpillar describes itself as the world's leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, off-highway diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines, and diesel-electric locomotives. That's a sprawling product lineup, but it's held together by a single theme: heavy machines that move earth, power industry, and haul freight.
Four Business Segments
The company organizes its business into four reporting segments: construction, resource, energy, and transportation. Across many of its products, Caterpillar's market share approaches 20%, a sign of how deeply embedded its equipment is in industries that build and power the physical world.
Financing the Machines It Sells
Caterpillar also operates a captive finance subsidiary, which helps customers afford the large capital purchases its equipment often requires. It's a common structure in heavy-equipment manufacturing, letting the company support sales alongside the machines themselves.
A Global Business, Balanced at Home
Caterpillar's reach is described as roughly evenly balanced between the United States and the rest of the world. Its construction segment skews more domestic, while the resource, energy, and transportation divisions are more geographically diversified. In other words, Caterpillar builds for American customers and international ones in comparable measure, but its base of operations remains American.
The Scale of the Business Today
Caterpillar employs approximately 118,000 people. For its 2025 fiscal year, the company reported revenue of $67.6 billion and net income of $2.7 billion, with total assets of $98.6 billion. Those figures reflect a company operating at industrial scale, supported by a workforce spread across its many product lines.
The Bottom Line
Between its Texas headquarters, its New York Stock Exchange listing, its 1925 founding, and its long public history dating to 1929, Caterpillar checks every box for what most people mean when they ask if a company is American. It is also listed in the americancompanies.com directory of US-based companies, alongside other firms that call the United States home.
