The short answer to who owns Lexus: Toyota Motor Corporation, outright. There’s no separate Lexus company with its own shareholders. Lexus is Toyota’s luxury brand, run worldwide by Toyota’s Lexus International unit and sold in the US by what Lexus.com calls “a Division of Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.,” a wholly owned Toyota subsidiary.
The more useful follow-ups are who owns Toyota, how much of a Lexus is really a Toyota, and where it’s built.
How the Lexus ownership chain works
1,272,096 holders of record (March 31, 2026)
Listed in Tokyo, Nagoya, New York and London
Toyota’s Japan-based unit that runs the brand globally
Its Lexus Division sells the cars in the US, from Plano, Texas
Sell and service the cars
How ownership flows from Toyota’s investors to a Lexus showroom (Toyota investor relations, Lexus.com; October 2026).
Lexus has been Toyota’s from day one. Chairman Eiji Toyoda started the secret Flagship One project in 1983, and the LS 400 it produced went on sale in September 1989, per the Lexus pressroom.
By volume, Lexus is a small slice of Toyota: 882,231 of the 10,536,807 Toyota- and Lexus-badged vehicles sold in 2025, or about 8.4% by our math (Toyota sales releases, January 2026).
Who owns Lexus and Toyota, then?
Toyota is publicly traded, so its investors sit at the top of the chain. As of March 31, 2026, no holder had more than about 13%, based on Toyota’s stock overview page.
| Top 10 shareholders (March 31, 2026) | Shares (millions) | Stake | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Master Trust Bank of Japan | 1,668 | 12.8% | Trust bank, holds for clients |
| Toyota Industries | 1,192 | 9.1% | Group founding company; sold back May 2026 |
| Custody Bank of Japan | 795 | 6.1% | Custody bank, holds for clients |
| Nippon Life Insurance | 633 | 4.9% | Life insurer |
| State Street Bank and Trust | 602 | 4.6% | Custodian |
| JPMorgan Chase Bank | 538 | 4.1% | Custodian |
| Denso | 450 | 3.4% | Group parts maker |
| Bank of New York Mellon | 355 | 2.7% | Holds shares behind US-traded ADRs |
| Toyota Fudosan | 250 | 1.9% | Group real estate firm |
| Aisin | 173 | 1.3% | Group parts maker |
Share counts from Toyota. Stakes are our calculation, excluding treasury stock as Toyota does.
The custody banks hold shares for pension funds, index funds and other clients, so they aren’t owners in the everyday sense.
The bigger story is Toyota Industries. Toyota Motor, Akio Toyoda and group firm Toyota Fudosan won a take-private tender offer for it in March 2026 (Jiji Press), and Toyota Industries then sold its Toyota shares back. Toyota says that holding fell to about 1.24 million shares on May 25, 2026.
Our math: Toyota Industries went from 9.1% of voting stock to roughly 0.01%. With fewer shares outstanding after the buyback, Master Trust Bank’s slice would be about 14% if its holding stayed flat, so treat that as an estimate.
My take: the Toyoda family’s pull comes from leadership and group cross-holdings, not a controlling stake.
Is a Lexus basically a Toyota?
Under the skin, often yes. Lexus models share platforms, engines and factories with Toyotas, then get their own design, extra inspection steps and a separate dealer network.
- The GX shares its GA-F body-on-frame platform with the LX (Lexus 2026 GX release) and with Toyota’s Land Cruiser.
- The TX is built alongside the Grand Highlander at Toyota Indiana, with added checks Toyota calls the Lexus Differential Process (Toyota, November 2023).
Apple’s core values show the same premium-brand logic outside cars.
Does a Lexus have a Toyota engine?
Yes, because Lexus is a Toyota division. The GX and LX use the same 3.4-liter twin-turbo V6 as the Toyota Tundra, and a November 2025 recall of about 127,000 vehicles for machining debris in that engine covered all three (Toyota; NHTSA campaign 25V-767).
Where Lexus pulls ahead is dependability. In J.D. Power’s 2026 Vehicle Dependability Study (February 2026), Lexus logged 151 problems per 100 three-year-old vehicles, best of any brand, against 185 for Toyota and an industry average of 204.
Is a Lexus better than a BMW?
On reliability data, Lexus wins: it led premium brands for a fourth straight year, ahead of Cadillac (175) and Porsche (182), against a premium average of 217 (J.D. Power). BMW wasn’t in the top three. If handling matters more, BMW still earns a test drive.
Where are Lexus cars made?
Some pages still say the ES is built in Georgetown, Kentucky. Not anymore. Reuters reported in September 2025 that ES production was moving back to Japan, and Toyota marked the last Kentucky-built ES on February 5, 2026.
| Plant | Lexus models (North America) | Toyota models on site | Building Lexus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Princeton, Indiana | TX | Grand Highlander | Since 2023 |
| Cambridge, Ontario | RX, NX | RAV4 | RX 2003, NX 2022 |
| Japan | ES and the rest of the lineup | Varies by plant | Since 1989 |
| Georgetown, Kentucky (former) | ES | Camry, RAV4 Hybrid | Oct 2015 to Feb 2026 |
Sources: Toyota Indiana (November 2023), Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, Reuters (September 2025), Toyota Kentucky (October 2015), Toyota Kentucky via Toyota North America (February 5, 2026).
So a US-built Lexus today means the TX. To check any specific car, read the VIN’s first character: 1, 4 or 5 for the US, 2 for Canada, J for Japan.
Who owns Acura, Infiniti and Century?
Honda owns Acura, which opened with 60 US dealers on March 27, 1986, as the first Japanese luxury brand in America (Acura’s own timeline). Nissan owns Infiniti, launched November 8, 1989 (Infiniti). Lexus has never belonged to either.
Toyota has also added a rung above Lexus. In October 2025 it said Century would become a standalone ultra-luxury brand (Yomiuri Shimbun), and Akio Toyoda unveiled it at that month’s Japan Mobility Show. Our NescafΓ© marketing strategy breakdown shows a similar brand-ladder play.
Buy a Lexus, and the money flows to Toyota, which answers to a wide base of investors rather than any one owner.
FAQ
Can you buy Lexus stock?
No. Lexus has no stock of its own because it’s a Toyota brand, not a separate company. Investors who want exposure to Lexus buy Toyota Motor Corporation shares, which trade in Tokyo under code 7203, or Toyota’s American depositary receipts on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker TM.
Did Lexus have a different owner in 2022?
No. Toyota has owned Lexus since the brand launched in 1989, and nothing about that changed in 2022. What has changed since then is Toyota’s own shareholder base, after Toyota Industries sold nearly all of its roughly 9% Toyota stake back to the company in May 2026.