Who owns Kleenex?
Kleenex is owned by Kimberly-Clark (the United States, NASDAQ: KMB).[1]
Evidence: Kimberly-Clark Corporation Annual Report on Form 10-K filed 2026-02-12, SEC EDGAR, 12 February 2026. Verified from filings; last checked .
Key facts
- Current owner
- Kimberly-Clark Corporation verified
- Owner HQ
- 🇺🇸 United States, Irving, Texas
- Origin
- 🇺🇸 United States
- Founded
- 1924
- Category
- Personal care & beauty › Tissue & paper hygiene › Facial tissue & toilet paper
- Parent ticker
- NASDAQ: KMB
- Trademark registrant
- KIMBERLY-CLARK WORLDWIDE, INC. (USPTO)
- Last verified
- · 2 sources
About Kleenex
Kleenex launched in 1924 as a cold cream remover, made from cellucotton wadding developed as a wartime cotton substitute for bandages. Buyers began using it as a disposable handkerchief instead, and the company repositioned it accordingly, making it the tissue whose name is used generically in much of the English-speaking world.
How often Kimberly-Clark names Kleenex in its annual report
A plain count of the times the name appears in the text of each annual report, not counting the start of a sentence. A brand that an owner writes about more is usually one it treats as central. The brand is named less often than it was three years earlier.
Trademark record for Kleenex
The USPTO record for the Kleenex mark lists KIMBERLY-CLARK WORLDWIDE, INC. as the owner of record (serial number 86282010). That name matches the owner named above.[2]
Ownership timeline of Kleenex
- Current owner Kimberly-Clark [1] verified
Where Kleenex sits in Kimberly-Clark
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
Open the full Kimberly-Clark ownership tree →
See the full Kimberly-Clark brand portfolio (13) →
Other brands owned by Kimberly-Clark
Kimberly-Clark controls 13 brands on Brandtree, 13 of them in personal care & beauty.
Also in personal care & beauty
Other brands in facial tissue & toilet paper, and who owns them
The 34 brands in facial tissue & toilet paper on Brandtree belong to 14 owners. The largest is Sofidel, with 7; Kimberly-Clark has 6.
About the owner: Kimberly-Clark
Kimberly-Clark is a publicly listed company headquartered in Irving, Texas, United States, founded in 1872. Brandtree records 13 brands under its control, and it is listed as NASDAQ: KMB.
Kimberly-Clark started as a Wisconsin paper mill in 1872 and invented much of the modern disposable hygiene category, from cellucotton wadding to facial tissue. It agreed to acquire Kenvue in 2025 in what would be one of the largest consumer-health deals on record.
Kimberly-Clark: full profile, brands and acquisition history →
🇺🇸 Kleenex and other American brands
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 2,549 brands that began in the United States. 478 of them (19%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country; Kleenex is not one of them.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the parent company of Kleenex?
The parent company of Kleenex is Kimberly-Clark, a publicly listed company headquartered in the United States.
Is Kleenex American?
Yes. Kleenex originated in the United States in 1924 and its owner, Kimberly-Clark, is also headquartered in the United States.
Is Kleenex still owned by Kimberly-Clark?
Yes. As of 3 October 2026, Kleenex is still owned by Kimberly-Clark. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Sources (2) & corrections
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
- [1] Kimberly-Clark Corporation Annual Report on Form 10-K filed 2026-02-12 — SEC EDGAR, SEC Form 10-K, published 12 February 2026; retrieved 16 September 2026.
- [2] USPTO: KLEENEX, serial 86282010 — United States Patent and Trademark Office, Trademark registry; retrieved 3 October 2026.
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