MAXIMUS, INC. (MMS)

Item 2. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

The following discussion is intended to help the reader understand our business, financial condition, results of operations, liquidity and capital resources. You should read this discussion in conjunction with "Risk Factors," "Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements," and our financial statements and related notes included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025 filed with the SEC on November 20, 2025 and elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, as applicable.

Business Overview

Maximus is a leading provider of tech-enabled services to government agencies. By moving people, technology, and government forward, Maximus helps improve the delivery of public services for more than 100 million American citizens, as well as citizens in the United Kingdom (U.K.), Canada, and the Middle East, amid complex technological, health, economic, and social challenges. As a trusted and accountable partner to primarily U.S. federal and state customers, we proudly design, develop, and deliver innovative and efficient programs that are designed to improve government’s effectiveness in serving its citizens.

We create value for our customers by translating public policy into operating models that deliver outcomes for governments at scale. Our work covers a broad array of services, including the operation of large health insurance eligibility and enrollment programs; clinical services, including assessments, appeals, and independent medical reviews; and technology services. These services benefit from an industry with increasing demand, constrained government budgets, and an increased focus on technology as governments prioritize modernization. We also demonstrate the ability to move quickly, ranging from digitally enabled contact center support services for natural disaster response to swift establishments of public health and safety initiatives.

24

Table of Contents

Financial Overview

A number of factors have affected our results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2026. More detail on these changes is presented below within our "Results of Operations" section.

Results of Operations

The following table sets forth items from our consolidated statements of operations for the three and nine months ended June 30, 2026, and June 30, 2025.

Our business segments have different factors driving revenue fluctuations and profitability. The sections that follow cover these segments in greater detail. Our revenue reflects fees earned for services provided. Cost of revenue consists of direct costs related to labor and its associated overhead, subcontractor labor, outside vendors, rent, and other direct costs. The largest component of cost of revenue, approximately two-thirds, is labor, including subcontracted labor.

25

Table of Contents

Selling, general, and administrative expenses

Selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenses consist of indirect costs related to general management, marketing, and administration. It is primarily composed of labor costs. These costs may be incurred at a segment level, for dedicated resources that are not client-facing, or at a corporate level. We allocate corporate costs to segments on a consistent and rational basis. Fluctuations in our SG&A are primarily driven by changes in our administrative cost base, which are not directly driven by changes in our revenue. As part of our work for the U.S. federal government and many states, we allocate these costs using a methodology driven by the U.S. Federal Cost Accounting Standards.

Our SG&A expense for the nine months ended June 30, 2026, includes $10.1 million of divestiture-related gain from the sale of our child support business within the United States, which we divested in December 2025. Our SG&A expense for the nine months ended June 30, 2025, includes divestiture-related charges of $39.3 million from our sale of businesses in the Outside the U.S. Segment. These charges included accumulated foreign currency losses incurred over two decades of operations, as well as indemnifications provided to the buyer.

Amortization of intangible assets

Amortization of intangible assets has declined for the three and nine months ended June 30, 2026, as compared to the same periods in fiscal year 2025, since the amortization of technology-based assets acquired in fiscal year 2021 was completed prior to fiscal year 2026.

Our balance sheet includes $367.2 million of intangible assets from a 2021 acquisition. These assets, comprised of customer relationships and a medical provider network, continue to support medical disability examinations (MDE) contracts with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. These assets are being amortized over their remaining useful life of approximately seven years. In the event that our expectations change with respect to these acquired contracts, the value of these assets and the estimated remaining lives of these assets may need to be adjusted.

Interest Expense

During fiscal years 2026 and 2025, we expanded our Term Loan B and Term Loan A Credit Facilities, respectively. This has resulted in an increase to our interest expense in the current year. We continue to mitigate a portion of our interest rate risk through hedging transactions on a portion of our outstanding debt.

Provision for Income Taxes

Our effective income tax rate for the three and nine months ended June 30, 2026, was 25.0% and 24.4%, respectively, compared to 25.9% and 29.2% for the three and nine months ended June 30, 2025, respectively. Our effective tax rate for the nine months ended June 30, 2026 includes approximately $4.5 million of benefit from research and development tax credits identified and claimed in the period. Our tax rate in fiscal year 2025 was affected by the disposal of our businesses in Australia and Korea and other non-recurring items. For fiscal year 2026, we expect an overall effective tax rate between 24% and 24.5%.

26

Table of Contents

U.S. Federal Services Segment

Our U.S. Federal Services Segment delivers solutions that help various U.S. federal government agencies better execute their missions, including program operations and management, clinical services, and advanced technology solutions.

Our revenue and cost of revenue for the three months ended June 30, 2026 and 2025 decreased 5.3% and 6.8%, respectively. Our revenue and cost of revenue for the nine months ended June 30, 2026 and 2025 decreased 2.5%and 7.0%, respectively.

Our results for the three and nine months ended June 30, 2026 have been affected by the following, when compared to the prior year comparative periods.

•Much of the revenue decline relates to year-over-year declines in volumes on our large, transaction-based contracts. During fiscal year 2025 and early fiscal year 2026, these volumes had been running at higher levels.

•Short-term disaster recovery work in fiscal year 2025 did not recur to the same extent in fiscal year 2026.

•Across the remainder of this segment, we received the benefit of growth on profitable contracts, resulting in improvements to margin.

Below is a reconciliation of revenue for the three and nine months ended June 30, 2026 compared to the prior year periods, including the impact of short‑term disaster recovery work and our organic revenue movement excluding this work.

[Excerpt truncated for page length; source filing is linked above.]

Item 7. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

This Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations should be read together with our audited consolidated financial statements and the related notes thereto for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2025, 2024, and 2023, included in Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data.

The discussion below contains management's comments on our business strategy and outlook, and such discussions contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements reflect the expectations, beliefs, plans, and objectives of management about future financial performance and assumptions underlying management's judgment concerning the matters discussed, and accordingly involve estimates, assumptions, judgments, and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements, and the discussion below is not necessarily indicative of future results. Factors that could cause or contribute to any differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed below and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, particularly in "Item 1A. Risk Factors" and in "Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements."

A discussion of our results of operations, backlog, and liquidity and capital resources for fiscal year September 30, 2024, including comparisons to fiscal year 2023, can be found in last year's Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Business Overview

For an overview of our business, including our business segments and discussion of the services we provide, see Item 1. Business of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Financial Overview

A number of factors have affected our fiscal year 2025 results, the most significant of which we have listed below. More detail on these changes is presented below within our "Results of Operations" section.

•Our business has grown organically, mostly from the expansion of our U.S. Federal Services Segment.

•During the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, we sold our businesses in Australia and Korea. This sale resulted in a loss and increased our full-year tax rate. However, this sale, and similar sales made in fiscal year 2024, have streamlined our international businesses and resulted in improved results in our Outside the U.S. Segment.

•Our operating cash flows remain strong and our overall leverage is relatively low, allowing us to make significant purchases of our own common stock.

33

Table of Contents

Results of Operations

The following table sets forth, for the fiscal years indicated, information derived from our statements of operations. In preparing our discussion and analysis of these results, we focused on the comparison between fiscal years 2025 and 2024.

Our business segments have different factors driving revenue fluctuations and profitability. The sections that follow cover these segments in greater detail. Our revenue reflects fees earned for services provided. Cost of revenue consists of direct costs related to labor and related overhead, subcontractor labor, outside vendors, rent, and other direct costs. The largest component of cost of revenue, approximately two-thirds, is labor, including subcontracted labor.

34

Table of Contents

Selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenses

Our SG&A expenses consist of indirect costs related to general management, marketing, and administration. It is primarily composed of labor costs. These costs may be incurred at a segment level, for dedicated resources that are not client-facing, or at a corporate level. Corporate costs are allocated to segments on a consistent and rational basis. Fluctuations in our SG&A are primarily driven by changes in our administrative cost base, which is not directly driven by changes in our revenue. As part of our work for the U.S. federal government and many states, we allocate these costs using a methodology driven by the U.S. Federal Cost Accounting Standards.

Our SG&A expenses for fiscal year 2025 include a charge of $39.5 million related to the sale of certain of our businesses in our Outside the U.S. Segment. These charges included accumulated foreign currency losses incurred over two decades of operations, as well as indemnifications provided to the buyer. Absent this charge, SG&A was broadly consistent with fiscal year 2024.

Interest expense

Our interest expense is principally driven by our debt facility in the United States. During fiscal year 2025, delays in payments from customers resulted in additional borrowings under our revolving credit facility, resulting in higher borrowings than in the prior year. This additional cost was partially offset by lower interest rates.

Our effective interest rate was 5.37% at September 30, 2025, compared to 5.52% at September 30, 2024. We have mitigated our risk by fixing interest rates on approximately half of our debt and our near-term capital allocation plan continues to prioritize reducing our debt using our free cash flow. At our current debt balances, a 100 basis point increase in the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) would result in an increased annual interest expense of $7.0 million.

Income taxes

Our effective income tax rate for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2025 and 2024, was 28.3% and 24.5%, respectively. Our fiscal year 2025 tax rate was negatively affected by the disposal of our businesses in Australia and Korea.

For fiscal year 2026, we expect the effective tax rate to be between 25.0% and 26.0%. On July 4, 2025, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) was signed in the United States. We do not believe the OBBBA will have a significant effect on our fiscal year 2026 tax rate but we anticipate that it could have a favorable cash flow impact in fiscal year 2026.

35

Table of Contents

U.S. Federal Services Segment

Our U.S. Federal Services Segment delivers solutions that help various U.S. federal government agencies better execute on their mission, including program operations and management, clinical services, and advanced technology solutions.

Our revenue and cost of revenue for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025, increased 12.1% and 9.0%, respectively, compared to the fiscal year ended September 30, 2024. All movement was organic.

Our revenue growth was driven by our clinical programs, including medical assessments, as well as from support provided to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). We have long-standing arrangements with FEMA to provide short-term assistance for natural disasters, the extent and timing of which are difficult to predict.

Our medical assessment revenue benefitted from increased volumes, including those driven by the Honoring our Pact Act, which had necessitated a contract rebid to expand the scale of these arrangements, as well as volume increases from underlying assessment demands. Improvements in performance also reduced our share of penalties incurred, benefitting our profit margin.

Our margins received a benefit from the implementation of technology initiatives, which increased the productivity of our operations.

We anticipate operating margins for the U.S. Federal Services Segment in fiscal year 2026 to range between 15.5% and 16%.

36

Table of Contents

U.S. Services Segment

Our U.S. Services Segment provides a variety of services, such as program operations, clinical services, employment services and technology solutions and related professional services work for U.S. state and local government programs. These services support a variety of programs, including the programs under Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), and child support programs.

Our revenue and cost of revenue for the year ended September 30, 2025, decreased 7.7% and 5.5%, respectively. All movement was organic.

Our fiscal year 2024 results received the benefit of higher volumes as Medicaid redetermination activities continued, resulting in benefits to our revenue and profit margins. As anticipated, our results have returned to a steady state with the conclusion of this additional work.

The OBBBA, signed into law in 2025, requires changes to the manner and funding of some of our state-based programs. Although these changes are not anticipated in fiscal year 2026, states may make changes to programs in anticipation of these changes. The nature, extent and timing of these changes is still uncertain.

We anticipate operating margins for the U.S. Services Segment in fiscal year 2026 to range between 10% and 11%.

37

Table of Contents

Outside the U.S. Segment

Our Outside the U.S. Segment provides business process services and other solutions for international go

[Excerpt truncated for page length; the complete text is on the linked full-MD&A page.]