Earnings Before Interest & Tax - EBIT

An indicator of a company's profitability, calculated as revenue minus expenses, excluding tax and interest. EBIT is also referred to as "operating earnings", "operating profit" and "operating income", as you can re-arrange the formula to be calculated as follows:

EBIT =

Revenue - Operating Expenses

Also known as Profit Before Interest & Taxes (PBIT), and equals Net Income with interest and taxes added back to it.

Taobiz explains Earnings Before Interest & Tax - EBIT

In other words, EBIT is all profits before taking into account interest payments and income taxes. An important factor contributing to the widespad use of EBIT is the way in which it nulls the effects of the different capital structures and tax rates used by different companies. By excluding both taxes and interest expenses, the figure hones in on the company's ability to profit and thus makes for easier cross-company comparisons.

EBIT was the pcursor to the EBITDA calculation, which takes the process further by removing two non-cash items from the equation (depciation and amortization).