Free float
Plain definition. Free float is, in MSCI’s words, the number of company shares outstanding, and it helps shape a stock’s index weight, liquidity and implementation costs.
Technical definition. In an October 24, 2025 blog post, MSCI describes free float as “the number of company shares outstanding” and says its level helps shape index weights, liquidity metrics, implementation costs and, at times, stock prices. MSCI’s index methods use a related measure, the foreign-inclusion factor (FIF). The FIF is the proportion of shares outstanding considered available for purchase by international investors, after accounting for shares held by strategic investors and shares subject to foreign-ownership limits. The FIF is closely related to free float but may differ from it: for constituents with free float of 15% or more and no foreign-ownership restrictions, it equals the estimated free float rounded up to the closest 5%.
On this site
On this site, Free float comes up in Do XRP ETF purchases make XRP scarcer?, What does the public evidence show about what drives XRP’s price? and Will XRP run out (“supply shock”)? How much XRP is actually available to trade?.
Source
How Does Free Float Impact Stock Returns? | MSCI Global Client Support Client Log In Featured Solutions Featured solutio (msci.com), read October 1, 2026.