Is Toys R Us still in business in 2026?
Yes, but not in the form most Americans remember. The company that ran the big blue box stores was wound down in 2018 and no longer exists. The Toys R Us name, the Babies R Us name and Geoffrey the Giraffe were pulled out of that wreckage and are now brands owned by a New York firm called WHP Global.
The distinction matters. When people ask whether Toys R Us is still open, they usually mean the 40,000 square foot store off the highway with the bikes stacked by the door. Those are gone in the United States. Most chains that lost their stores that way, Circuit City included, never got them back.
What replaced them is a mix of departments inside Macy's, a small number of mall flagships, seasonal pop-up shops and stores on Navy bases. Outside the US the brand never stopped trading at all.
Who owns Toys R Us now?
WHP Global, a brand management company, announced on March 15, 2021 that it had acquired a controlling interest in Tru Kids Inc., the entity holding Toys R Us, Babies R Us, Geoffrey the Giraffe and more than 20 related toy and baby brands.
The deal came with a $350 million equity commitment from Oaktree Capital Management and a leverage facility from BlackRock. Other shareholders included funds managed by Solus Alternative Asset Management and the private equity group of Ares Management.
At the time, Toys R Us and Babies R Us together generated more than $2 billion in global retail sales a year across nearly 900 branded stores and websites in more than 25 countries. WHP took over management of that global business and its expansion.
So the honest answer to who owns Toys R Us is a licensing company, not a retailer. WHP holds the trademarks. The stores are mostly run by partners: Macy's, Go! Retail Group, the Navy Exchange Service Command and overseas licensees.
How a $6.6 billion buyout set up the 2017 bankruptcy
On March 17, 2005, a consortium of Bain Capital Partners, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Vornado Realty Trust announced a $6.6 billion leveraged buyout of Toys R Us. The debt used to buy the company landed on the company's own balance sheet.
By September 2017 Toys R Us was paying roughly $400 million a year just to service that debt. That was money not going into stores, wages or a working website, in the exact decade when Amazon and Walmart were fighting over the same toy shoppers on price.
Toys R Us filed for Chapter 11 protection on September 18, 2017 with a reported workforce of about 64,000 people. The stated plan was to restructure, keep the stores open and come out the other side. That plan lasted about six months.
What happened in 2018, and the comeback that failed
The holiday season of 2017 went badly enough that a reorganization stopped looking credible to lenders. In the spring of 2018 the company moved to wind down its US business instead, and on June 29, 2018 the last American Toys R Us stores closed after 70 years of operations.
The scale was severe: 735 US stores shut and more than 30,000 people lost their jobs, in most cases with no severance at all.
After months of public pressure from worker groups and members of Congress, Bain Capital and KKR each contributed $10 million to a $20 million fund for former employees in November 2018. Individual payouts ran from $200 to $12,800. Vornado, the third buyout partner, did not contribute. Anyone who followed the end of RadioShack will recognize the shape of it: a chain taken apart from the balance sheet outward while the staff found out last.
What was left of the estate emerged on January 20, 2019 as Tru Kids Inc., which held the trademarks and set out to license them back into stores.
Tru Kids opened two small US stores that same year, one at Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey on November 27, 2019 and one at The Galleria in Houston on December 7, 2019. Both were built around demonstrations and play space rather than aisles of boxed stock.
Both closed in January 2021 after the pandemic emptied out American malls. For a stretch of that winter the number of Toys R Us stores in the United States was zero. The Macy's partnership had been announced only months before, and it is what put the name back on the map.
How many Toys R Us stores are left in the US?
It depends on what you count, which is why published numbers disagree. Fox Business reported on September 1, 2026 that the retailer's own website listed more than 30 standalone and flagship locations nationwide.
A stricter tally splits the formats apart. Wikipedia's current count puts it at 8 permanent standalone US stores, alongside 451 branded concessions inside Macy's, 13 seasonal holiday shops and 7 stores on military bases.
The Macy's arrangement is the backbone of the US business. Toys R Us sections opened in every Macy's location in the country by October 15, 2022, more than 400 of them, which put the brand back in front of American shoppers without signing a single big-box lease.
The showpiece is at American Dream in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where a two-story, 20,000 square foot flagship opened on December 16, 2021. That is a fraction of the floor space of a 1990s superstore, and it is the closest thing left to the original.
What the brand looks like worldwide
Globally, Toys R Us is larger now than it was on the day the US stores closed. In 2026 the brand counted 1,664 stores across 35 countries, according to Jamie Uitdenhowen, executive vice president of Toys R Us and Babies R Us at WHP Global.
2025 was the biggest international expansion year in the brand's history, with openings in six new countries and more than 100 new locations worldwide. Panama and Ecuador are the next targets in South America.
In the US the growth comes from partners rather than company-owned real estate. Go! Retail Group operates the flagships and the holiday shops, and the Navy Exchange Service Command deal puts stores on bases. There is also a Toys R Us Studios arm developing content, including a movie project.
It is an unusual second life, closer to what happened at Polaroid than to a normal retail turnaround. The name outlived the retailer that made it famous, the stores got smaller, and the leases and the risk now belong to somebody else. Whether that counts as Toys R Us being back depends on what you wanted back.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Toys R Us go bankrupt or go out of business?
Both, in stages. Toys R Us filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on September 18, 2017 intending to reorganize, then wound down its US operations and closed all 735 remaining stores on June 29, 2018. The brands were later sold, and WHP Global has run them since March 2021.
Where can you find a Toys R Us store today?
In the United States the most reliable option is the Toys R Us section inside a Macy's, since those opened in every US Macy's store by October 2022. There are also a handful of standalone flagships, including American Dream in New Jersey, plus seasonal holiday shops and stores on Navy bases.
Is Babies R Us still around?
Yes. Babies R Us was part of the same brand portfolio WHP Global took control of on March 15, 2021, and the two names are marketed together. It exists as shops and licensed retail rather than as the standalone US superstore chain it was before 2018.