A financial performance metric that attempts to measure the benefit created for a firm's capital holders. It is expressed in dollar terms for a period - not as a percentage return ratio. SVA is an adjusted value for after-tax earnings, for a period of time, minus the opportunity cost associated with the firm's capital. The net of those quantities is a measure of the surplus or additional value provided to the shareholders as a result of the firm's activities. The adjustments made to the reported amount of after-tax earnings are intended to remove distortions resulting from accrual accounting. For example, provisions for bad debts are usually added back to income and actual losses from bad debts are subtracted instead. Cash taxes are used instead of book taxes. One of the main attractions of this performance metric is that fact that, unlike measure of return on market value, it can be applied to segments within a firm. Accordingly, it is primarily used by managers to evaluate the performance of divisions or branches. Some users apply SVA down to the account manager or customer level.

The phrase "shareholder value added" is favored because the phrase "economic value added" is marked. See value based management.