An expense that does not involve a cash transaction- that is, it constitutes no cash outflows during the accounting period. Non-cash expenses reflect payment of cash and appear on the statement of income as debited accounts. Examples of non-cash expenses include depreciation and amortization. When the amount of depreciation is debited in the statement of income, this impacts the amount of net profit: it becomes lower, although there is no actual cash flow.

Other examples include asset write-down, inventory write-down, etc.

Non-cash expense is also known as non-cash charge.