Note 1. Organization

SmartStop Self Storage REIT, Inc., a Maryland corporation (the “Company”), is a self-managed and fully-integrated self storage real estate investment trust (“REIT”), formed on January 8, 2013 under the Maryland General Corporation Law. Our year-end is December 31. As used in this report, “we,” “us,” “our,” and “Company” refer to SmartStop Self Storage REIT, Inc. and each of our subsidiaries. Our Common Stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (the “NYSE”) under the ticker symbol “SMA” on April 2, 2025.

We acquire and own self storage facilities; we operate the self storage facilities owned by us, we also operate the properties owned by the entities sponsored by us and, as of October 1, 2025, owned by third parties. As of December 31, 2025, our wholly-owned portfolio consisted of 177 operating self storage properties diversified across 19 states (Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin), the District of Columbia, and Canada comprising approximately 122,000 units and 13.9 million net rentable square feet. Additionally, we owned a 50% equity interest in 13 unconsolidated real estate ventures located in Canada, which consisted of 10 operating self storage properties and three properties which were being developed into self storage properties as of December 31, 2025.

Further, through our Managed Platform (as defined below), we serve as the sponsor of Strategic Storage Trust VI, Inc., a publicly-registered non-traded REIT (“SST VI”), Strategic Storage Growth Trust III, Inc., a private REIT (“SSGT III”), and Strategic Storage Trust X, a private net asset value REIT launched in January 2025, (“SST X” and together with SST VI and SSGT III, the “Managed REITs”). We manage the properties owned by the Managed REITs. Inclusive of the properties owned by the Managed REITs and the properties owned by Delaware statutory trusts (“DSTs”) sponsored by one of the Managed REITs, in total, as of December 31, 2025, we managed 52 of such operating self storage properties, consisting of approximately 41,000 units and 4.5 million rentable square feet.

Effective October 1, 2025, we acquired Argus Professional Storage Management, LLC (“Argus”), a third-party manager of self storage properties (the “Third Party Platform Acquisition”). See Note 4 – Third Party Platform Acquisition for additional information. As such, as of December 31, 2025, we managed an additional 221 of such properties, consisting of more than approximately 98,000 units and 15.9 million rentable square feet (the “Third Party Platform”). The Third Party Platform, the Managed REITs, and the other properties operated by us as mentioned above, are referred to as the “Managed Platform.”

In total, as of December 31, 2025, we managed 273 operating self storage properties, which we did not own, consisting of approximately 140,000 units and 20.4 million rentable square feet through our Managed Platform.

SmartStop OP, L.P. (the “Operating Partnership”) owns, directly or indirectly through one or more subsidiaries, all of the self storage properties that we own. As of December 31, 2025, we owned approximately 94% of the common units of limited partnership interests of our Operating Partnership. The remaining approximately 6% of the common units are owned by current and former employees/executives, current and former board members, the previous owners of Argus (as defined further below), or indirectly by Strategic Asset Management I, LLC (f/k/a SmartStop Asset Management, LLC), our former sponsor (“SAM”), its affiliates, and select other unaffiliated third parties. As the sole general partner of our Operating Partnership, we have the exclusive power to manage and conduct the business of our Operating Partnership.

On March 20, 2025, we effected a one-for-four reverse stock split (the “Reverse Stock Split”) of each issued and outstanding share of Class A common stock (“Class A Common Stock”), $0.001 par value per share, and Class T Common Stock (“Class T Common Stock”), $0.001 par value per share. Concurrently with the Reverse Stock Split, we also effected a corresponding one-for-four reverse unit split (together with the Reverse Stock Split, the “Reverse Equity Splits”) of units of our Operating Partnership. As a result of the Reverse Equity Splits, every four shares of our common stock and every four Operating Partnership units that were issued and outstanding as of the date of the Reverse Equity Splits were automatically changed into one issued and outstanding share of common stock or one issued and outstanding Operating Partnership unit, as applicable, rounded to the nearest 1/1000th share or Operating Partnership unit. The reverse stock and unit splits impacted all classes of common stock and common operating partnership units proportionately and resulted in no impact on any stockholder's or limited partner's percentage ownership of all issued and outstanding common stock or common Operating Partnership units. In connection with the reverse equity splits, the number of shares of common stock and Operating Partnership units underlying the outstanding share-based awards were also proportionally reduced.

Immediately after the Reverse Stock Split, we reclassified and designated 225,000,000 authorized but unissued shares of Class A Common Stock and 340,000,000 authorized but unissued shares of Class T Common Stock as authorized but unissued shares of common stock, $0.001 par value per share (the “Reclassification”), without any designation as to class or series. As a result, the Company had 565,000,000 shares of unclassified common stock, $0.001 par value per share, authorized but unissued.

On April 1, 2025 we executed our underwriting agreement, and on April 3, 2025, we closed our registered underwritten public offering (the “Underwritten Public Offering”) of 27,000,000 shares of common stock, $0.001 par value per share (the “Common Stock”), at an initial price of $30.00 per share, pursuant to a registration statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) on Form S-11 (File No. 333-264449) (the “Registration Statement”) under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”). The underwriters also exercised an overallotment option to purchase 4,050,000 additional shares of Common Stock on April 3, 2025. Certain of our directors, officers, and employees, and friends and family members of certain of our directors, officers, and employees were able to and did purchase shares through us or our underwriters at the public offering price of $30.00 per share. Under this program, officers and directors purchased 31,500 shares. All of these shares purchased in the Underwritten Public Offering are listed on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “SMA.” The gross and net proceeds received on April 3, 2025 were approximately $931.5 million and $875.6 million, respectively.

On June 12, 2025, we filed Articles of Amendment to our charter to decrease our total number of authorized shares of stock from 900,000,000 to 225,000,000. As a result of such decrease, our authorized shares of stock consist of: (i) 175,000,000 shares of common stock, $0.001 par value per share, of which 31,250,000 shares were designated as Class A Common Stock, 2,500,000 shares were designated as Class T Common Stock, and 141,250,000 were common stock without designation as to class or series; and (ii) 50,000,000 shares of preferred stock, $0.001 par value per share.

On October 1, 2025, the six-month anniversary of the listing of our Common Stock issued in our Underwritten Public Offering for trading on the NYSE, each share of Class A Common Stock and Class T Common Stock automatically converted into one share of our undesignated listed Common Stock. In preparation for this conversion, on July 30, 2025, we completed a fractional share redemption related to our Class A Common Stock and Class T Common Stock of approximately $0.3 million, such that a total of approximately 8,000 shares were redeemed at a purchase price of $35.63 per share, which was the closing price of the Company’s Common Stock as of the end of that day. Each stockholder that held any fractional shares received a cash payment for such shares, and as a result, thereafter no stockholder of the Company owned any fractional shares.

In November 2016, we filed with the SEC a Registration Statement on Form S-3, which registered up to an additional $100.9 million in shares under our distribution reinvestment plan. On May 14, 2024, we filed a new Registration Statement on Form S-3 with the SEC which registered up to an additional 1,125,000 shares of Class A Common Stock and 125,000 shares of Class T Common Stock under our distribution reinvestment plan (our “DRP Offering”).

On May 1, 2025, we terminated our distribution reinvestment plan. As of such date, we had sold approximately 2.7 million shares of Class A Common Stock and approximately 0.3 million shares of Class T Common Stock through our distribution reinvestment plan.