AbstractEmergence of different stakeholders with contrary objectives in active distribution network (ADN) requires for a fair network expansion planning that considers all of the contrary objectives. This paper provides an expansion planning model for ADN strategic visioning from electric distribution stakeholders' organization (EDSO) perspective, which takes into account the objectives of all stakeholders. The stakeholders are network owner, active customers (ACs), consumers, and environmental regulatory body (ERB). The proposed model is multistage bi‐level, where the upper‐level minimizes the present value of the total costs imposed to all ADN stakeholders and the lower‐level minimizes the total generation costs within the distribution‐level electricity market. The Karush–Kuhn–Tucker optimality conditions and the linearization techniques are employed through which the model is converted to mixed integer linear programming which can be tackled effectively. The model provides a visionary expansion plan that policymaker must legislate to realize it. Effectiveness of the model in providing a visionary expansion plan considering EDSO's perspective in making cost effective planning decisions per social welfare goals is verified through several case studies on 33‐bus standard test system. According to the simulation results, transition from DSO to EDSO in the presence of low‐capacity ACs improves social welfare by 5%. But this improvement is up to 70% in the presence of high‐capacity ACs.