In April 2012, Tesfaye began his first tour of the United States with a performance at the Coachella Festival, where he performed the "Balloons Trilogy". The tour reached a high point in New York City with back-to-back sold-out shows, which were positively reviewed by "Rolling Stone". Tesfaye expanded his tour to include Europe, and he performed at various European festivals, including the Primavera Sound Festivals in Spain and Portugal, and the Wireless Festival in London, all during Summer 2012. He received positive responses from both Katy Perry and Florence Welch over his performance of "Dirty Diana" in London, who noted his ability to successfully undertake a complex song. In June, the "Balloons Trilogy" was revealed to have been downloaded over 8 million times, which allowed Tesfaye to initiate formal commercial release of the projects later that year.
In September 2012, Tesfaye signed with Republic Records in a joint venture with his own imprint XO. The compilation album for the mixtapes, named "Trilogy," was released two months later, and consisted of several remastered versions of songs as well as three additional ones. "Wicked Games" was remastered as the lead single, and was released in October. The song was also included in the soundtrack for the movie Southpaw. The movie features 50 Cent, and the soundtrack was produced by Eminem. "Trilogy" also officially credited Rose as a producer and writer on the three songs from "House of Balloons" that he did not initially receive credit on. It entered the U.S. "Billboard 200" chart at the number four spot, and also debuted at number five on the Canadian Albums Chart. "Trilogy" was later certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and double-platinum by Music Canada in May 2013. It had sold 385,000 copies almost a year after the release, in September 2013. Tesfaye also gained a nomination for the Sound of 2013 poll award by the BBC a week later.
On May 16, 2013, Tesfaye premiered the title track to his debut studio album "Kiss Land", and announced the album's release date as September 10. The album was later promoted by the singles "Belong to the World" and "Live For" featuring Drake, as well as with Tesfaye heading out on The Fall tour a week before the album's release. The Fall Tour ran from September to November. After being released, "Kiss Land" debuted at number two on the U.S. "Billboard" 200, selling 96,000 copies. It received generally positive reviews from music critics.
In November, Tesfaye appeared on the 20/20 Experience World Tour and partnered with headline act Justin Timberlake for six shows. This was three weeks prior to his contributions to the for "" (2013), contributing "Devil May Cry", as well as featuring on Sia's "Elastic Heart". "Elastic Heart" was later chosen as the second lead single from the soundtrack.
In February 2014, Tesfaye remixed "Drunk in Love", a single by Beyoncé from her studio album. He retaining the theme and concept of the song and detailed the synopsis through the perspective of a male. The remix was well-received. In June, Tesfaye officially announced his first headlining tour, called the King of the Fall tour. The tour was held across the United States in September and October, and saw Schoolboy Q and Jhené Aiko as supporting acts. This announcement came before the release of the single "Often", and led to speculation that it would be the first single from his second album. The speculation proved to be true, and Often was released on July 31, 2014 as the first single of his second album. His second album was released in August 2015. He later collaborated with Ariana Grande on a duet titled "Love Me Harder" in September, which peaked at number seven on the "Billboard" Hot 100. On December 23, he released "Earned It", a single from "Fifty Shades of Grey" (2015). The song peaked at number three on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and it was his second contribution to a movie.
After winning the Centric Award at the 2015 BET Awards for "Earned It", he performed the song again with Alicia Keys, and also debuted the song "The Hills". "The Hills" was later released for digital download, and debuted at number twenty on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The single later went on to top the chart, which meant that was Tesfaye's first number-one single.
A further three songs were leaked online in the corresponding days. On June 8, "Can't Feel My Face", one of the leaked tracks, was released as a second single, following its performance at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. The song debuted at number twenty-four on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and reached number-one on the Hot 100, making it his third top 10 hit, and his second number-one hit in the United States. He occupied all three slots on "Billboard's" Hot R&B Songs chart at the same time with "Can't Feel My Face", "Earned It", and "The Hills" for the week of July 15. With this, Tesfaye become the first artist in history to accomplish it. In June, Tesfaye was unveiled as one of the musical faces of the new streaming service Apple Music along with fellow Canadian and frequent collaborator Drake. During the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, Apple debuted a two-part promotional commercial featuring Tesfaye, which had a guest appearance from John Travolta. It was revealed that his second studio album would be titled "Beauty Behind the Madness".
"Beauty Behind the Madness" was released on August 28, 2015, and debuted atop the "Billboard" 200, earning 412,000 album equivalent units in its first week. It reached the top 10 in over ten countries, as well as reaching number one in Canada, Australia, Norway, and the United Kingdom. The album was promoted by Tesfaye headlining various summer music festivals, including Lollapalooza in Chicago, the Hard Summer Music Festival in Pomona, and the Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle. He announced his first large-scale tour across the United States, which began in November, and concluded in December. The album went double platinum in the US, and sold 1.5 million copies worldwide. It was reported to be the most-streamed album throughout 2015, with over 60 million listeners. It was also ranked on multiple lists for best albums of the year.
After engaging in multiple musical collaborations with Belly, Meek Mill, and Travis Scott, Tesfaye was featured on "Low Life", the triple platinum single from Future's album EVOL, in December of that year. In February 2016, Tesfaye was featured on "FML", a track on Kanye West's "The Life of Pablo". It was the second collaboration between the pair, and West provided production and writing on "Tell Your Friends" from "Beauty Behind the Madness". Tesfaye appeared on "6 Inch", the fifth song on Beyoncé's "Lemonade", in April. He was announced by Spotify as being among the top five most streamed artists in their first year partnering with Sony to provide the streaming service on the PlayStation 4.