How do you calculate dividend yield?
Dividend yield is the annual dividend per share divided by the current share price. A $2.00 annual dividend on a $50 share is a 4% yield.
Dividend math
Dividend Yield Calculator
Enter a share price and the annual dividend, or one payment and how often it is paid, or load a stock or ETF. You get the dividend yield, the annual income on your shares, a monthly equivalent, and your yield on cost if you add the price you paid.
Free calculator
Calculate dividend yield
Dividend yield
4%
$2.00 a year on a $50.00 share price.
Your assumption - not loaded from public data
Annual dividend income
$200.00
Monthly income equivalent
$16.67
Annual income / 12: an average, not your payment schedule.
Yield on cost
Add the price you paid
Position value
$5,000.00
Formula
Annual dividend = dividend per payment x payments per year
Dividend yield = annual dividend per share / share price
Monthly income equivalent = annual income / 12
Yield on cost = annual dividend per share / price you paid
How to use the Dividend Yield Calculator
- Load a stock or ETF to fill its price and trailing 12-month dividend, or enter the price and dividend yourself: as an annual total, or as one payment and how often it is paid.
- Enter how many shares you hold to see annual income and its monthly equivalent.
- Optionally enter the price you paid to see your yield on cost.
How the calculation works
Dividend yield expresses a year of dividends as a percentage of the share price, so income from stocks and funds at very different prices can be compared directly. If you enter one payment, it is annualized once, by multiplying by the number of payments in a year, and every other figure uses that annual amount. Because the price moves every day, the yield moves with it even when the dividend does not change.
Formula
Annual dividend = dividend per payment x payments per year
Dividend yield = annual dividend per share / share price
Annual income = annual dividend per share x shares
Monthly income equivalent = annual income / 12
Yield on cost = annual dividend per share / price paid
Input definitions
- Share price
- The current price of one share. Loading a ticker fills the latest available price.
- Annual dividend per share
- Dividends paid per share over a year. Loading a ticker fills the trailing 12-month total of regular payments.
- Dividend per payment and frequency
- An alternative to the annual figure: one payment per share and whether it is paid annually, twice a year, quarterly or monthly.
- Shares
- How many shares you hold or plan to buy, used for income.
- Price you paid per share
- Optional. Your purchase price, used only for yield on cost.
Worked example
A stock trades at $50 and pays $0.50 per share each quarter. Annualized once, that is $0.50 x 4 = $2.00 a year, so its dividend yield is $2.00 / $50 = 4%. On 100 shares that is $200 a year, a monthly equivalent of $200 / 12 = $16.67.
If you bought those shares at $40, your yield on cost is $2.00 / $40 = 5%: the same dividend, measured against what you actually paid.
What the results mean
- Current yield is the annual dividend divided by today's price: what a buyer at that price earns each year if the dividend stays where it is. It is the figure this calculator puts at the top.
- Trailing yield uses dividends actually paid over the last 12 months. Loading a ticker gives you a trailing figure, totaled from regular payments.
- Forward, or indicated, yield annualizes a company's current or declared dividend rate. The calculator does not load declared rates; you get a forward-style figure only by entering that rate yourself, for example as one payment and its frequency. The latest-payment figure shown for a loaded ticker simply repeats the most recent regular payment.
- The trailing figure and the annualized latest payment differ when a payout has just been raised or cut.
Assumptions and limitations
- The result is only as current as the dividend you enter or load. It describes a payment rate, not a promise of future dividends.
- Ordinary dividends are regular, recurring payments. Special and supplemental dividends are one-off and are left out of the loaded dividend.
- ETF distributions can combine dividends, interest and capital gains, and often vary from one payment to the next, so an ETF's trailing figure is a record of what was paid rather than a fixed rate.
- The monthly figure is annual income / 12, an average, not a payment schedule.
- Taxes and fund expenses are not deducted from income.
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Dividend Yield Calculator FAQ
What is yield on cost?
Yield on cost divides the same annual dividend by the price you paid instead of today's price. If you bought at $40, that $2.00 dividend is a 5% yield on cost, even though new buyers at $50 get 4%.
Which dividend does the calculator load for a ticker?
It loads the sum of regular payments over the last 12 months. Special or supplemental distributions are left out, because a one-off payment is not recurring income.
Why can the annualized latest payment differ from the trailing yield?
The trailing yield adds up what was paid over the past year. Annualizing the latest payment repeats only the most recent amount, so the two diverge when a company has just raised or cut its dividend, or when a fund's distributions vary.
Can this calculator solve for an income goal or model reinvested dividends?
No. It measures yield and income for a position you enter. To find how much you would need to invest for a monthly income goal, use the Dividend Calculator. To see how reinvesting dividends compounds shares over time, use the DRIP Calculator.