Dividend yield calculator
A dividend yield is a dividend divided by a price. The arithmetic is not the difficult part. The difficult part is that a company has more than one dividend figure on any given day, and two quoted yields for the same shares at the same price are usually both correct and about different things.
The formula, twice
Trailing yield = dividends paid over the last 12 months / price
Indicated yield = latest declared dividend x payments a year / price
The first is a fact with a document behind it: those payments were made. The second is a fact plus one assumption, that the rate just declared is the rate that continues. Neither is a forecast, and where the two disagree the disagreement is the most useful thing on the page.
Illustrative inputs The calculator loads with a price of 50, 1.6 a share paid over the last twelve months, and a quarterly dividend just declared at 0.45. Invented round numbers, chosen so the two yields come out at 3.20% and 3.60% and the gap between them is visible. Not any company's filed accounts and not a view on any security.
One price, two dividends
What the shares cost. This is the denominator of every figure below, so a yield you read this morning and a yield you read this afternoon are different numbers about the same dividend.
Add up what was actually paid per share across the last four quarterly payments, including any special dividend. Dividends paid in total appear on the cash flow statement; per share, they are in the dividends note or the shareholder information section.
The latest per-share amount the board has declared, for a single payment. Take it from the declaration itself rather than from a summary, because a summary may already have annualised it and you would then annualise it twice.
Four for the usual US quarterly payer, twelve for a monthly one, one or two elsewhere. This is what turns a single declared payment into an annual rate, and it is an assumption that the rate just declared continues.
Diluted, for the same twelve months as the trailing dividend. Used only for the payout ratio at the foot. Leave it blank and every yield above is unaffected.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Trailing yield, what was actually paid over the price | 3.20% |
| The declared dividend annualised | 1.8 |
| Indicated yield, that annual rate over the price | 3.60% |
| Indicated less trailing | 0.40 points |
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Dividends paid per share | 1.6 |
| Divided by earnings per share | 4 |
| Payout ratio on the trailing dividend | 40.00% |
- The two yields differ by 0.40 percentage points. Either the rate changed during the last twelve months, or a special dividend sits inside the trailing figure and will not repeat. Which of the two it is decides whether the indicated yield is the better estimate or the worse one.
Two correct yields 0.40 points apart
The illustrative company paid 1.6 a share over the last year, which at 50 is 3.20%. It has just declared 0.45 for the coming quarter, which annualises to 1.80 and 3.60%. Both are right. They answer different questions, and which one belongs in your working depends on why they differ.
There are only two common reasons. Either the dividend was raised or cut during the twelve months, in which case the indicated figure is the better description of what the shares now pay. Or a special dividend sits inside the trailing figure and will not repeat, in which case the trailing yield is describing an event rather than a rate. The gap tells you to go and look; it does not tell you which of the two you will find.
Neither figure is a forward yield. A forward yield needs a view on what will be declared next, this page has no such view, and it will not manufacture one by extrapolating the last increase.
The yield moves because the price moves
The dividend in the numerator changes once or twice a year, by a board decision that is announced. The price in the denominator changes every second the market is open. So nearly all of the movement in a yield is the price, and a yield that has risen sharply has usually done so because the shares fell, not because the payment grew.
That has a direct consequence for anyone sorting a list by yield. The companies at the top are disproportionately the ones whose shares have fallen furthest, and the dividend that produced the yield was declared before the fall. Whether it survives the year is a question about the business, and the yield cannot answer it. The payout ratio at the foot of the calculator is the first check: it compares what was paid against the earnings that paid it.
The product does not lead with a yield for a related reason. Its market data is refreshed on a schedule rather than streamed, so a yield computed inside it is a yield as of that refresh. A figure whose denominator has moved since it was last read is not a fact about now, and publishing it as one is the kind of small lie that becomes a habit.
One input has no document behind it
| Input | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Price per share | The market, right now. This is the only input here that is not in any document, and it is the one that makes every figure below it perishable. |
| Dividends over the last twelve months | Add the per-share amounts actually paid across the last four payments. The total paid in cash is on the cash flow statement; the per-share amounts are in the dividends note or the shareholder information pages. Include specials, and remember that four payment dates inside a fiscal year is not the same window as four declarations. |
| Most recently declared dividend | The per-share amount for one payment, from the declaration itself rather than from a summary. Summaries often annualise it already, and annualising an annualised figure is the most common error on this page. |
| Payments a year | Four for a US quarterly payer, twelve for a monthly one, one or two for many companies listed elsewhere. This is the assumption inside the indicated yield, and it is wrong for any company that pays a small interim and a large final. |
| Earnings per share | Diluted, over the same twelve months as the trailing dividend. Used only for the payout ratio. Free cash flow per share is the harder test and often the more honest one, because a dividend is paid in cash and earnings are an accounting measure. |
What this page will not do, and why zero is not the answer
It will not project income forward, compound a reinvested dividend, or total a portfolio. Those are questions about an income plan, and the answer to them depends on assumptions about future declarations that nobody has made yet. This calculator answers a question about one company's shares at one price, which is the question this product is built for.
It also distinguishes a dividend of zero from a dividend we do not know. Leave the trailing figure blank and the yield reads n/a, not 0.00. Those are different claims: a zero says the company paid nothing and the cash flow statement shows it, while an absent figure says nothing at all. The product applies the same rule and it is not a theoretical concern. A published zero sorts, ranks and reads as a finding, and a column full of them is a column of fabrications that looks like data.
A negative earnings per share gives a payout ratio with a minus sign, which reads as though the company paid out nothing when it paid out more than it earned. That case prints n/m rather than a number.
A dividend record, rather than a yield
What the product adds is the thing a yield cannot carry: the record behind it, over ten years of filings, with the payout ratio and the free cash flow that covered each payment, and the ability to write down that your case depends on the payout staying under some level and be told the day a filing breaks it. It covers individual US equities and not income funds, so the answer to a question about a distribution product is that it is out of scope rather than a number. It is a subscription and it wants a card for the trial. What it costs.
- ROE and ROIC calculator measures what the business earns on its capital, which is where a sustainable dividend comes from.
- Do we cover your stocks? says how far the data reaches, and which figures are missing rather than zero.
What this leaves out
This is arithmetic on a price and a dividend you supply. It is not a view on any security, not a projection of income, and not advice. A yield is a description of a price, not a property of a company.
Nothing here tests whether the dividend continues. The payout ratio is one check and a weak one on its own: a company can cover a dividend out of earnings for years while funding it from borrowing, because earnings and cash are not the same thing.
Withholding tax, franking and the difference between a qualified and an ordinary dividend are all outside this. The yield computed here is gross, and what a holder receives depends on where they and the company are resident.
Buybacks are a form of distribution and do not appear anywhere on this page. Two companies returning identical amounts to shareholders can show very different yields if one does it through dividends and the other through repurchases.
Nothing you type here is sent anywhere. The arithmetic runs in your browser and no input is stored, logged or transmitted.