Dividend calculator
Enter your shares and dividend, see the income.
How do I calculate dividend yield?
Annual dividend per share ÷ share price. A $2 annual dividend on a $50 stock is a 4% yield.
How much will my shares pay?
Shares × annual dividend per share: 100 shares at $2 pay $200 a year, or $50 a quarter.
Where do I find the annual dividend?
Multiply the latest regular payment by the number of payments a year — a $0.50 quarterly dividend is $2 a year.
Does the yield change?
Yes — it moves with the share price, and companies can raise, cut or skip dividends.
Are dividends taxed?
Usually, yes, in taxable accounts; qualified dividends are taxed at the long-term capital gains rates.
What is the ex-dividend date?
The record date is the day you must be on the company’s books to receive a declared dividend, and the ex-dividend date is set by exchange rules just before it. The SEC explains that if you buy a stock on its ex-dividend date or after, you will not receive the next dividend: the seller gets it. To collect a dividend, you have to own the shares before the ex-dividend date.
How do I know whether a dividend is qualified?
The payer identifies the qualified part of your ordinary dividends on Form 1099-DIV, which the IRS says payers should send for distributions of at least $10. Whether a dividend qualifies depends on its type and on how long you held the shares around the ex-dividend date; IRS Publication 550 explains the holding period. You must report taxable dividends even without a Form 1099-DIV, and more than $1,500 of ordinary dividends also means filing Schedule B.
What is yield on cost?
The annual dividend divided by what you originally paid instead of today’s price. If you bought at $40 and the stock now trades at $50, a $2 dividend is a 5.00% yield on cost against a 4.00% current yield.
How the numbers are calculated
The calculator multiplies the shares by the annual dividend per share to get yearly income, then divides that by the number of payments a year for the amount per payment. The yield is the annual dividend per share divided by the share price. The annual dividend is a forward-looking figure, the latest regular payment times the payments a year, so it says what you would receive if the company keeps paying at that rate.
Worked example: 100 shares at $50 paying $2 a year
Annual income is 100 × $2 = $200, paid as $50 each quarter, and the position is worth $5,000. The yield is $2 ÷ $50 = 4.00%. If the price falls to $40 while the dividend stays at $2, the yield rises to 5.00% although the income is unchanged. If instead the company cuts the dividend to $1.50 with the price still at $50, income falls to $150 a year and the yield to 3.00%.
Common mistakes
A high yield can come from a falling price rather than a generous company, as in the example, so check why the yield is high before treating it as income you can count on. Annualizing a one-time special dividend overstates the yield for the same reason. Yield is also not total return: it leaves out any gain or loss in the share price. Taxes are another gap, since the figure here is before tax, and ordinary and qualified dividends are taxed differently.
Sources: IRS, Topic no. 404, Dividends and other corporate distributions (reviewed October 8, 2026), and Publication 550, Investment Income and Expenses (chapter 1, “Qualified Dividends,” which has a holding period section); SEC Office of Investor Education and Advocacy, “Ex-Dividend Dates: When Are You Entitled to Stock and Cash Dividends” (investor.gov glossary) on record and ex-dividend dates. The yield and income arithmetic is the definition of each term. See also the capital gains tax calculator, the stock average calculator and the ROI calculator.
Estimates for planning only — not financial or tax advice. Your lender, plan or tax professional decides. How we check our calculators.