Dividend Yield Formula and Calculator

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Dividend Yield Calculator

Dividend yield expresses a company’s annual dividend per share as a percentage of its current share price. It tells an income investor how much cash the shares pay each year for every unit invested, and makes it easy to compare a stock’s income with a savings rate or a bond’s current yield.

How to use the formula

Many companies pay quarterly, some monthly or twice a year, so the calculator asks for the amount of each payment and the number of payments per year and annualizes it. A trailing yield uses the dividends actually paid over the last 12 months; a forward yield uses the announced or expected dividend. Special one-off dividends are usually left out because they will not repeat.

A quarterly dividend of 0.60 on an 80 share is 2.40 a year, a yield of 3.00%. Yield moves inversely with price: if the price falls to 60 with the dividend unchanged, the yield rises to 4%. A very high yield can be a warning that the market expects the dividend to be cut, so check the payout ratio too. Dividend yield plus expected dividend growth is the required return in the Gordon growth model.

Frequently asked questions

What is the dividend yield formula?

Dividend yield = annual dividends per share ÷ current share price × 100%.

How do I annualize a quarterly dividend?

Multiply the quarterly dividend by 4. For monthly payers multiply by 12.

Is a high dividend yield good?

Not necessarily. A falling share price raises the yield, and a very high yield can signal that the dividend is at risk.

What is the difference between dividend yield and payout ratio?

Yield compares dividends with the share price; the payout ratio compares dividends with earnings.

Last reviewed: September 26, 2026. Calculations run in your browser and were checked against numpy-financial, SciPy and published spreadsheet examples.