By Highest Dividend Yield US Stocks in 2026
The highest dividend yield US stocks are mostly prices that fell. See the screen, the payout ratios beside each yield, and how often the payout gets cut.
The highest dividend yield US stocks are usually the ones whose share prices fell the furthest. Dividend yield is the annual dividend per share divided by the share price, and the price changes every second while the payout changes a few times a decade. Any ranking sorted by yield is mostly a ranking of its denominator.
This page runs that screen over US-listed operating companies and puts two columns beside every yield: the payout ratio, and the change in cash actually paid over the last twelve months. The yield trap is then visible in the table itself instead of being asserted in prose.
The highest dividend yield US stocks, screened
The screen takes the latest snapshot on file for every US-listed company worth $2 billion or more, trading at $5 a share or higher, carrying a positive trailing dividend yield and positive trailing earnings per share. It ranks the top 15. Beside each name sit the payout ratio (the annual dividend as a percentage of earnings per share) and the change in cash paid over the trailing twelve months against the twelve months before it.
The exact SQL behind every number
WITH snapshot AS (
SELECT ticker,
toFloat64(dividend_yield) * 100 AS yield_pct,
toFloat64(price) AS price_usd,
toFloat64(dividend_yield) * toFloat64(price) AS annual_dividend,
toFloat64(earnings_per_share) AS eps
FROM global_markets.stocks_ratios
WHERE date = (SELECT max(date) FROM global_markets.stocks_ratios)
AND price >= 5
AND market_cap >= 2000000000
AND dividend_yield > 0
AND earnings_per_share > 0
),
payments AS (
SELECT ticker,
sumIf(toFloat64(cash_amount), ex_dividend_date > today() - INTERVAL 1 YEAR) AS ttm_paid,
sumIf(toFloat64(cash_amount), ex_dividend_date <= today() - INTERVAL 1 YEAR
AND ex_dividend_date > today() - INTERVAL 2 YEAR) AS prior_paid
FROM global_markets.stocks_dividends
WHERE distribution_type = 'recurring'
AND cash_amount > 0
AND ex_dividend_date > today() - INTERVAL 2 YEAR
AND ex_dividend_date <= today()
GROUP BY ticker
HAVING ttm_paid > 0 AND prior_paid > 0
)
SELECT s.ticker AS ticker,
round(s.yield_pct, 2) AS dividend_yield_pct,
round(s.annual_dividend / s.eps * 100, 0) AS payout_ratio,
round(100 * (p.ttm_paid - p.prior_paid) / p.prior_paid, 1) AS dividend_change_1y_pct,
round(s.price_usd, 2) AS share_price
FROM snapshot AS s
INNER JOIN payments AS p ON s.ticker = p.ticker
ORDER BY dividend_yield_pct DESC
LIMIT 15The list spans 20.95% at the top down to 11.55% at the bottom of 15 rows. Every reading on that page clears the typical US payer by a wide margin, and the two columns to the right of the yield show how each name arrived there.
Start with the payout ratio. The leader's reads 1948%, the share of its earnings per share that the annual dividend consumes. A number near 100 means the whole of reported profit goes out the door. A number above 100 means the check is larger than the earnings behind it, funded from cash on hand, asset sales, or borrowing. The dividend payout ratio guide walks through what that figure does and does not capture.
Then the change column, which answers what the yield alone cannot: did the payout itself grow? The top name's trailing twelve months of cash dividends came in 18.3% against the prior twelve months. A yield climbs perfectly well on a flat or shrinking payout, provided the price falls faster.
Treat the constituents as disposable. This table is recomputed at every publish, and names leave it after a price recovery or a dividend cut, either of which shrinks the ratio. The pattern is the durable part of the page.
Why the top of a yield table is a list of fallen prices
Sorting the whole payer universe into yield bands shows the same mechanism at population scale. The two right-hand columns count what happened to the cash: the share of each band that paid less over the last twelve months than over the twelve months before, and the share that paid more.
The exact SQL behind every number
WITH snapshot AS (
SELECT ticker,
toFloat64(dividend_yield) * 100 AS yield_pct,
toFloat64(dividend_yield) * toFloat64(price) AS annual_dividend,
toFloat64(earnings_per_share) AS eps
FROM global_markets.stocks_ratios
WHERE date = (SELECT max(date) FROM global_markets.stocks_ratios)
AND price >= 5
AND market_cap >= 2000000000
AND dividend_yield > 0
AND earnings_per_share IS NOT NULL
),
payments AS (
SELECT ticker,
sumIf(toFloat64(cash_amount), ex_dividend_date > today() - INTERVAL 1 YEAR) AS ttm_paid,
sumIf(toFloat64(cash_amount), ex_dividend_date <= today() - INTERVAL 1 YEAR
AND ex_dividend_date > today() - INTERVAL 2 YEAR) AS prior_paid
FROM global_markets.stocks_dividends
WHERE distribution_type = 'recurring'
AND cash_amount > 0
AND ex_dividend_date > today() - INTERVAL 2 YEAR
AND ex_dividend_date <= today()
GROUP BY ticker
HAVING ttm_paid > 0 AND prior_paid > 0
)
SELECT multiIf(s.yield_pct >= 8, '8% and up',
s.yield_pct >= 5, '5-8%',
s.yield_pct >= 2.5, '2.5-5%',
'under 2.5%') AS yield_band,
count() AS companies,
round(quantileDeterministic(0.5)(s.yield_pct, cityHash64(s.ticker)), 2) AS median_yield_pct,
round(quantileDeterministicIf(0.5)(s.annual_dividend / s.eps * 100,
cityHash64(s.ticker), s.eps > 0), 0) AS median_payout_ratio,
round(100 * countIf(p.ttm_paid < p.prior_paid * 0.99) / count(), 1) AS pct_paid_less_than_year_before,
round(100 * countIf(p.ttm_paid > p.prior_paid * 1.01) / count(), 1) AS pct_paid_more_than_year_before
FROM snapshot AS s
INNER JOIN payments AS p ON s.ticker = p.ticker
GROUP BY yield_band
HAVING countIf(s.eps > 0) > 0
ORDER BY median_yield_pctRead the first and last rows against each other. Median yield runs from 1.14% in the under 2.5% band to 10.91% in the 8% and up band, across 580 and 32 companies respectively. The median payout ratio moves with it: 27% in the low band against 124% in the high one.
The cash columns separate the two groups further. In the under 2.5% band, 77.6% of companies paid more over the last twelve months than over the twelve before, and 5.5% paid less. In the 8% and up band those figures are 34.4% and 40.6%. A high yield attached to a rising payout is a different animal from a high yield attached to a shrinking one, and the yield column cannot tell them apart. Dividend cuts covers what tends to precede the reduction, and what counts as a good dividend yield sets the market-wide median these bands sit around. Against the risk-free alternative, dividend yield versus Treasury yields tracks the same comparison over a decade.
How rare is a double-digit dividend yield?
Each rung below counts the companies at or above a yield floor, with the median payout ratio of the group and the share carrying no positive earnings at all. Loss-making names are kept in this view, which is where the difference between the rungs shows up.
The exact SQL behind every number
WITH snapshot AS (
SELECT ticker,
toFloat64(dividend_yield) * 100 AS yield_pct,
toFloat64(dividend_yield) * toFloat64(price) AS annual_dividend,
toFloat64(earnings_per_share) AS eps
FROM global_markets.stocks_ratios
WHERE date = (SELECT max(date) FROM global_markets.stocks_ratios)
AND price >= 5
AND market_cap >= 2000000000
AND dividend_yield > 0
AND earnings_per_share IS NOT NULL
),
rungs AS (
SELECT arrayJoin([2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 15]) AS min_yield_pct
)
SELECT concat(toString(r.min_yield_pct), '% and up') AS yield_floor,
count() AS companies,
round(quantileDeterministicIf(0.5)(s.annual_dividend / s.eps * 100,
cityHash64(s.ticker), s.eps > 0), 0) AS median_payout_ratio,
round(100 * countIf(s.eps <= 0) / count(), 1) AS pct_no_positive_eps
FROM rungs AS r, snapshot AS s
WHERE s.yield_pct >= r.min_yield_pct
GROUP BY r.min_yield_pct
HAVING countIf(s.eps > 0) > 0
ORDER BY r.min_yield_pct535 companies clear the 2% and up rung. Only 10 clear 15% and up, across 8 rungs in total. The median payout ratio at the first rung is 63%, against 968% at the last, and the share with no positive earnings moves from 9.5% to 10%.
Scarcity is the useful reading here. The tail thins fast, and the companies still standing in it look progressively less like the ones lower down the ladder. That is the population-level version of what the top 15 shows one row at a time.
What a yield trap looks like month by month
A yield trap is a high yield that arrives with a falling price rather than a growing payout. The clearest way to see one is to hold a single name still and watch the three numbers move together. Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) over 24 months, from July 2022 through June 2024, a window pinned in the past so these figures never refresh:
The exact SQL behind every number
WITH px AS (
SELECT toStartOfMonth(toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'))) AS month_start,
argMax(close, window_start) AS price,
max(toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'))) AS last_day
FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
WHERE ticker = 'WBA'
AND toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) >= toDate('2022-07-01')
AND toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) <= toDate('2024-06-30')
AND (toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) * 60
+ toMinute(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'))) BETWEEN 570 AND 959
GROUP BY month_start
),
dv AS (
SELECT ex_dividend_date, cash_amount
FROM global_markets.stocks_dividends
WHERE ticker = 'WBA'
AND distribution_type = 'recurring'
AND frequency = 4
AND cash_amount > 0
AND ex_dividend_date >= toDate('2021-06-01')
)
SELECT formatDateTime(px.month_start, '%Y-%m') AS month,
formatDateTimeInJodaSyntax(px.month_start, 'MMMM yyyy') AS month_label,
round(any(px.price), 2) AS price,
round(argMax(dv.cash_amount, dv.ex_dividend_date), 2) AS quarterly_dividend_usd,
round(toFloat64(argMax(dv.cash_amount, dv.ex_dividend_date)) * 4
/ toFloat64(any(px.price)) * 100, 2) AS dividend_yield_pct
FROM px, dv
WHERE dv.ex_dividend_date <= px.last_day
GROUP BY px.month_start
ORDER BY px.month_startIn July 2022 the quarterly payment was $0.48 against a share price of $39.62, a yield of 4.82%. By June 2024 the quarterly payment was $0.25 and the price was $12.1, a yield of 8.27%. The payout shrank over those 24 months and the yield still finished higher.
That is the whole trap in one series. A screener sorted by yield surfaced this name near the top for most of the stretch, and the yield column recorded none of the price path underneath it. Showing the payout ratio and the payment history beside the yield is what turns a ranking into something a reader can interrogate.
How to reproduce this screen
- US-listed names only, from the latest fundamentals snapshot on file.
- Funds are out of the universe. The screen requires a reported earnings-per-share figure, which leaves out exchange-traded and closed-end funds: their distributions come from portfolio income and capital, not from company earnings, and a payout ratio against EPS says nothing about them.
- Floors of $5 a share and $2 billion of market value. Sub-$5 names trade with wider spreads and thinner books, and a yield computed on a $1.20 quote swings several points on a one-cent tick.
- REITs and ordinary operating companies are ranked together. A REIT's payout ratio against reported earnings routinely runs above 100%, since depreciation charges push accounting earnings below the cash the properties throw off. Analysts judge them on funds from operations instead, so read a REIT row's payout ratio with that adjustment in mind.
- The 15-name ranking keeps only positive trailing earnings. The band and rung tables keep loss-makers, which is where the share with no positive earnings is reported.
- The dividend-change column compares twelve months of cash to the twelve before. Payment timing can put five checks in one window and three in another, which moves that column without any change to the declared rate.
- This is a US screen. A reader after an A-share dividend yield ranking wants Shanghai and Shenzhen listings, which sit outside this data entirely. Nothing on this page stands in for that ranking.
One definitional note before the FAQ. The yields here are trailing snapshot readings, not annualized forward estimates, and the two differ for any company that changed its payment inside the year. How dividend yield is calculated covers the arithmetic, and trailing versus forward dividend yield explains why two sites quote different numbers for the same stock on the same day.
Highest dividend yield FAQ
What is the highest dividend yield stock in the US right now?
At the latest snapshot on file, the top of this screen yields 20.95%, with 15 names listed down to 11.55%. The specific name turns over at every recompute, which is why the screen is published rather than a ticker.
Is a double-digit dividend yield too good to be true?
It is rare rather than impossible. Only 10 US-listed companies above $2 billion clear the 15% and up rung, their median payout ratio is 968%, and 10% of that group has no positive trailing earnings.
Why do the highest dividend yield stocks change so often?
The denominator is a live price. A name leaves the ranking once its price recovers or its board reduces the payment, and a reduction often ends a long stretch near the top of the table.
Does a high dividend yield mean the dividend is safe?
The yield on its own says nothing about safety. In the 8% and up band the median payout ratio is 124%, and 40.6% of the group paid less cash over the last twelve months than over the twelve before.
Does this ranking cover A-share dividend yields?
No. It covers US-listed companies only. An A-share dividend yield ranking draws on Shanghai and Shenzhen listings, and none of those figures appear anywhere on this page.
Every figure above is a stored, versioned query over filed dividend records and reported fundamentals. Open any panel's SQL, or rebuild the screen with your own floors on the Strasmore terminal.