SCHD vs VOO: Why the Dividend Yields Differ

The SCHD vs VOO dividend yield gap is set by index rules, and it is wide enough to see at a glance. Both funds hold large US companies, and both distribute cash on a quarterly calendar. SCHD tracks an index that screens for long-running dividend payers and weights them by the size of their payouts, while VOO tracks the S&P 500 and weights each holding by market value. The panels below measure the gap over the past year, then separate the two different yield figures a fund company publishes for the same fund.

Why the SCHD vs VOO dividend yields differ

VOO holds the S&P 500 in float-adjusted market-value order: the larger a company's tradable market value, the larger its slice of the fund. Whether that company pays a dividend has no bearing on its inclusion or its weight. The heaviest US companies sit in technology and communications, and several of them pay a token dividend or none at all, which pulls the fund's yield toward the low end of the market.

SCHD tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 Index, which starts from a far narrower pool. A company qualifies only after ten consecutive years of dividend payments and after clearing minimums on size and traded volume. Survivors are ranked on four measures: cash flow to total debt, return on equity, dividend yield, and five-year dividend growth. The names that make the cut are weighted by the dollar value of the dividends they pay, with caps on any one stock and any one sector. Yield sits inside the selection rule itself, and the basket that falls out carries a higher yield by construction.

Funds that readers routinely compare, ranked by trailing twelve-month distributions divided by the latest price on file:

WITH px AS (
    SELECT ticker,
           argMax(close, window_start) AS price
    FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
    WHERE ticker IN ('SCHD', 'VOO', 'VYM', 'SPYD', 'DGRO', 'VIG', 'NOBL')
      AND window_start >= now() - INTERVAL 7 DAY
      AND (toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) * 60
           + toMinute(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'))) BETWEEN 570 AND 959
    GROUP BY ticker
),
dv AS (
    SELECT ticker,
           sum(cash_amount) AS ttm_distributions,
           count() AS payments
    FROM global_markets.stocks_dividends
    WHERE ticker IN ('SCHD', 'VOO', 'VYM', 'SPYD', 'DGRO', 'VIG', 'NOBL')
      AND ex_dividend_date > today() - INTERVAL 1 YEAR
      AND ex_dividend_date <= today()
      AND cash_amount > 0
    GROUP BY ticker
)
SELECT px.ticker AS ticker,
       round(px.price, 2) AS price,
       round(dv.ttm_distributions, 3) AS ttm_distributions_usd,
       dv.payments AS payments,
       round(dv.ttm_distributions / px.price * 100, 2) AS trailing_yield_pct
FROM px
INNER JOIN dv ON px.ticker = dv.ticker
ORDER BY trailing_yield_pct DESC

The spread runs from SPYD at 4.1% down to VOO at 1.07%, across 7 funds that all hold large US stocks. The calculation is the plainest version there is: add up every distribution paid over the past year, divide by today's price. It is the same arithmetic as dividend yield on a single stock, applied to a basket.

How wide is the SCHD vs VOO yield gap?

One snapshot hides the motion. Here are twelve consecutive month-ends, each annualizing the fund's most recent quarterly payment as of that date and dividing by that month's closing price.

WITH px AS (
    SELECT ticker,
           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 IN ('SCHD', 'VOO')
      AND toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) >= toDate('2025-08-01')
      AND toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) <= toDate('2026-07-31')
      AND (toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) * 60
           + toMinute(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'))) BETWEEN 570 AND 959
    GROUP BY ticker, month_start
),
dv AS (
    SELECT ticker, ex_dividend_date, cash_amount
    FROM global_markets.stocks_dividends
    WHERE ticker IN ('SCHD', 'VOO')
      AND cash_amount > 0
      AND ex_dividend_date >= toDate('2024-12-01')
),
latest AS (
    SELECT px.ticker AS ticker,
           px.month_start AS month_start,
           any(px.price) AS price,
           argMax(dv.cash_amount, dv.ex_dividend_date) AS latest_payment
    FROM px, dv
    WHERE px.ticker = dv.ticker
      AND dv.ex_dividend_date <= px.last_day
    GROUP BY px.ticker, px.month_start
)
SELECT formatDateTime(month_start, '%Y-%m') AS month,
       formatDateTimeInJodaSyntax(month_start, 'MMMM yyyy') AS month_label,
       round(sumIf(latest_payment * 4 / price * 100, ticker = 'SCHD'), 2) AS schd_yield_pct,
       round(sumIf(latest_payment * 4 / price * 100, ticker = 'VOO'), 2) AS voo_yield_pct,
       round(sumIf(latest_payment * 4 / price * 100, ticker = 'SCHD')
             - sumIf(latest_payment * 4 / price * 100, ticker = 'VOO'), 2) AS gap_pct
FROM latest
GROUP BY month_start
ORDER BY month_start

At August 2025 the two sat 2.55 points apart, SCHD at 3.73% against VOO at 1.18%. At July 2026 the gap measured 1.87 points, with SCHD at 3.01% and VOO at 1.15%.

Notice that this chart and the table above it use different conventions for the same idea. The table sums the four payments a fund actually made. The chart annualizes the most recent single payment. Both get called a distribution yield, and the two rarely land on the same decimal. A quoted yield is only as clear as the convention behind it.

Both lines step and drift for a mechanical reason: the numerator changes four times a year, the denominator changes every session. A fund's quoted yield can climb through a week in which not one holding raised its dividend, since a falling price alone lifts the ratio. What counts as a good dividend yield works through that trap at the single-stock level.

Distribution yield vs 30-day SEC yield

Two yields get published for the same fund, and the distance between them accounts for most of the confusion readers bring to this comparison.

Distribution yield, often labeled trailing twelve-month yield, sums the cash actually paid out over the past year and divides by the current price. It looks backward. Every figure in the panels here is this kind.

30-day SEC yield is a standardized formula that the Securities and Exchange Commission requires in fund advertising. It takes the income the fund's holdings earned over the most recent 30 days, subtracts fund expenses, and annualizes the result. It is a closer read on what the current portfolio earns, and since every fund company computes it identically, it is the figure that compares two funds fairly.

The two can differ noticeably on the same fund on the same day. A fund whose holdings have recently raised their payouts tends to show an SEC yield above its trailing distribution yield. A fund with a lumpy payment calendar can show the reverse.

Where to check them: Schwab publishes SCHD's distribution history and its 30-day SEC yield on the fund's own product page, stamped to a month-end, and Vanguard publishes the same pair for VOO. Both restate the figure monthly, which makes the date beside the number as important as the number.

What a dividend screen selects

The construction difference shows up in the holdings. Six of the heaviest weights in a market-value-ranked US index sit here beside six names a dividend screen routinely surfaces, each with its latest yield on file:

SELECT ticker,
       any(if(ticker IN ('NVDA', 'MSFT', 'AAPL', 'AMZN', 'META', 'GOOGL'),
              'S&P 500 top weights', 'Dividend screen staples')) AS cohort,
       round(argMax(ifNull(dividend_yield, 0), date) * 100, 2) AS dividend_yield_pct,
       round(argMax(ifNull(dividend_yield, 0) * price, date), 2) AS annual_dividend_usd
FROM global_markets.stocks_ratios
WHERE ticker IN ('NVDA', 'MSFT', 'AAPL', 'AMZN', 'META', 'GOOGL',
                 'KO', 'PEP', 'CVX', 'MRK', 'ABBV', 'VZ')
  AND date = (SELECT max(date) FROM global_markets.stocks_ratios)
GROUP BY ticker
ORDER BY dividend_yield_pct DESC

VZ leads the 12 names at 5.99%, in the Dividend screen staples group, while AMZN pays 0% on the same snapshot. A market-value-weighted fund owns every name on this list in proportion to size. A dividend-weighted fund owns the payers in proportion to the dollars they hand out. One market, two very different income streams.

Ten consecutive years of payments is a demanding screen, and dividend growth champions covers the companies clearing far longer streaks.

When the cash actually arrives

Six quarters of per-share distributions, on the current share basis:

WITH q AS (
    SELECT toStartOfQuarter(ex_dividend_date) AS quarter_start,
           ticker,
           cash_amount
    FROM global_markets.stocks_dividends
    WHERE ticker IN ('SCHD', 'VOO')
      AND cash_amount > 0
      AND ex_dividend_date >= toDate('2025-01-01')
      AND ex_dividend_date < toDate('2026-07-01')
)
SELECT concat('Q', toString(toQuarter(quarter_start)), ' ', toString(toYear(quarter_start))) AS quarter,
       round(sumIf(cash_amount, ticker = 'SCHD'), 4) AS schd_cash_usd,
       round(sumIf(cash_amount, ticker = 'VOO'), 4) AS voo_cash_usd
FROM q
GROUP BY quarter_start
ORDER BY quarter_start

SCHD's quarterly payment ran $0.2488 a share in Q1 2025 and $0.2525 in Q2 2026. VOO's ran $1.8121 and $1.9622 across the same two quarters. Those per-share dollars say nothing when set against each other, since the two funds trade at very different share prices. That is the whole reason yield exists: dividing by price puts both on one scale.

Payments also vary from quarter to quarter, which is why a yield built from one annualized payment wobbles while a trailing-year yield smooths. To receive any of it, a holder owns the fund before its ex-dividend date, the first session on which the fund trades without the upcoming payment attached. The ex-dividend date timeline walks through the sequence, and monthly dividend payers covers the funds and stocks running a twelve-payment calendar instead.

What the screen gives up

A rule demanding a decade of unbroken payments removes most companies that have never paid one, and that removal takes out much of the technology and consumer internet cohort sitting at the top of a market-value-weighted index. What remains leans toward consumer staples, energy, healthcare, and industrials. Higher current income and narrower exposure are the same sentence read twice.

One more mechanic worth holding on to. A distribution is paid out of the fund's own value: on the ex-dividend date the fund's price is reduced by the amount distributed. A yield describes a schedule for moving money from the fund to the holder. A dividend screen is also only one way a fund raises its published distribution, and covered call ETFs reach a far higher figure through option premium, with trade-offs of their own.

SCHD vs VOO dividend yield FAQ

Why is SCHD's dividend yield higher than VOO's?

Index rules. SCHD's index screens for companies with a decade of dividend payments and weights holdings by the dollars they distribute, while VOO holds the S&P 500 weighted by market value with no dividend test at all. At the latest month-end measured here the two sat 1.87 points apart.

Is the 30-day SEC yield the same as the dividend yield?

No. Distribution yield sums cash already paid over the past year against today's price. The 30-day SEC yield annualizes the income the current portfolio earned over the past 30 days, net of expenses, on a formula every fund company applies identically.

Do SCHD and VOO pay dividends monthly?

Both run a quarterly calendar, as the payment panel shows: 6 quarters, one distribution each. Ownership before the ex-dividend date is what qualifies a holder for each payment.

Does a higher dividend yield mean a higher total return?

Yield measures cash distributed against price, and nothing else. A distribution reduces the fund's value by the amount paid on the ex-dividend date, and total return depends on price change and distributions together.

Where can I find the current SCHD and VOO yields?

Each fund company publishes both figures on its own product page: Schwab for SCHD, Vanguard for VOO. Check the date stamp beside the yield, since the SEC figure is restated monthly while the distribution figure moves with price every session.

Every number above is a stored query over filed distribution records and real prices. Open any panel's SQL, or run the same comparison across other funds on the Strasmore terminal.