What Stocks Are in the DAX 40?

What stocks are in the DAX 40? As of September 2026 the index holds 40 German blue chips, from SAP and Siemens at the top of the ranking down to Symrise and Scout24 at the bottom, selected by free float market capitalization from companies listed in the Prime Standard segment in Frankfurt. The names below are the current membership. The rest of this page covers the rules that decide it, which move far more slowly than the list does.

What stocks are in the DAX 40?

These are the 40 members as of September 2026, listed alphabetically with what each company does:

• adidas, sportswear
• Airbus, aerospace
• Allianz, insurance
• BASF, chemicals
• Bayer, pharmaceuticals and crop science
• Beiersdorf, skincare brands including Nivea
• BMW, autos
• Brenntag, chemicals distribution
• Commerzbank, banking
• Continental, auto parts
• Daimler Truck, commercial vehicles
• Deutsche Bank, banking
• Deutsche Boerse, exchange and index operator
• Deutsche Telekom, telecoms
• DHL Group, logistics and parcels
• E.ON, power grids and retail energy
• Fresenius, hospitals and healthcare services
• Fresenius Medical Care, dialysis
• Hannover Re, reinsurance
• Heidelberg Materials, cement and aggregates
• Henkel, adhesives and consumer brands
• Infineon, semiconductors
• Mercedes-Benz Group, autos
• Merck KGaA, pharmaceuticals and lab supplies
• MTU Aero Engines, aircraft engines
• Munich Re, reinsurance
• Porsche AG, autos
• Porsche Automobil Holding, holding company
• Qiagen, diagnostics
• Rheinmetall, defense
• RWE, power generation
• SAP, enterprise software
• Sartorius, bioprocessing equipment
• Scout24, online marketplaces
• Siemens, industrials and automation
• Siemens Energy, energy equipment
• Siemens Healthineers, medical imaging
• Symrise, flavors and fragrances
• Vonovia, residential property
• Zalando, online fashion

Membership is not permanent, and any list of it is a snapshot with a date attached. Two members are registered outside Germany and qualify through a trading focus on Xetra, the Frankfurt electronic order book, rather than through a German legal domicile. The verification section near the end of this page shows how to confirm the composition on the day you read it.

How are DAX weights calculated?

The DAX is weighted by free float market capitalization. Market capitalization is share count times share price. Free float narrows that share count to what is genuinely available to public investors, stripping out blocks held by founding families, governments, other corporations and any strategic holder above the reporting threshold. A family that owns 45 percent of a member takes that 45 percent out of the weighting, which is why a large company with a tight shareholder register can rank below a smaller one whose shares are widely held.

One rule sits on top of the arithmetic: no single member may carry more than 15 percent of the index. The administrator recalculates capping factors at the quarterly chaining dates, trims anything above the ceiling, and spreads the trimmed weight pro rata across the members sitting below it. Without a cap, a single very large member can come to dominate the index level on its own.

The panel below uses eight US household names, since the cap arithmetic has the same shape wherever the rule is applied. It shows the mechanic on figures that refresh on their own, and it carries no DAX weights.

WITH latest AS
(
    SELECT
        ticker,
        argMax(toFloat64(market_cap), date) AS mcap,
        max(date)                           AS as_of
    FROM global_markets.stocks_ratios
    WHERE ticker IN ('AAPL', 'MSFT', 'NVDA', 'AMZN', 'JPM', 'JNJ', 'PG', 'KO')
      AND date >= today() - 400
      AND market_cap > 0
    GROUP BY ticker
),
basket AS
(
    SELECT sum(mcap) AS total
    FROM latest
)
SELECT
    l.ticker                                           AS symbol,
    formatDateTime(l.as_of, '%b %e, %Y')               AS as_of_label,
    round(100 * l.mcap / b.total, 2)                   AS weight_pct,
    round(greatest(100 * l.mcap / b.total - 15, 0), 2) AS over_cap_pct
FROM latest AS l
CROSS JOIN basket AS b
ORDER BY weight_pct DESC

Measured on the market values on file as of Sep 25, 2026, the biggest of the eight names carries 28.27 percent of the basket, which sits 13.27 points above a 15 percent ceiling. A DAX style cap cuts that back to 15 and hands the difference to the members further down the chart, the smallest of which carries 1.77 percent. US index families run their own versions of the same machinery, and one of them is laid out in how QQQ holdings are weighted.

What does a company need to join the DAX 40?

The September 2021 reform took the index from 30 members to 40 and added entry tests a candidate has to clear before its size counts at all:

• A Prime Standard listing with continuous trading on Xetra.
• A free float of at least 10 percent.
• A minimum level of order book liquidity, which replaced the older ranking by trading volume.
• Positive EBITDA in each of the two most recent annual financial statements. EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a rough stand-in for operating profitability.
• An audit committee on the supervisory board, with annual reports and quarterly statements published on time.

Candidates that clear those gates are ranked on free float market capitalization alone. The old practice of blending size with trading turnover is gone. The index administrator, STOXX, a Deutsche Boerse company, reviews the regular composition twice a year, in March and September, and checks the accelerated rules at each of the four quarterly review dates.

How does DAX membership change between reviews?

Two accelerated mechanics move names outside the regular review:

• Fast exit. A member that falls far enough down the free float ranking leaves at the next quarterly review instead of waiting for March or September. A missed reporting deadline or an insolvency filing starts a shorter clock than that.
• Fast entry. A candidate that has cleared the entry tests and ranks high enough on free float market capitalization joins at the next quarterly review.

A completed takeover or a delisting forces a change at any point in the calendar, with a replacement named on short notice. That is the everyday reason a DAX list copied from an older page goes stale: one member has been acquired and its successor arrived between reviews.

Is the DAX a total return index?

Yes, and this one fact reframes every DAX chart a reader has seen. The headline DAX is a performance index: dividends paid by its members are added back into the index level as though reinvested. The S&P 500 level quoted in the financial press is a price index, which leaves dividends out entirely. Setting the two levels side by side, or comparing their long run growth, measures a number that includes dividend income against a number that excludes it. Our price return vs total return explainer works through the arithmetic.

The DAX has a price return sibling for exactly this reason: the DAX Kursindex. Same 40 members, same free float weights, no dividend reinvestment. The performance index was set to 1,000 points at the end of December 1987, and the distance between it and the Kursindex today is what reinvested dividends have added since. In a Germany against US comparison, the Kursindex is the matching series for a price index, and a total return version of the US index is the matching series for the headline DAX.

German dividends usually land once a year

Reinvestment happens on each member's ex dividend date, the day a buyer no longer receives the upcoming payment. German payment calendars are lumpier than US ones. Most DAX members pay a single annual dividend after the annual general meeting in spring, while a typical US large cap pays every quarter. The panel counts dividend dates on the US listed line of SAP, the largest DAX member, against Coca-Cola.

SELECT
    toString(toYear(ex_dividend_date))                AS year,
    countDistinctIf(ex_dividend_date, ticker = 'SAP') AS sap_dividend_dates,
    countDistinctIf(ex_dividend_date, ticker = 'KO')  AS ko_dividend_dates
FROM global_markets.stocks_dividends
WHERE ticker IN ('SAP', 'KO')
  AND ex_dividend_date >= '2016-01-01'
  AND ex_dividend_date <  '2026-01-01'
GROUP BY year
ORDER BY year

The split holds across all 10 years in the panel. For 2025, the SAP count was 1 and the Coca-Cola count was 4. For an index that reinvests, this means the German contribution arrives in one annual lump per member rather than in four instalments, clustered in the spring meeting season.

What dividends add to a member's return

Each ex dividend date is a point where a performance index adds cash back and a price index does not. The panel below splits the US listed SAP line into those two pieces for every calendar year from 2016 onward: the price move from that year's first close, and the dividends paid during the year measured against the same first close.

WITH yearly AS
(
    SELECT
        toYear(date)                   AS fiscal_y,
        argMin(toFloat64(close), date) AS first_close,
        argMax(toFloat64(close), date) AS last_close
    FROM global_markets.stocks_daily_aggs
    WHERE ticker = 'SAP'
      AND date >= '2016-01-01'
      AND date <  '2026-01-01'
    GROUP BY fiscal_y
),
cash AS
(
    SELECT
        toYear(ex_dividend_date)    AS fiscal_y,
        sum(toFloat64(cash_amount)) AS dividends
    FROM global_markets.stocks_dividends
    WHERE ticker = 'SAP'
      AND ex_dividend_date >= '2016-01-01'
      AND ex_dividend_date <  '2026-01-01'
    GROUP BY fiscal_y
)
SELECT
    toString(y.fiscal_y)                                                         AS year,
    round(100 * (y.last_close - y.first_close) / y.first_close, 2)               AS price_return_pct,
    round(100 * c.dividends / y.first_close, 2)                                  AS dividend_pct,
    round(100 * (y.last_close - y.first_close + c.dividends) / y.first_close, 2) AS total_return_pct
FROM yearly AS y
LEFT JOIN cash AS c ON c.fiscal_y = y.fiscal_y
ORDER BY year

In 2025 the price line moved -0.09 percent, the dividend added 1.08 points, and the two together came to 1 percent. Any single year's dividend column looks minor next to its price column. Across the 10 years in the panel those columns get reinvested and compound on each other, and that compounding is the whole distance between the DAX and its Kursindex.

How to check current DAX membership yourself

• The index administrator publishes the composition file and an announcement for every review decision. That is the authority. Everything else is a copy of it with a lag.
• An ETF tracking the DAX publishes its holdings daily. Those files carry the same 40 names with current weights, and they update after each chaining date without waiting for anyone to edit a web page.
• Review decisions are announced ahead of the quarterly chaining date in March, June, September and December, and take effect after the close on that date.

For readers who follow the index itself rather than its members, the contract mechanics sit on their own pages: DAX futures contract specs and DAX daily options. The sessions and closures those instruments trade inside are listed in our Xetra trading hours and holidays guide.

FAQ

How many stocks are in the DAX?

40, since the reform that took effect in September 2021. The index held 30 members from its launch until then, which is why older charts and textbooks refer to the DAX 30.

Is the DAX a price index or a total return index?

The headline DAX is a total return index, known as a performance index: it reinvests member dividends into the index level. The price return version is published separately as the DAX Kursindex. Comparing the headline DAX against a price index such as the quoted S&P 500 level overstates Germany by the accumulated dividends.

What is the largest stock in the DAX?

SAP has carried the largest weight in recent years, and the current ranking sits in the administrator's composition file. Whatever name is at the top, the 15 percent cap limits how much of the index any one member can represent after the quarterly capping run.

Can a company outside Germany be in the DAX?

Yes. A candidate registered in another EU or EFTA country can qualify when its trading focus is on Xetra and it meets the other entry tests, which is how a small number of non German registered members sit in the index today.

How often does DAX membership change?

The regular composition review happens twice a year, in March and September, with the accelerated entry and exit rules checked at four quarterly dates. A quiet year passes with no change at all, and an eventful one turns over a handful of names.

Every panel here carries the exact SQL underneath it, so any figure above can be recounted line by line. To run the same dividend and weighting checks on a company you follow, ask the question in plain English on the Strasmore terminal.