20 Highest Dividend paying stocks

I track dividend stocks in my own Robinhood portfolio, so I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out which companies actually pay you to hold them — and which ones just look good until you read the fine print.

This list is sorted highest yield to lowest, and every number here was verified in June 2026. Quick heads-up before we start: yield isn’t everything. A sky-high yield is sometimes a warning sign, not a gift.

I’ll point out where that’s the case as we go.

How dividend stocks actually work

Here’s the simple version. A dividend is a slice of a company’s profit paid out to shareholders, usually every three months. You own the stock, you get paid — whether the share price goes up, down, or sideways that quarter.

The “yield” is just the annual dividend divided by the share price. A $100 stock paying $4 a year yields 4%. Here’s the part people miss: when the share price drops, the yield goes up.

So a giant yield can actually mean the market is bracing for a dividend cut — not that you found free money.

What I look for is a company that’s paid, and ideally raised, its dividend for years through good times and bad. The SEC’s investor education site has a plain-English rundown if you want the official definition.

A long payout streak doesn’t guarantee anything, but it tells you the dividend is part of how the company is run — not a one-off it might yank next year.

Dividend payers tend to be established, profitable businesses, so they can add a little ballast to a portfolio. You can take the cash, or reinvest it and let it compound.

That second option is the part that quietly does the heavy lifting over a decade.

1. Pfizer (PFE)
Dividend Yield: 6.62%

Yeah, the COVID-vaccine company. The pandemic cash bonanza dried up and the stock fell hard — and remember, when the price falls, the yield climbs. That’s how a company this size ends up paying over 6%.

Pfizer has kept paying through the slump, but the whole case rests on its drug pipeline picking up the slack. High yield, real risk. Know what you’re buying here.

2. Verizon (VZ)
Dividend Yield: 6.06%

A boring telecom that pays you 6% to wait. Verizon has raised its dividend 21 years running, which is the kind of track record I trust more than a flashy one-year number.

The debt load is heavy and growth is slow — nobody switches carriers because they’re excited — but the cash flow funding this dividend is about as predictable as it gets.

3. Altria Group (MO)
Dividend Yield: 6.04%

Altria — Marlboro inside the U.S. — is a Dividend King with 57 straight years of increases. Cigarette volumes shrink a little every year, and yet the company keeps minting cash and handing most of it back to shareholders.

It’s not a growth story, and the moral math is yours to do. But as a pure income machine, it’s hard to ignore.

4. Realty Income (O)
Dividend Yield: 5.22%

This is the one I genuinely enjoy: Realty Income pays monthly, not quarterly, and has trademarked the nickname “The Monthly Dividend Company.” It’s a REIT that owns thousands of single-tenant properties — pharmacies, dollar stores, convenience marts — and it’s a Dividend Aristocrat that’s paid every month for decades.

If a paycheck-style dividend appeals to you, start here.

5. ONEOK (OKE)
Dividend Yield: 4.96%

ONEOK runs natural gas pipelines and processing plants — the unglamorous plumbing of the energy business. Pipelines collect fees on volume regardless of where gas prices go, which makes the cash flow steadier than a driller’s.

Just under 5% from infrastructure that isn’t going anywhere.

6. W. P. Carey (WPC)
Dividend Yield: 4.93%

Another REIT, but a different flavor than Realty Income — W. P. Carey leans into industrial, warehouse, and net-lease properties, often with rent increases tied to inflation.

It reset its dividend a couple years back after spinning off its office buildings, and has been raising it again ever since. Cleaner portfolio now, and a yield just under 5%.

7. T. Rowe Price (TROW)
Dividend Yield: 4.79%

An asset manager with a 40-year streak of dividend increases and — this is the part I like — almost no debt and a payout ratio around 55%. That means the dividend has a lot of cushion.

The business shrinks when markets fall, since they manage other people’s money, but the balance sheet is built to ride that out. Quietly one of the safest payers on this list.

8. AT&T (T)
Dividend Yield: 4.79%

Full disclosure: AT&T cut its dividend in 2022 after spinning off WarnerMedia, so it’s not the untouchable payer it once was. But the reset put it on firmer footing, and at today’s price it still yields almost 5%.

If you held it through the cut like a lot of people did, the rebuilt version is healthier than the bloated one that came before it.

9. Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY)
Dividend Yield: 4.48%

Big pharma with a 4%-plus yield and a payout ratio around 70% — covered, with room to spare. Bristol Myers faces the same patent-cliff worry as every drugmaker, but it’s been aggressive about refilling the pipeline through acquisitions.

Solid middle-of-the-list income with a real balance sheet behind it.

10. Extra Space Storage (EXR)
Dividend Yield: 4.43%

A self-storage REIT — those orange-and-white facilities you drive past. It’s a weirdly resilient business: people rent storage when they’re moving, downsizing, or just can’t part with their stuff, in good economies and bad.

Over 2,000 locations and a 4%-plus yield that’s grown steadily.

11. Simon Property Group (SPG)
Dividend Yield: 4.17%

Everybody wrote off the shopping mall a decade ago.

Simon Property — the biggest mall REIT in the country — is still here and still paying, because the top-tier malls it owns kept their foot traffic while the junky ones died off.

The dividend got trimmed during COVID and has since climbed back. A 4%-plus yield on the survivor of a brutal shakeout.

12. Chevron (CVX)
Dividend Yield: 3.95%

One of the two American oil supermajors and a Dividend Aristocrat with 39 straight years of raises.

Honest caveat: oil is cyclical, and in a down year the dividend can eat up more than the company earns — its payout ratio is over 100% right now.

Chevron covers the gap with its balance sheet, which it can afford to do because it’s run conservatively. A near-4% yield from a company built to outlast the swings.

13. Dominion Energy (D)
Dividend Yield: 3.92%

A regulated utility serving the Southeast — the kind of company that gets paid whether the economy is booming or not, because you’re going to keep the lights on either way.

Dominion reset its dividend a few years ago after reshaping the business around regulated power. Payout ratio in the high 70s, yield near 4%. Sleepy, and that’s the entire point.

14. Kinder Morgan (KMI)
Dividend Yield: 3.78%

More energy pipelines — Kinder Morgan moves a huge share of the natural gas consumed in this country. Like ONEOK, it earns fees on flow, not on the price of the commodity.

The company famously slashed its dividend back in 2015 and has spent years rebuilding trust, raising the payout steadily since. A toll-booth business yielding close to 4%.

15. U.S. Bancorp (USB)
Dividend Yield: 3.60%

A big regional bank with a conservative reputation and a payout ratio in the low 40s — meaning the dividend takes less than half of earnings.

Banks carry risk you can’t always see from the outside, but USB is one of the better-run ones, and that 43% payout gives it real breathing room.

A reasonable 3.6% if you want banking exposure that pays you to hold it.

16. First American Financial (FAF)
Dividend Yield: 3.32%

Title insurance — the unsexy paperwork that happens every time a house changes hands, and First American is one of the giants in it.

The catch: when mortgage activity dries up, so does the business, so earnings swing with the housing market. But it’s kept paying and growing the dividend through the cycles.

A 3%-plus yield from a corner of finance most people never think about.

17. Philip Morris International (PM)
Dividend Yield: 3.23%

Altria’s international sibling — it sells Marlboro everywhere outside the U.S., plus the IQOS heated-tobacco system that’s actually growing. Eighteen straight years of dividend increases since the 2008 split.

Lower yield than Altria, but a better growth story, because the international smoke-free push is putting up real numbers.

18. Devon Energy (DVN)
Dividend Yield: 2.98%

An oil and gas producer with a twist: Devon pays a base dividend plus a variable one tied to profits, so the total payout rises and falls with energy prices.

The headline yield here is the base — in a strong oil year the all-in number can run higher. Just know that the “yield” on a variable payer is a moving target, not a promise.

19. Home Depot (HD)
Dividend Yield: 2.77%

Lower yield, but Home Depot earns its spot through raw consistency — it’s raised the dividend for years and grown earnings like clockwork.

This is the trade-off near the bottom of the list: you give up some current yield for a payout that’s grown fast and looks rock-solid. If you’re younger and reinvesting, that growth can matter more than a fat starting number.

20. Lockheed Martin (LMT)
Dividend Yield: 2.58%

The world’s largest defense contractor — fighter jets, missiles, satellites. Its customer is mostly the U.S. government, which is about as reliable a payer as exists on planet Earth.

The yield is the lowest on this list at 2.6%, but the dividend has grown steadily and the order backlog stretches years out. Boring, durable, and not going anywhere.

How I’d actually use a list like this

Don’t just buy the top of the list. The highest yields here — Pfizer, Verizon, Altria — come with the most baggage, whether that’s a shaky pipeline, slow growth, or a shrinking core business.

What I actually pay attention to is the combination: a decent yield and a long history of paying it through rough patches.

That’s why names like Realty Income, T. Rowe Price, and Chevron stand out to me more than a raw 6% number does.

And spread it around. A REIT, a utility, a pipeline, a drugmaker, a couple of consumer names — if one sector hits a rough patch, the others keep paying. Concentration is how dividend investors get burned.

One practical note on the actual mechanics: I build a list like this into a single “pie” on M1 Finance and let it run.

You set your target percentages once, buy fractional shares so a high-priced name doesn’t lock you out, and switch on automatic dividend reinvestment so every payout buys more shares without you lifting a finger.

For a buy-and-hold dividend portfolio, that hands-off setup is exactly what you want.

Continue investing

The best move I made with my dividend stocks was switching to dollar-cost averaging — buying on a set schedule no matter what the price is doing, instead of trying to time the perfect entry.

If you’d rather put that on autopilot, M1 Finance can run the scheduled deposits and reinvest every dividend for you, so the compounding keeps happening whether or not you remember to log in. The dividends compound quietly in the background.

That’s the whole game.

Pick a few names you actually understand, reinvest the payouts, and let time do the work. If one stock dips, don’t panic-sell — a diversified set of payers means one bad apple won’t sink the basket.

Check out our complete investing guide

Sources & Verification

• Yahoo Finance — current dividend yields
• Morningstar — dividend research
• SEC (Investor.gov) — what dividends are
• FINRA — investing in stocks

This article is for educational purposes only and isn’t personalized financial advice. Yields were verified in June 2026 and change daily as share prices move. Always confirm the current figures and consider talking to a licensed financial advisor before investing.