S&P 500
IndexS&P 500 dividend yield: 1.06%
The S&P 500 yields 1.06% (as of market close, Sep 4, 2026) — the weighted average of every member's indicated dividend yield, non-payers at zero. The comparable trailing-cash reading is 1.05%, lower than 99.89% of all months since 1871 (long-run median 4.18%) — partly rich valuations, partly the buyback era: much of today's cash return never appears in a yield figure.
Dividend yield since 1871#
- Long-run median
- 4.18%
- Long-run mean
- 4.20%
- Highest
- 13.84% · Jun 1932
- Lowest
- 1.05% · May 2026
Blue: trailing 12-month dividends ÷ price — Shiller data through Jun 2023, then SPY cash distributions ÷ price, level-matched once at the join and updated through Sep 4, 2026. The dashed green line is today's separate bottom-up indicated-yield estimate.
The same history as a distribution
Every month since 1871, binned by its yield — the green bin is where today sits (hover a bar for its count and example periods).
Yield isn't the whole payout anymore#
Since the 1980s, buybacks have grown into a cash return as large as dividends — often larger. A company repurchasing 3% of its shares returns cash just as surely as one paying a 3% dividend, but only the latter shows up here. That's why comparing today's 1.06% against the pre-1980 chart overstates how "stingy" the modern index is. We measure the combined figure from actual SEC cash-flow filings on the shareholder yield list (dividends + net buybacks ÷ market cap), and the pure-income ranking on the highest dividend stocks list.
FAQ#
- What is the S&P 500's dividend yield?
- About 1.06% — the weighted average of every member's indicated dividend yield (non-payers counted at zero), updated daily.
- Why is the yield low by historical standards?
- Two reasons. Valuations are high (yield is dividends ÷ price, so expensive markets mechanically yield less), and since the 1980s companies have shifted cash returns from dividends to share buybacks, which don't show up in yield at all. The long-run median yield is 4.18%; today's comparable trailing yield of 1.05% sits lower than 99.89% of history — but adding buybacks, total cash returned to shareholders is far closer to historical norms.
- Which S&P 500 stocks pay the highest dividends?
- See our highest-dividend-stocks list — the fattest verified yields, each cross-checked against price data to confirm the dividend was actually paid. For dividends plus buybacks combined, the shareholder-yield list ranks total cash returned to owners from SEC cash-flow filings.
Notes & related#
Current yield: weighted average of members' indicated dividend yields (Twelve Data snapshot), index weights from the tracking fund's SEC N-PORT filing rolled forward daily; refreshed with each market close. Blue history: Robert Shiller's trailing yield through June 2023, continued with SPY's trailing cash distributions divided by price and one-time level matching at the overlap. The green indicated yield remains separate rather than being spliced into that history. Not investment advice.
ChartRow is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, S&P Global, or Nasdaq, Inc. "S&P 500®" and "Dow Jones®" are registered trademarks of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC; "Nasdaq-100®" is a registered trademark of Nasdaq, Inc. They are used here only to identify the indexes discussed. All index-related figures on this page are independently derived from public sources — SEC filings, Robert Shiller's public dataset, and our own computations — not from any index provider's data feed.