Dividend yield calculator
Trailing and forward dividend yield, dividend cover and the payout ratio from one price — and what the yield is actually worth to you after income tax, because a yield is quoted before tax and the tax is not a property of the share.
Calculator
Add up everything actually paid — an interim and a final for most UK companies, four payments for most investment trusts, and any special dividend if you want it counted. Quoting only one of two payments halves the answer.
What the company has declared, or what analysts expect. This is somebody’s estimate rather than a fact, and it is the figure that already reflects a cut when one is coming. Set it equal to the trailing figure if you have no view.
Only used for the yield-on-cost line. Leave it equal to today’s price if you do not own the share yet.
Salary, pension, rental profit — everything that is not a dividend. Dividends are the top slice of income, so this is what decides the rate the next one meets.
Everything from every holding, before this one. It is what places the next pound of dividend income in the bands — and while you are still inside the dividend allowance, the next pound is free.
Dividends are taxed at UK-wide rates wherever you live. Your other income is not, and in Scotland it is taxed at Scottish rates — which still moves which dividend band your next pound lands in.
There is no field for how many shares you hold, on purpose. A yield is a ratio and does not need one. If the question is what a holding will actually pay you — per payment, per year, or reinvested over a term — that is the dividend calculator, and this page deliberately does not duplicate it.
The tax here is a rate, not a bill. It is the income tax on your next pound of dividend income, measured against the £500 dividend allowance and the bands your other income leaves you in — which is the right figure for deciding whether to buy more of something. For a bill on dividends you already have, use the dividend tax calculator.
Every calculation runs in your browser. There is no application server and no database, so nothing you type is transmitted or stored. A share link is the exception: it carries your figures in the URL. What that means.
The yield, what it is covered by, and what is left after tax
Trailing dividend yield 8.00%
That dividend was not covered by earnings. Cover was 0.88, meaning the company paid out more than it earned over the period. A dividend can be uncovered for a year without anything being wrong; a dividend that is uncovered for several is being funded from somewhere that will eventually run out.
The dividend expected over the next twelve months is 25.00% lower than the one already paid. A trailing yield knows nothing about that: it divides a dividend that has happened by a price that reflects one that has not. On these figures the forward yield is 6.00% rather than 8.00%, and the forward figure is the one to compare against anything else.
Four yields, and what each one is a fact about
| Measure | Working | Yield |
|---|---|---|
| Trailing — what was paid | 40p ÷ 500p | 8.00% |
| Forward — what is expected | 30p ÷ 500p | 6.00% |
| On your cost — what you paid | 40p ÷ 800p | 5.00% |
| Earnings yield — what it earned | 35p ÷ 500p | 7.00% |
Yield on cost is not comparable with anything. It divides today’s dividend by a price nobody can pay any more, so it says how the holding has done rather than what it offers — and a share whose price has fallen shows a yield on cost below its live yield, which is the shape of a disappointing holding rather than a good one. It is here because it is the figure most often mistaken for a live one.
The earnings yield is the ceiling. A dividend yield above it means the company is distributing more than it earns, and the two figures divided into each other are exactly the payout ratio below. That is not a rule about what is prudent; it is arithmetic about where the money is coming from.
Can the company afford it?
| Against | Cover | Payout ratio |
|---|---|---|
| The dividend already paid | 0.88 | 114.29% |
| The dividend expected, on the same earnings | 1.17 | 85.71% |
Cover is earnings divided by the dividend; the payout ratio is the same relationship the other way up. Both are shown because both are quoted, and a reader who has met one and not the other should not have to convert in their head. The second row holds earnings still — if the expected dividend is higher than the one already paid, cover falls unless the company earns more, and that is a question this page cannot answer.
At exactly one times cover this company would pay 35p a share, a yield of 7.00%. That is the earnings yield again, and it is the figure to hold in mind when the headline says 8.00%: it is what the share would yield if the dividend were exactly what the company earned. Here it is lower than the dividend yield, which is the arithmetic way of saying the payout is coming from somewhere other than this year’s profits.
None of this predicts a cut. Cover is a fact about a period that has finished. Plenty of well-covered dividends have been cut and plenty of thin ones have been maintained for years, because the decision is made by a board looking at cash, debt covenants and a plan — none of which is on this page. What cover does is tell you what the dividend was being paid out of, which is the question a yield on its own cannot answer.
Where a high yield comes from
The same 40p dividend, at other prices. Nothing about the company changes down this table — only the denominator.
| If the price | Share price | Trailing yield | Cover |
|---|---|---|---|
| falls 50% | 250.00p | 16.00% | 0.88 |
| falls 25% | 375.00p | 10.67% | 0.88 |
| stays where it is | 500.00p | 8.00% | 0.88 |
| rises 25% | 625.00p | 6.40% | 0.88 |
| rises 50% | 750.00p | 5.33% | 0.88 |
The cover column does not move, because cover has no price in it. That is the whole lesson of the table. A share that halves doubles its yield without the company doing anything at all, so a list sorted by yield is substantially a list of shares that have fallen — and the market usually had a reason. A high yield is often the price already reflecting a cut that the trailing dividend has not caught up with; it is sometimes a genuine bargain; and the yield figure alone cannot distinguish the two.
What the yield is worth after income tax
Every yield above is before tax, which is how every yield anywhere is quoted. Your next pound of dividend income is taxed at 35.75%, measured by running the tax calculation twice on £60,000 of other income and £1,000 of dividends you already expect — so the yields below are the ones that are actually yours.
| Yield | Before tax | After tax |
|---|---|---|
| Trailing | 8.00% | 5.14% |
| Forward | 6.00% | 3.85% |
Tax takes 2.86% of yield off the headline figure. That is not a small adjustment and it is not the same for two readers looking at the same share: it is decided entirely by the income sitting underneath the dividends. Held inside a stocks and shares ISA the same share yields the gross figure, because dividends inside the wrapper are not taxable at all — that is the mechanism, and that page prices it.
This is a marginal rate, not an average one. It is what the next pound costs, which is the right figure for deciding whether to buy more of something, and it is not the share of a whole dividend that tax would take — that is lower whenever an allowance covered part of it. Another £64,140 of income of any kind takes you into the Additional rate band, after which this rate changes again.
This page is about the ratio, and stops there. For what a holding will actually pay you — each payment, each year, and what reinvesting compounds it to — use the dividend calculator. For a bill on dividends you already have, band by band with every allowance shown, use the dividend tax calculator. Neither is reproduced here, and nothing on this page reports an amount of dividend income.
Five things this yield does not tell you
It cannot tell you whether the dividend will be paid
Nothing on this page is a forecast and nothing on it is a recommendation. A dividend is declared by a board that can suspend, cut or cancel it at any time, and many have. Cover describes a period that has already finished; the forward figure is somebody’s estimate, and estimates are revised. A high yield is often the market’s judgement that a cut is coming, and no arithmetic anywhere can distinguish that from a bargain.
Earnings are not cash, and cash is what pays a dividend
Cover uses earnings per share, which is an accounting figure after non-cash charges and before the money a business has to spend to stay in business. A company can report earnings and have no free cash flow, or the reverse. Cover on free cash flow is the harder test and this page cannot compute it, because it asks for neither the cash flow statement nor the capital expenditure. Debt matters too, and there is no field for it.
It is one holding, and it names none
This calculator names no company, no fund, no investment trust and no broker, and it never will. It takes figures you supply about a share you have chosen and divides them by each other. Whether the figures are right, whether they are for the same period, and whether the share is worth owning at all are questions it cannot answer.
The tax figure is a rate on your next pound, in one wrapper
It assumes the dividend is a UK dividend paid to a UK resident, held outside an ISA and outside a pension, and it applies no withholding tax. A dividend inside an ISA or a pension is not taxable at all. Overseas dividends are commonly taxed at source, and offshore reporting funds, excess reportable income and equalisation payments have their own regime. Pension contributions extend the basic-rate band, which is one of the main ways a higher-rate taxpayer reduces a dividend bill, and none of that is modelled.
A yield is not a return
The yield is the income. What you make on a share is the income plus whatever the price does, and this page has no view on the price at all — the sensitivity table moves it to show what that does to the ratio, not to suggest where it is going. A 9% yield on a share that falls 20% is a loss. Capital gains tax on a disposal is not modelled either; the capital gains tax on shares calculator is where that belongs.
Worked example: the same dividend, two prices, two yields
The same company, the same dividend, the same earnings — and a yield of 5.00% became 8.00% because the share price fell. Nothing the business did produced that. It is the arithmetic of a ratio whose denominator moved, and it is how most shares arrive at the top of a highest-yielding list.
The company pays 40p a share and earns 35p. At 800p that was a 5.00% yield — respectable, unremarkable, the sort of figure that does not appear on a screen. At 500p the identical dividend is 8.00%.
| Figure | At 800p | At 500p |
|---|---|---|
| Dividend paid, per share | 40p | 40p |
| Earnings, per share | 35p | 35p |
| Cover | 0.88 | 0.88 |
| Earnings yield | 4.38% | 7.00% |
| Trailing dividend yield | 5.00% | 8.00% |
The cover column is the one that did not move. It was 0.88 before the fall and it is 0.88 after it, because cover is earnings over the dividend and has no price in it. The company was paying out more than it earned at both prices. The falling price made the yield look better and told you nothing new about whether the dividend was affordable — and the two facts get read together as though the first were evidence about the second.
The forward figure is where the market’s view actually shows up. The dividend expected over the next twelve months is 30p rather than 40p — 25.00% lower — so the forward yield is 6.00%, not 8.00%. A trailing yield divides a dividend that has happened by a price that has already priced in one that has not.
The same share, two readers, two different after-tax yields
A yield is quoted before tax, always, and the tax is not a property of the share. On £60,000 of other income and £1,000 of dividends already received — more than enough to use up the £500 dividend allowance — the next pound of dividend income is taxed at 35.75%, so this share’s 8.00% is 5.14% in the hand.
A reader on the same income who has received no dividends yet this year is inside the allowance, so their next pound is taxed at 0.00% and the same share yields 8.00% — the gross figure, unchanged. Identical share, identical price, identical dividend; 2.86% of yield between them, decided by something that has nothing to do with the company. Held inside an ISA the gross figure applies whatever else you own.
Methodology and sources
A dividend yield is one division. Everything difficult about it is in choosing what to divide, what the answer is a fact about, and what it is silent on — and this calculator is built around those three questions rather than around the arithmetic, which is trivial.
Nothing here is projected forward. There is no growth rate, no term and no reinvestment: a forward yield uses a dividend the reader has been told to expect over the next twelve months, not a rate compounded over years. Every figure is either a ratio between two numbers the reader supplied or the income tax engine measuring the tax on the next pound of dividend income, so the page carries a verification stamp for the second and has no projection to disclaim.
The four yields
trailing yield = dividends paid over the last 12 months ÷ today's price
forward yield = dividends expected over the next 12 months ÷ today's price
yield on cost = dividends paid over the last 12 months ÷ what you paid
earnings yield = earnings per share ÷ today's priceAll four are quoted somewhere as “the yield”, and they are facts about different things: what happened, what somebody expects, how a holding has done, and what the company earned. Everything per share is in pence, because UK equities are quoted in pence and because a `MoneyInput` would round a 7.7p dividend entered as £0.077 to £0.08 — a 4% error on the numerator of every one of them.
The earnings yield is the ceiling. A dividend yield above it is a company distributing more than it earns, and the two divided into each other are exactly the payout ratio. That is not a rule about prudence; it is arithmetic about where the money is coming from.
Every one of these divides by a price, and a price of zero is reachable by clearing a box. The page reports no yield at all in that case rather than 0.00%, because 0/0 is not zero and a printed zero is a claim nobody made.
Cover, and the column a falling price cannot move
cover = earnings per share ÷ dividend per share
payout ratio = dividend per share ÷ earnings per share (the same thing, inverted)
dividend yield ÷ earnings yield = payout ratioBoth are shown because both are quoted, and a reader who has met one and not the other should not have to convert in their head. The forward row holds earnings still: if the expected dividend is higher than the one already paid, cover falls unless the company earns more — which is a question this page cannot answer and does not pretend to.
Earnings per share may be negative, and the field accepts one. A company can lose money and keep paying, which is the loudest thing a high yield can be hiding. In that case neither cover nor the payout ratio is printed: a negative cover is not a small cover, and a payout ratio against a loss is not a percentage of anything, so the page says so in words instead.
Why a high yield is usually a fallen price
The sensitivity table holds the dividend fixed and moves the price. Nothing about the company changes down it — and the yield does, because the yield’s denominator is the price. A share that halves doubles its yield with no action by anyone.
The cover column is identical on every row of that table, and that is the point rather than a rendering artefact. Cover is earnings over the dividend and contains no price, so the one figure that says whether the dividend is affordable is the one figure a falling price cannot flatter. A screen sorted by yield is therefore substantially a list of shares that have fallen, and the market usually had a reason: sometimes the reason is wrong and the share is cheap, sometimes it is right and the dividend is about to be cut. The yield alone cannot distinguish them, and neither can this page — what it can do is stop the yield from being read as though it could.
The yield after tax, and why it is a marginal rate
marginal rate = income tax(other income, dividends + £100)
− income tax(other income, dividends) ÷ £100
yield after tax = yield × (1 − marginal rate)A yield is a rate on the next pound invested, so the tax figure that belongs beside it is the tax on the next pound received. An average rate across a whole dividend is lower whenever an allowance covered part of it, and using it to compare two shares would overstate what both are worth. The two answer different questions and both are right for theirs; the dividend tax calculator computes the average, and this page computes the margin.
The rate is measured against the engine on the dividend field, never read off Breakdown.marginalRate. That field is a forward difference on earned income — the engine says so — so on a page whose entire subject is a dividend yield it would report what the next pound of salary costs. The two differ whenever the dividend schedule and the income tax schedule do, which is nearly always.
The consequence is that the same share has different after-tax yields for two readers. On this calculator’s own figures, a reader who has already used the £500 dividend allowance on £60,000 of other income keeps 5.14% of a 8.00% yield, and a reader who has not used it keeps 8.00% — the gross figure — because their next pound of dividend income is taxed at 0.00%. Identical share, identical price, identical dividend.
Rates and allowances
| Figure | 2025/26 | 2026/27 |
|---|---|---|
| Dividend allowance | £500 | £500 |
| Dividend rates, in stacking order | Ordinary rate 8.75% from £0; Upper rate 33.75% from £37,700; Additional rate 39.35% from £125,140 | Ordinary rate 10.75% from £0; Upper rate 35.75% from £37,700; Additional rate 39.35% from £125,140 |
| Personal allowance | £12,570 | £12,570 |
| Other income — England, Wales and Northern Ireland | Basic rate 20.00% from £0; Higher rate 40.00% from £37,700; Additional rate 45.00% from £125,140 | Basic rate 20.00% from £0; Higher rate 40.00% from £37,700; Additional rate 45.00% from £125,140 |
| Other income — Scotland | Starter rate 19.00% from £0; Basic rate 20.00% from £2,827; Intermediate rate 21.00% from £14,921; Higher rate 42.00% from £31,092; Advanced rate 45.00% from £62,430; Top rate 48.00% from £125,140 | Starter rate 19.00% from £0; Basic rate 20.00% from £3,967; Intermediate rate 21.00% from £16,956; Higher rate 42.00% from £31,092; Advanced rate 45.00% from £62,430; Top rate 48.00% from £125,140 |
Thresholds are taxable income, after allowances. Dividend rates are UK-wide and are not devolved; Scottish rates apply to a reader’s other income only, and that income still decides which dividend band the next pound falls in — which is the part most often got wrong.
Sources
- gov.uk — Tax on dividendsThe dividend allowance, the dividend rates, and that dividends are treated as the top slice of income — which is why the rate on the next pound depends on everything else the reader receives.
- gov.uk — Income tax rates and allowances: current and pastThe personal allowance, its taper, and the band thresholds the dividends are stacked against.
- gov.scot — Scottish income tax rates and bandsScottish rates apply to a reader’s other income, never to the dividends — but that other income still decides which dividend band the next pound lands in.
- gov.uk — Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs)That dividends on shares held inside an ISA are not taxable, which is the one mechanism that makes an after-tax yield equal to a gross one.
The rates, thresholds and allowances used by this calculator were verified against gov.uk on . That covers the published rates, thresholds and allowances this page calculates with. It does not verify any figure the page produces for you: that is arithmetic on verified inputs. Parts of the engine behind it are checked against HMRC’s own published worked examples, which tests the method on a small number of scenarios rather than your answer, and most of the test suite derives its expected values by hand. That check was carried out automatically and no named person has signed it off yet.
| Figures covered | Verified on | Verified by | Human sign-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | 2026-08-12 | Automated verification (Claude Opus 5) | not yet signed off |
| 2026-27 | 2026-08-12 | Automated verification (Claude Opus 5) | not yet signed off |
| 2020-21 to 2024-25 — pension annual allowance only | 2026-08-12 | Automated verification (Claude Opus 5) | not yet signed off |
| 2025-26 and 2026-27 — share identification window only | 2026-08-13 | Automated verification (Claude Opus 5) | not yet signed off |
| 2025-26 and 2026-27 — pension relief at source only | 2026-08-13 | Automated verification (Claude Opus 5) | not yet signed off |
| 2025-26 and 2026-27 — inheritance tax only | 2026-08-13 | Automated verification (Claude Opus 5) | not yet signed off |
| 2025-26 and 2026-27 — family tax, LISA and pension-access additions | 2026-08-13 | Automated verification (Codex) | not yet signed off |
| 2025-26 and 2026-27 — student loan deductions only | 2026-08-18 | Automated verification (Claude Opus 5) | not yet signed off |
| 2025-26 and 2026-27 — property acquisition tax only | 2026-08-18 | Automated verification (Claude Opus 5) | not yet signed off |
| 2025-26 and 2026-27 — automatic enrolment only | 2026-08-18 | Automated verification (Claude Opus 5) | not yet signed off |
| 2025-26 and 2026-27 — State Pension age and rates only | 2026-08-18 | Automated verification (Claude Opus 5) | not yet signed off |
The log covers the rules directory, not only this calculator. 8 rows are deliberately narrow — 2020-21 to 2024-25 — pension annual allowance only; 2025-26 and 2026-27 — share identification window only; 2025-26 and 2026-27 — pension relief at source only; 2025-26 and 2026-27 — inheritance tax only; 2025-26 and 2026-27 — student loan deductions only; 2025-26 and 2026-27 — property acquisition tax only; 2025-26 and 2026-27 — automatic enrolment only; 2025-26 and 2026-27 — State Pension age and rates only — and they verify the figures named there and nothing else. Those tax years are not modelled by any calculator on this site: the years this page can compute are the ones its tax-year selector offers, and no others.
A verification goes stale the moment one of its sources is updated past the date above. If a source below carries a later date than this stamp, trust the source.
Rates, thresholds and allowances on this page are taken from material published by HM Revenue & Customs and the Scottish Government. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Where this page stops, and what stops it
- It reports no amount of dividend income, anywhere. There is no field for a holding size and no output in pounds. A yield is a ratio and needs neither, and the income question belongs to the dividend calculator, which also owns the payment calendar, dividend growth and reinvestment. Two thin near-duplicates of one subject compete for the same links instead of ranking twice.
- It shows no band-by-band tax working. That is the dividend tax calculator. What appears here is a single measured rate, turned back into a yield.
- It cannot tell you whether the dividend will be paid. Cover describes a period that has finished, the forward dividend is somebody’s estimate, and a board can cut, suspend or cancel at any time.
- Earnings are not cash. Cover on free cash flow is the harder test and needs a cash flow statement and a capital expenditure figure that this page does not ask for. Debt is not modelled at all.
- The tax is one wrapper and one country. A UK dividend to a UK resident, held outside an ISA and outside a pension, with no withholding tax and no foreign dividend rules. Pension contributions extend the basic-rate band, which is one of the main ways a higher-rate taxpayer reduces a dividend bill, and none of that is modelled.
- A yield is not a return. Nothing here has a view on the share price, and capital gains tax on a disposal is not modelled — the capital gains tax on shares calculator is where that belongs.
Dividend yield questions
- How do you calculate dividend yield?
Divide the annual dividend per share by the share price, and express it as a percentage. On the calculator's own figures, 40p of dividends against a 500p price is a 8.00% yield. Both figures must be for the same thing: UK shares are quoted in pence, so a dividend in pence over a price in pounds is out by a factor of a hundred, and most UK companies pay twice a year — an interim and a final — so quoting only one of them halves the answer. The harder question is which dividend to use, because a trailing yield and a forward yield are different numbers and both get called "the yield".
- What is the difference between trailing and forward dividend yield?
A trailing yield uses the dividends actually paid over the last twelve months. A forward yield uses what the company is expected to pay over the next twelve. The first is a fact about the past, the second is somebody's estimate, and they part company exactly when it matters most — when a cut is coming. On the calculator's own figures the trailing yield is 8.00% and the forward yield is 6.00%, because the expected dividend is 25.00% lower than the one already paid. A screen showing the higher number is not wrong; it is answering a question about a period that has finished.
- Is a high dividend yield good?
Not on its own, and often the opposite. A yield is a dividend divided by a price, so it rises when the price falls — a share that halves doubles its yield without the company doing anything at all. That means a list sorted by yield is substantially a list of shares that have fallen, and the market usually had a reason. Sometimes that reason is wrong and the share is cheap; sometimes it is right and the dividend is about to be cut, at which point the yield that attracted you disappears and the price fall does not. The yield figure by itself cannot distinguish the two, which is why the calculator shows cover, the payout ratio and the forward dividend next to it.
- What is dividend cover, and what is a good level?
Cover is earnings per share divided by dividend per share: how many times over the company earned what it paid out. Above one means the dividend came out of earnings with something retained; below one means the company distributed more than it earned, and the difference came from reserves, from borrowing or from selling something. The payout ratio is the same relationship upside down — cover of 2 is a payout ratio of 50%. There is no universal good level, because a utility with contracted revenues can sustain thinner cover than a miner whose earnings swing with a commodity price. What is worth knowing is that cover describes a period that has already finished, uses earnings rather than cash, and has never predicted a cut on its own.
- Why does the calculator show an earnings yield?
Because it is the ceiling, and seeing it next to the dividend yield makes the payout ratio obvious rather than abstract. The earnings yield is earnings per share over the price — what the share would yield if the company paid out every penny it earned. On the calculator's figures that is 7.00% against a dividend yield of 8.00%: the dividend yield is the higher of the two, which is the arithmetic way of saying the payout is coming from somewhere other than this year's profits. Dividing one by the other gives you the payout ratio directly.
- What is yield on cost, and should I use it?
Yield on cost divides today’s dividend by the price you originally paid. It tells you how the holding has done for you, and it is not comparable with any yield available to anybody today, because nobody can buy at your price any more. It is worth being careful with in both directions: a long-held share whose dividend has grown shows a flattering figure that no new money can access, and a share whose price has fallen shows a yield on cost below its live yield, which looks reassuring and is the opposite. When comparing one investment against another, the live yield is the only one of the two that is measuring the choice actually in front of you.
- How much tax will I pay on dividend income?
That depends on the income sitting underneath the dividends rather than on the share, because dividends are the top slice of income and are taxed after everything else. The first £500 of dividends each year falls in the dividend allowance and is taxed at nothing, so a reader who has received nothing yet keeps the whole of a yield. Above that the rate depends on which band the dividends reach. The calculator measures the rate on your next pound rather than quoting one, and turns the yield into an after-tax figure — which is the right comparison when the question is whether to buy more of something. Dividends inside an ISA or a pension are not taxable at all.
- Why does the calculator use my marginal rate rather than an average?
Because a yield is a rate on the next pound you invest, so the tax that belongs beside it is the tax on the next pound you receive. An average rate across a whole dividend is lower whenever an allowance covered part of it, and using that to compare two shares would overstate what both are worth to you. The two figures answer different questions and both are correct for theirs: the average is what a dividend you already have will cost, and the dividend tax calculator computes it; the marginal is what another pound would cost, and it is the one that decides between investments.
- Does a dividend yield include share price growth?
No. The yield is the income only. What you actually make on a share is the income plus whatever the price does, and a 9% yield on a share that falls 20% over the same period is a loss. This is worth stating because a high yield and a falling price are correlated by construction — the fall is what produced the yield — so the shares with the most attractive income figures are frequently the ones whose total return has been worst. The calculator has no view on prices and does not forecast one; the sensitivity table moves the price to show what that does to the ratio, not to suggest where it is going.
- Does this calculator recommend any shares?
No. It names no company, no fund, no investment trust and no broker, and it never will. It takes figures you supply about a share you have chosen, divides them by each other, and shows the working. Whether the figures are right, whether they cover the same period, and whether the share is worth owning are questions it cannot answer. This site publishes information, not advice.