SCHP dividend: history, monthly payouts and yield (2026)

SCHP at a glance

Dividend yield

5.1%

Paid last 12 months

$1.25 / share

Pays dividends

monthly

Expense ratio

0.03%

Fund size

$17.5 billion

Average per year since 2010

+2.6%

Yield, expense ratio, fund size and total return from the TopDividendETFsPRO database, updated November 7, 2026. Per-share payments from StockAnalysis, through the November 2026 payment. Holdings and duration from Schwab, as of November 5 and September 30, 2026.

The Schwab U.S. TIPS ETF launched on August 5, 2010. It owns one thing: U.S. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, better known as TIPS. These are government bonds whose principal goes up with inflation, so the income is tied to the cost of living instead of being fixed.

That makes $SCHP a very different animal from the dividend funds I usually write about. It's not a stock fund and it's not trying to grow your money fast. It's insurance against inflation, and the way it pays you reflects that. If you've looked at its dividend history and thought something was broken, it isn't. Let me show you why.

SCHP dividend payments in 2026

$SCHP goes ex-dividend at the start of the month and pays a few business days later. Here's every 2026 payment so far:

Look at that spread. The smallest 2026 check was under 3 cents a share and the biggest was over 22 cents, about eight times larger. Over the last 12 months the total came to $1.2462 a share.

When is the next SCHP dividend? Based on the pattern, the next ex-date should be around December 1, 2026. Last year there was also a second, bigger year-end payment: $0.0927 on December 1, 2025 and then $0.1766 on December 19, 2025. December 2024 had a late-month ex-date too (December 20, $0.1097). I wouldn't count on any exact amount. With TIPS, the amount depends on inflation, which nobody can promise.

Why SCHP skips months and swings so much

This is the part most people miss. A TIPS bond pays you two ways:

• A small fixed coupon. The weighted average coupon in $SCHP was only about 1.36% as of September 30, 2026, according to Schwab.
• An inflation adjustment. The bond's principal is adjusted with the Consumer Price Index. When inflation runs hot, the principal grows and that growth flows into the fund's income. When inflation is low or the index dips, the adjustment shrinks or even goes negative.

The fund passes all of that through to you. So in months when the inflation adjustment is strong, the check is big. In months when it's weak or negative, it can wipe out the coupon income, and $SCHP simply doesn't pay. That's what happened in the first three months of 2026, and in January and February of 2025.

The cleanest way to think about it: your $SCHP income is a rough mirror of recent inflation. Summer 2026 paid over 20 cents a month. Spring and fall paid a fraction of that. That's the product doing exactly what it's designed to do.

So if you need a smooth, predictable monthly check to pay bills, $SCHP is the wrong tool. For that, a T-bill fund like $SGOV pays far more evenly. Judge $SCHP on the full year, never on one month.

SCHP dividend history: is the payout growing?

Here's what $SCHP paid per share each calendar year, counted by ex-dividend date:

Even with three empty months, 2026 has already paid $0.98 a share versus $0.81 for January through November of 2025. That's about 21% more income, driven by those big summer payments. If December pays anything close to last year's $0.27 across two payments, 2026 will finish ahead of 2025.

But here's the honest caveat: "growth" isn't really the right word for a TIPS fund. The payout goes up when inflation goes up and down when it cools. It's not like $SCHD, where companies raise dividends year after year. Treat a big year as a sign inflation was high, not as a raise.

What SCHP holds

$SCHP tracks the Bloomberg US Treasury Inflation-Linked Bond Index (Series-L), which covers U.S. TIPS with at least one year left until maturity. As of November 5, 2026, that was 49 holdings, all U.S. Treasury TIPS. No corporate bonds, no stocks, no credit risk to speak of.

The biggest positions are notes maturing over the next decade:

The numbers I actually look at on a bond fund are maturity and duration. Schwab lists a weighted average maturity of about 7.0 years and an effective duration of about 6.2 years as of September 30, 2026. In plain English: if real interest rates jump 1%, expect the share price to drop roughly 6%. That's real rate risk. TIPS protect you from inflation, not from rising rates.

You can see it in the price. $SCHP closed at $25.60 on November 6, 2026, and its 52-week range was $25.01 to $26.99. StockAnalysis shows a total return of just 0.34% over the past year, dividends included. Since launch, the TopDividendETFsPRO database shows a total return of +53% with price decay: none. Not exciting, but that's not the job.

The fee is the best part: 0.03%, about $3 a year on $10,000. That's as cheap as it gets for this kind of fund.

Is the SCHP dividend qualified? How it's taxed

No. $SCHP's distributions come from bond interest and inflation adjustments, not company dividends, so they're generally taxed as ordinary income, not at the lower qualified dividend rates.

Two things work in your favor, though:

• State taxes. Interest from U.S. Treasury securities is exempt from state and local income tax. Many states let you exclude the part of a fund's distributions that came from Treasuries, but the rules vary by state, so check your 1099-DIV and your state's rules.
• The ETF avoids "phantom income." If you own individual TIPS in a taxable account, you can owe tax on the inflation adjustment even though you don't get that cash until the bond matures. The ETF pays the income out, so you actually receive cash for what you're taxed on.

Because it's ordinary income, a lot of investors keep TIPS funds in an IRA or 401(k), where that doesn't matter. That's how I'd think about placement too. Ask a tax pro what fits your situation.

SCHP dividend calculator: what does $10,000 pay?

At today's yield of 5.1%, here's what $SCHP would pay if the yield held for a year:

Using the actual last 12 months of payments instead: $10,000 buys about 390 shares at $25.60, and 390 shares times $1.2462 is about $487 a year. Same ballpark. But on a month-to-month basis it ranged from $0 to about $86 on those same 390 shares. That's the reality of TIPS income.

If your goal is $1,000 a month from $SCHP alone, you'd need roughly $235,300 at today's yield. But I wouldn't plan around that. This year's yield is inflated by inflation itself. If inflation cools, the income cools with it.

And if $10,000 had gone into $SCHP at launch in 2010 with every dividend reinvested, it would be worth about $15,300 today. That's the trade-off in one number: safety and inflation protection, not growth.

SCHP vs TIP, VTIP, STIP and SGOV

Most people looking at $SCHP are choosing between it, another TIPS fund, or plain T-bills. Here's how they line up:

$SCHP vs $TIP: nearly the same job, owning the broad TIPS market. The difference is cost. $TIP charges 0.18%, six times $SCHP's 0.03%. On $10,000 that's $18 a year versus $3, forever. On a fund whose whole edge is a few percent of income, I'd take the cheaper one.

$SCHP vs $VTIP and $STIP: these hold only short-term TIPS, so they move much less when rates change. $SCHP's duration of about 6.2 years means more price swings in exchange for locking in today's real yields for longer. If you might need the money in a couple of years, short-term TIPS make more sense.

$SCHP vs $SGOV: $SGOV is the steady one: a stable price and a predictable check every month. But its income doesn't adjust for inflation, and it falls when the Fed cuts. I compare them in detail in my SGOV dividend guide. Lots of people hold both: $SGOV for cash, $SCHP for inflation protection.

For long-run total returns side by side, ETFTotalReturns.com ranks funds on equal footing. And if you want income that's both steady and monthly, MonthlyETFs.com lists every monthly payer, while TopDividendETFs.com ranks the stock dividend ETFs with price decay flags.

My take: is SCHP a good investment for income?

I've been building dividend income for over a decade, and I reached financial freedom mostly through stock dividend ETFs, not bonds. So I look at $SCHP as a specific tool, not an income engine.

• You want inflation protection on safe money: that's exactly what TIPS do, and $SCHP does it for 0.03%.
• You're near or in retirement: inflation is one of the biggest long-term risks to a fixed budget, and a slice of TIPS helps cover it.
• You hold it in an IRA or 401(k): the ordinary income tax treatment matters a lot less there.

Where I'd be careful: don't buy $SCHP for its current yield. A big part of that yield is recent inflation passing through, and it will come down when inflation does. Don't use it if you need a reliable monthly check, because some months it pays nothing. And don't expect growth. $10,000 at launch is about $15,000 today, while a dividend grower like $SCHD did many times that.

For me, the right way to use it is as the inflation-hedge piece of the safe side of a portfolio, next to cash in something like $SGOV, with the long-term income coming from dividend ETFs like $VYM or $SCHD. If you want to see how $SCHP compares on yield, total return and price decay against 130+ other income ETFs, that's what TopDividendETFsPRO is built for.

Sources

• StockAnalysis: SCHP dividend history (ex-dates, pay dates, amounts)
• Schwab Asset Management: SCHP fund page (index, holdings count, expense ratio, duration, maturity, coupon)
• StockAnalysis: SCHP holdings (top holdings and weights)
• StockAnalysis fund pages for TIP, VTIP, STIP and SGOV (yields, expense ratios, payout frequency)
• Live yield, total return, fund size, price decay and expense ratio: TopDividendETFsPRO.com database

This article is for education only and is not financial, investment, tax or legal advice. Do your own research and read the fund's prospectus before investing, and talk to a tax professional about your own situation. Yields, payments and returns change, and past performance does not guarantee future results. Dividend payments as of November 7, 2026; live numbers update daily.