SDY dividend history, schedule and yield (2026)

SDY at a glance

Dividend yield

2.4%

Paid last 12 months

$3.78 / share

Pays dividends

quarterly

Expense ratio

0.35%

Fund size

$22.3 billion

Average per year since 2005

+9.2%

Yield, expense ratio, fund size and total return from the TopDividendETFsPRO database, updated November 12, 2026. Per-share payments by ex-dividend date from Yahoo Finance, cross-checked against State Street's 2.31% distribution yield. Fund facts and holdings from State Street Global Advisors as of November 10 and 11, 2026.

The SPDR S&P Dividend ETF launched on November 8, 2005, and it's one of the original "dividend aristocrat" funds. The idea is simple: only own companies that have raised their dividend every single year for at least 20 years, then lean toward the ones that pay the most.

If you already own $SCHD or $VYM, $SDY is the fund people usually compare them to. It pays a little less today, but it's built around a very different question: not "who pays the most right now?" but "who has proven they'll keep raising the check?"

SDY dividend schedule for 2026

Here's every $SDY payment so far this year. You need to own shares before the ex-dividend date to get paid, and the cash usually lands a few business days later:

So far in 2026, $SDY has paid $2.76 a share across three payments. That's about 5.5% more than the same three payments in 2025 ($2.62).

When is the next SDY dividend?

$SDY is predictable. Every 2026 payment has gone ex-dividend on the Monday after the third Friday of the quarter's last month: March 23, June 22 and September 21. Last December it went ex on Monday, December 22, 2025.

The third Friday of December 2026 is December 18, so I'd expect the next ex-date on Monday, December 21, 2026, with the cash a few days later. State Street hasn't announced the amount yet.

One pattern worth knowing: December pays the most. It was $1.03 in 2024 and $1.017 in 2025, versus $0.71 to $0.82 for the March checks. If you're budgeting quarter by quarter, the March payment is the light one.

SDY dividend history: slow, steady growth

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

From 2022 to 2025 the payout grew about 14%, or roughly 4.4% a year. That's not explosive. It's the kind of steady raise you'd expect from a basket of companies that have each raised their own dividend for two decades or more.

Compare that to an option income fund like $JEPI, whose payout dropped about a third after 2022. Different engine entirely. $SDY's check grows because the companies inside raise theirs. Slow, but it compounds.

One honest note: $SDY's payout isn't guaranteed to rise every year just because its holdings must have a 20-year streak. When a company cuts its dividend, it gets dropped at the next review, and yield weighting means the mix shifts. Look at the multi-year trend, not any single quarter.

How SDY picks its stocks

$SDY tracks the S&P High Yield Dividend Aristocrats Index. Here's how it works, straight from State Street's description:

• The universe is the S&P Composite 1500, so large, mid and small caps are all eligible. That's wider than $NOBL, which only looks at the S&P 500.
• The screen is at least 20 consecutive years of dividend increases. No streak, no entry.
• Stocks are weighted by yield, not market cap. The higher a company's yield, the bigger its slice, with weights adjusted each quarter.
• The lineup is reviewed every January. Companies that cut or freeze their dividend are removed.

This is the part most people miss: the yield weighting is what makes $SDY different from a plain dividend growth fund like $VIG. $VIG weights by size, so the giants dominate. $SDY tilts toward the higher-yielding names among the long-time raisers, which gives you more income today but also a heavier tilt toward slower-growing sectors like utilities and consumer staples.

The result is a fund that sits between pure income and pure growth. State Street puts it well: because of the 20-year screen, these stocks have both capital growth and dividend income characteristics, as opposed to stocks that are pure yield.

What SDY actually holds

As of November 11, 2026, $SDY held 154 stocks. The top 10 add up to only about 18.6% of the fund, so no single company can sink your income:

By sector, the biggest buckets are industrials (20.2%), utilities (14.6%), consumer staples (14.2%) and financials (12.6%). Tech is just 7.2%. If you own an S&P 500 fund like $VOO, that's a very different mix, and that's kind of the point. It's a real diversifier away from mega cap tech.

How much does $10,000 in SDY pay?

At today's yield of 2.4%, here's what $10,000 in $SDY would pay if the yield held for a year:

If your goal is $1,000 a month from $SDY alone, you'd need roughly $500,000 invested at today's yield. That's a lot. $SDY isn't a high-yield fund. It's a dividend growth fund that happens to pay more than most dividend growth funds.

Here's how I think about it. The real power is in the growth. If the payout keeps rising around 4% to 5% a year and you reinvest every check, your income snowballs. With dividends reinvested, $10,000 at launch in 2005 would be worth around $63,300 today.

SDY vs SCHD, VYM, NOBL and DVY

Most people looking at $SDY are cross-shopping the same handful of dividend funds. Same $10,000 in each:

A few things jump out. $SCHD pays more and has a much lower fee, which is why it's the default dividend ETF for so many people; my SCHD review covers how it picks stocks. $VYM is the cheapest and the most diversified, at a similar yield to $SDY. $NOBL is the closest cousin, with the same 0.35% fee, but it's limited to the S&P 500 and weights its holdings equally instead of by yield. $DVY pays the most but doesn't require a dividend growth streak.

The fee is $SDY's weak spot. At 0.35%, you pay $35 a year per $10,000, versus $6 for $SCHD or $4 for $VYM. Over decades, that adds up. What you get for it is the strictest dividend-raiser screen in the group and a broader universe that includes mid and small caps.

Want to see how these actually compared over the same time period? My sister site ETFTotalReturns.com lines up dividend ETF total returns side by side, and TopDividendETFs.com ranks the biggest dividend funds with price decay flags.

My take: who SDY is for

I've been building dividend income for more than ten years, and the funds I trust most are the ones with a boring, repeatable rule. $SDY has one of the best: prove you've raised your dividend for 20 years, or you're out.

• If you want income that grows: $SDY is a solid pick. The payout has risen about 4% to 5% a year recently, and the yield-weighted, 154-stock portfolio spreads the risk out.
• If you care most about cost: $SCHD and $VYM do a similar job for a fraction of the fee. That's a real advantage over 20 or 30 years.
• If you're heavy in tech already: $SDY's tilt toward industrials, utilities and staples is a genuine diversifier next to an S&P 500 or Nasdaq fund.
• If you need high income now: a 2.4% yield won't get you there. That's a different kind of fund.

What I'd avoid is picking a dividend ETF on yield alone. I look at the payout history, the total return, the fee and price decay together, and that's exactly why I built TopDividendETFsPRO.

Sources

• State Street Global Advisors: SDY fund page (index methodology, holdings, sectors, expense ratio, SEC and distribution yield, checked November 12, 2026)
• Yahoo Finance: SDY price and dividend history (ex-dates and per-share amounts, checked November 12, 2026)
• S&P Dow Jones Indices: S&P High Yield Dividend Aristocrats (index rules)
• Live yield, total return, fund size, price decay and expense ratios: 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 12, 2026; live numbers update daily.