Highest-Paying Dividend Stocks in the S&P 500

More than 75% of the stocks in the S&P 500 pay a dividend, and the dividend for many of them exceeds the yield on U.S. 10-year Treasury bonds (currently around 4.6%).

However, screening for the highest-paying dividend stocks in the S&P 500 reveals some even more impressive yields. In fact, several of these high-dividend stocks in the S&P 500 currently yield over 5%. And the top 10 highest-paying dividend stocks all yield above 6%.

Higher yields come with higher risks, though. Many of these stocks’ yields are so high because they’re struggling, and some may end up slashing their dividends.

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From highest yield (9.9%) to lowest yield (6%), here are the 10 highest-paying dividend stocks in the S&P 500 today:

The 10 Highest-Paying Dividend Stocks in the S&P 500

Here’s a closer look at each one of the top 10 highest-paying dividend stocks.

1. Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA)
Dividend Yield: 9.9%

Walgreens Boots Alliance is the multinational operator of Walgreens (U.S.) and Boots (U.K.) pharmacies. The company regularly appears on this list but is currently struggling with muted consumer spending at its locations and the end of the covid vaccine push. As a result, the company announced it’s closing 450 stores (150 U.S. & 300 U.K.) and reducing workforce (10%) when it reported Q1 earnings. Second-quarter earnings reflected a loss of $6.85 per share due to a $6 billion loss associated with the physician-staffed VillageMD clinics. That sizable one-time loss muted the impact of slight sales improvement, but it’s a black eye nonetheless. Given the recent struggles, that shares are coming off their worst years on record and with the share price at levels not seen since 1997, this is probably one entry on the list to avoid.

2. Altria (MO)
Dividend Yield: 8.9%

Altria is well known as one of the world’s biggest producers of tobacco and other smoking-related products. The company is equally well known as being one of the most persistent high-dividend payers among U.S.-based, blue-chip companies, with a current annual dividend of $3.92 per share (this was raised from $3.76 per share last year). Indeed, Altria’s dividend payouts have nearly tripled in the last 10 years. And while some investors are concerned that Altria’s cigarette and tobacco business likely faces headwinds from consumers’ shifting preferences, its investments in increasingly popular vaping and cannabis products should ensure the company’s revenue growth going forward.

3. Boston Properties (BXP)
Dividend Yield: 6.8%

Boston Properties is a Real Estate Investment Trust that specializes in premier properties in Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. The company operates 187 properties totaling over 53.5 million square feet, with a lease rate of 90%. Shares have declined 60% since their pre-pandemic highs due to weakness in commercial real estate, but their property quality and high levels of liquidity should help them weather the challenging environment. The firm also has about 10% of its square footage in life sciences properties that are generally immune to work-from-home trends.

4. Verizon (VZ)
Dividend Yield: 6.7%

Verizon provides wired and wireless connectivity to consumers and businesses through their 4GLTE and 5G wireless networks and their wired telecom and Fios fiber optic network. The company is a dividend stalwart and regularly appears on the list of highest-paying dividend stocks. The company also offers investors exposure to the growth of the Internet of Things (IOT) and is generally an attractive long-term holding.

5. AT&T (T)
Dividend Yield: 6.4%

AT&T provides telecom services through a variety of avenues including wired and wireless services. The company is the third-largest telecom company in the world by revenues and the biggest mobile provider in the U.S. AT&T has a solid dividend history although it did cut the dividend in 2022 with its spin-off of Warner Bros.’ media assets. The failed attempt to become a content company with their 2018 acquisition of Time Warner proved to be a costly mistake, but the company has been able to maintain its post-spin-off dividend after the divestiture.

6. Crown Castle (CCI)
Dividend Yield: 6.3%

Crown Castle is a communications Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) that operates more than 40,000 cell towers, 115,000 small cell towers and 85,000 miles of fiber optic cables in the U.S. The firm’s exposure to small cell towers positions them as a direct beneficiary of 5G expansion. The firm has grown its dividend payout 7% annually over the last seven years, despite not hiking the payout last year, and believes it’ll be back on the growth track after 2025. Shares are more than 50% off their all-time highs and may be attractive for investors willing to wait out the lull in growth.

7. Healthpeak Properties (DOC)
Dividend Yield: 6.2%

Healthpeak Properties is a healthcare-focused REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) that is relatively new to this list but has been an S&P 500 component since 2008. The company owns and operates over $20 billion of lab and outpatient facilities (healthcare discovery and delivery in the company’s parlance) with an emphasis on Seattle, Boston and San Francisco (for labs) and outpatient facilities tethered to either the #1 or #2 hospitals in their local markets. The company also invests in continuing care retirement communities, which typically provide a range of care to senior residents. Its inclusion on the list largely owes to underperformance, with shares down 3% in the last year and 39% in the last five. The company recently completed a merger with Physicians Realty Trust and hiked its dividend to $0.30/quarter.

8. Kinder Morgan (KMI)
Dividend Yield: 6.1%

Kinder Morgan is one of the largest energy infrastructure companies in North America. The company specializes in owning and controlling oil and gas pipelines and terminals. Kinder Morgan owns an interest in or operates approximately 82,000 miles of pipelines and 140 terminals. The company has a standard practice of annual dividend hikes, with last year’s coming with their April declaration. The company is heavily owned (65%+) by institutions, with insiders holding another 13% of shares. There’s also an active $3 billion buyback program in place of which $522 million was spent buying back shares in 2023 alone.

9. Ford (F)
Dividend Yield: 6.1%

Ford, the ubiquitous automaker, manufactures and sells vehicles under the Ford and Lincoln brands. The firm’s inclusion on this list is due to a special supplemental dividend of $0.18 per share that was paid in addition to its normal quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share on March 1. Supplemental dividends are always a possibility should the firm beat expectations, but absent further special dividends, the regular dividend yield is a more modest (but still attractive) 5.1%.

10. Pfizer (PFE)
Dividend Yield: 6.0%

Originally established in New York over 170 years ago, Pfizer is an American-headquartered multinational pharmaceutical and biotech company. The company has been a (mostly) reliable dividend payer for years, albeit inconsistently, with the last major dividend cuts coming on the heels of the Great Financial Crisis. But since then, they’ve steadily (if slowly) been raising their dividend, with the last hike in Q1 raising their quarterly dividend from $0.41 to $0.42. As for the stock, it’s fallen more than 45% since the end of 2022 and is trading at levels last seen at the bottom of the pandemic sell-off in 2020.

There you have it: those are the 10 highest-paying dividend stocks in the S&P 500 today. If you want the best dividend stocks right now regardless of yield, I highly recommend subscribing to our Cabot Dividend Investor advisory, where chief analyst Tom Hutchinson has a portfolio full of dividend-paying stocks that offer generous yields and strong share price growth.

To learn more, click here.

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*This post is periodically updated to reflect market conditions.