SPY Dividend Calculator
SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust — Project your returns with dividend reinvestment (DRIP). Current yield: 1.09% (quarterly).
SPY is a passive index fund that tracks the SPDR S&P 500. The dividends you receive come from the underlying companies in the index — when Apple, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, and the other S&P 500 constituents pay their quarterly dividends, the fund collects them and passes them through to you.
SPY Dividend History
| Ex-Date | Amount | Change | Yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 20, 2026 | $1.7970 | -9.9% | 1.06% |
| Dec 19, 2025 | $1.9934 | +8.9% | 1.17% |
| Sep 19, 2025 | $1.8311 | +4.0% | 1.08% |
| Jun 20, 2025 | $1.7611 | +3.9% | 1.04% |
| Mar 21, 2025 | $1.6955 | -13.7% | 1.00% |
| Dec 20, 2024 | $1.9655 | +12.6% | 1.16% |
| Sep 20, 2024 | $1.7455 | -0.8% | 1.03% |
| Jun 21, 2024 | $1.7590 | +10.3% | 1.03% |
| Mar 15, 2024 | $1.5949 | -16.3% | 0.94% |
| Dec 15, 2023 | $1.9061 | +20.4% | 1.12% |
How SPY generates dividends
SPY is a passive index fund that tracks the SPDR S&P 500. The dividends you receive come from the underlying companies in the index — when Apple, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, and the other S&P 500 constituents pay their quarterly dividends, the fund collects them and passes them through to you.
There's no options strategy, no premium harvesting, and no active management. The yield is simply the weighted average dividend yield of all 500 companies in the index. This typically works out to 1.2-1.8% annually — modest compared to income-focused ETFs, but the primary value of SPY is total return (price appreciation + dividends), not income.
For investors focused on income, SPY is often the benchmark against which high-yield strategies are measured. A covered-call ETF needs to beat SPY's total return (not just its yield) to justify the trade-off in capped upside.