You’re our first priority.
Every time.

NerdWallet, Inc. is an independent publisher and comparison service, not an investment advisor. Its articles, interactive tools and other content are provided to you for free, as self-help tools and for informational purposes only. They are not intended to provide investment advice. NerdWallet does not and cannot guarantee the accuracy or applicability of any information in regard to your individual circumstances. Examples are hypothetical, and we encourage you to seek personalized advice from qualified professionals regarding specific investment issues. Our estimates are based on past market performance, and past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.

We believe everyone should be able to make financial decisions with confidence. And while our site doesn’t feature every company or financial product available on the market, we’re proud that the guidance we offer, the information we provide and the tools we create are objective, independent, straightforward — and free.

So how do we make money? Our partners compensate us. This may influence which products we review and write about (and where those products appear on the site), but it in no way affects our recommendations or advice, which are grounded in thousands of hours of research. Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services. Here is a list of our partners.

Dividend Aristocrats: The Top 10 Companies by Yield for May 2026

There are more than five dozen stocks that make up the dividend aristocrats, but which ones outperform the rest?

Many, or all, of the products featured on this page are from our advertising partners who compensate us when you take certain actions on our website or click to take an action on their website. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here's how we make money.

The investing information provided on this page is for educational purposes only. NerdWallet, Inc. does not offer advisory or brokerage services, nor does it recommend or advise investors to buy or sell particular stocks, securities or other investments.

How is this page expert verified?

NerdWallet's content is fact-checked for accuracy, timeliness and relevance. It undergoes a thorough review process involving writers and editors to ensure the information is as clear and complete as possible.

Sam Taube

Lead Writer

---

9 years of experience

Expertise

• Stocks
• ETFs
• economic news

Sam Taube writes about investing for NerdWallet. He has covered investing and financial news since earning his economics degree from the University of Maryland in 2016. Sam has previously written for Investopedia, Benzinga, Seeking Alpha, Wealth Daily and Investment U, and has worked as an editor for Investment U, Wealth Daily and Haven Investment Letter. He is based in Brooklyn, New York.

Published in

Lead Writer

Sam Taube writes about investing for NerdWallet. He has covered investing and financial news since earning his economics degree from the University of Maryland in 2016. Sam has previously written for Investopedia, Benzinga, Seeking Alpha, Wealth Daily and Investment U, and has worked as an editor for Investment U, Wealth Daily and Haven Investment Letter. He is based in Brooklyn, New York.

Michael Randall

Certified Financial Planner®

---

Michael Randall, CFA, CFP®, EA is the Owner and Financial Planner at Oak Summit Wealth Management, a fee-only fiduciary firm based in San Diego, California. He brings more than a decade of experience helping clients with comprehensive financial planning across investments, taxes, and estate strategies. Michael earned his degree in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, where he also volunteers as an alumni ambassador.

---

At NerdWallet, our content goes through a rigorous editorial review process. We have such confidence in our accurate and useful content that we let outside experts inspect our work.

Certified Financial Planner®

Pamela de la Fuente

Managing Editor

---

23 years of experience

Expertise

• Personal Finance
• Budgeting
• Taxes
• Retirement
• Underrepresented communities

Pamela de la Fuente is a managing editor of NerdWallet's personal finance content. She leads budgeting, money-making, consumer credit and and debt coverage.

Ask her and her talented team about why credit scores matter, how to save money on your grocery bill, finding the right side hustle, how to protect your identity for free and more.

Previously, she led taxes and retirement coverage at NerdWallet.

Pamela joined NerdWallet after working at companies including Hallmark Cards, Sprint Corp. and The Kansas City Star. She has been a writer and editor for more than 20 years.

Pamela is a thought leader in content diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, and finds ways to make every piece of content conversational and accessible to all.

She is a graduate of the Maynard Institute's Maynard 200 program, and the National Association of Black Journalists Executive Leadership Academy. She is a two-time winner of the Kansas City Association of Black Journalists' President's Award. She was also founding co-chair of NerdWallet's Nerds of Color employee resource group.

Managing Editor

Pamela de la Fuente is a managing editor of NerdWallet's personal finance content. She leads budgeting, money-making, consumer credit and and debt coverage.

Ask her and her talented team about why credit scores matter, how to save money on your grocery bill, finding the right side hustle, how to protect your identity for free and more.

Previously, she led taxes and retirement coverage at NerdWallet.

Pamela joined NerdWallet after working at companies including Hallmark Cards, Sprint Corp. and The Kansas City Star. She has been a writer and editor for more than 20 years.

Pamela is a thought leader in content diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, and finds ways to make every piece of content conversational and accessible to all.

She is a graduate of the Maynard Institute's Maynard 200 program, and the National Association of Black Journalists Executive Leadership Academy. She is a two-time winner of the Kansas City Association of Black Journalists' President's Award. She was also founding co-chair of NerdWallet's Nerds of Color employee resource group.

If you're looking for ways to increase your income, dividend-paying stocks can be good contenders.

That said, there is a group of stocks within the S&P 500 that pays dividends even more reliably than other companies: the dividend aristocrats.

The top 10 dividend aristocrats

Below is a list of the top 10 dividend aristocrats ordered by current dividend yield.

1. Amcor Plc (AMCR): 6.53%

2. Hormel Foods Corp (HRL): 5.87%

3. Clorox Co (CLX): 5.46%

4. Kimberly-Clark Corp (KMB): 5.36%

5. Realty Income Corp (O): 5.36%

6. T. Rowe Price Group Inc (TROW): 5.02%

7. Kenvue Inc (KVUE): 4.95%

8. Franklin Resources Inc (BEN): 4.54%

9. J.M. Smucker Co (SJM): 4.32%

10. Stanley Black & Decker Inc (SWK): 4.3%

Source: Finviz. Stock data is current as of May 13, 2026, and is intended for informational purposes only.

» Check out our roundup of the best online brokers for dividend investing

What is a dividend aristocrat?

A dividend aristocrat is an S&P 500 stock that has increased its dividend every year for at least 25 years. Increasing its dividend means the company increased the dollar value of dividends per share. The dividend aristocrats don't necessarily need to increase their dividend yields over time.

There are 69 dividend aristocrats today, and they’re a diverse bunch. They’re distributed across many different parts of the economy, including the health care, consumer staples, financial and industrial sectors.

However, they do have a couple of things in common. The first is that they’re established — they must have been a publicly traded company for at least 25 years. You won't find any stock market newcomers, such as Tesla, among the dividend aristocrats.

Second, they are all large-cap stocks. To be dividend aristocrats, they must be S&P 500 companies, and all S&P 500 companies must have a market capitalization of at least $13.1 billion.

Ticker

Company name

ABBV

AbbVie Inc.

CAH

Cardinal Health

NUE

Nucor Corp.

PPG

PPG Industries

SHW

Sherwin-Williams Co.

ALB

Albemarle Corp.

CAT

Caterpillar Inc.

GWW

W. W. Grainger

ECL

Ecolab Inc.

SPGI

S&P Global

AOS

A. O. Smith Corp.

EMR

Emerson Electric

KVUE

Kenvue Inc.

CINF

Cincinnati Financial Corp.

TGT

Target Corp.

PNR

Pentair plc

NDSN

Nordson Corp.

APD

Air Products & Chemicals

ESS

Essex Property Trust

WMT

Walmart Inc.

EXPD

Expeditors International of Washington

GD

General Dynamics

LOW

Lowe's Companies

DOV

Dover Corp.

ES

Eversource Energy

BEN

Franklin Resources Inc.

ADP

Automatic Data Processing

TROW

T. Rowe Price Group

ROP

Roper Technologies

ITW

Illinois Tool Works

FDS

Factset Research Systems

CTAS

Cintas Corp.

ABT

Abbott Laboratories

GPC

Genuine Parts Co.

FAST

Fastenal Co.

FRT

Federal Realty Investment Trust

ATO

Atmos Energy Corp.

ED

Consolidated Edison

LIN

Linde plc

MDT

Medtronic plc

CVX

Chevron Corp.

SWK

Stanley Black & Decker

CHRW

C. H. Robinson Worldwide

CLX

Clorox Company

CB

Chubb Ltd.

JNJ

Johnson & Johnson

ADM

Archer-Daniels-Midland

BF/B

Brown-Forman Corp.

XOM

Exxon Mobil Corp.

O

Realty Income Corp.

MCD

McDonald's Corp.

NEE

NextEra Energy

MKC

McCormick & Co.

IBM

International Business Machines

KMB

Kimberly-Clark Corp.

KO

Coca-Cola Co.

SJM

J. M. Smucker

CL

Colgate-Palmolive Corp.

PG

Procter & Gamble

WST

West Pharmaceutical Services

SYY

Sysco Corp.

AFL

AFLAC Inc.

HRL

Hormel Foods Corp.

AMCR

Amcor plc

PEP

Pepsico Inc.

BRO

Brown & Brown

CHD

Church & Dwight

ERIE

Erie Indemnity Co.

BDX

Becton Dickinson & Co.

How to invest in dividend aristocrats

If you're new to investing and want to buy the dividend aristocrats, the first step is to open a brokerage account if you don't already have one. Then you'll need to choose between investing in individual dividend aristocrat stocks or investing in a dividend aristocrats fund.

Theoretically, individual stocks can beat funds and market indexes, but they can also be risky. It's important to research stocks before you buy them, and that can be time-consuming if you're considering a lot of individual stocks.

It can also be expensive to buy shares of a large number of individual stocks. For example, to buy shares of all the dividend aristocrats in our list above, you’d be looking at spending thousands.

» Interested in monthly payments? Check out monthly dividend stocks

Dividend aristocrats ETFs

If you’re looking to gain exposure to the dividend aristocrats, but don’t want to spend the time and money it takes to buy the individual stocks, you could consider buying exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that contain dividend-raising stocks instead.

The ProShares S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats ETF is the only one that strictly tracks the 69 official S&P 500 dividend aristocrats. There are a variety of other high-dividend ETFs that contain similar groups of stocks that consistently raise their dividends over time.

Next steps

Estimate your returns using our dividend calculator

Don’t forget about dividend taxes

Stocks that have increased their dividends for at least 50 years are sometimes called "dividend kings."

Unlike dividend aristocrats, dividend kings don't need to be S&P 500 companies. Most are — and are therefore aristocrats as well as kings — but a few aren't.

Still, the dividend kings are a smaller and more exclusive group than the dividend aristocrats — hence the name. While there are more than 60 dividend aristocrats at the time of writing, there are less than 50 dividend kings.

» Estimate your dividend stock returns with our dividend calculator.

If you own a dividend-paying stock or ETF, you have to be registered as a shareholder by a certain date to actually receive your next dividend payment. This is called an ex-dividend date. If you bought a stock on or after its ex-dividend date, you wouldn't get the next dividend.

Research any company or ETF you're looking into to make sure you know when the ex-dividend date is before you buy or sell.

Stocks that have increased their dividends for at least 50 years are sometimes called "dividend kings."

Unlike dividend aristocrats, dividend kings don't need to be S&P 500 companies. Most are — and are therefore aristocrats as well as kings — but a few aren't.

Still, the dividend kings are a smaller and more exclusive group than the dividend aristocrats — hence the name. While there are more than 60 dividend aristocrats at the time of writing, there are less than 50 dividend kings.

» Estimate your dividend stock returns

with our

dividend calculator

.

If you own a dividend-paying stock or ETF, you have to be registered as a shareholder by a certain date to actually receive your next dividend payment. This is called an ex-dividend date. If you bought a stock on or after its ex-dividend date, you wouldn't get the next dividend.

Research any company or ETF you're looking into to make sure you know when the ex-dividend date is before you buy or sell.

Helpful resources