SCHD dividend history: every payment since 2016, and how much it has grown

SCHD, the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF, pays a dividend four times a year. Over the last four payments it paid $1.0541 a share, and its yearly total has gone up every year since 2018, with one catch: the amount moves around a lot from one quarter to the next. Here is every payment in Schwab’s own records, what the 2024 split did to the numbers, and when the next one is.

The short answer

• How often: quarterly. The ex-dividend dates fall in March, June, September and December, and the cash arrives within 6 days.
• Latest dividend: $0.2665 a share, ex-date September 23, 2026.
• Last four dividends: $1.0541 a share in total.
• Next: Schwab’s 2026 schedule puts the next ex-date on December 9, 2026, paid December 14, 2026. The amount wasn’t declared when this was written (October 10, 2026); the SCHD page shows it once it is.

SCHD’s dividend, year by year

Schwab’s distribution file for SCHD goes back to December 2016: 40 payments up to September 2026, every one of them paid as income, with no capital gains. Added up by the year they were paid, and in today’s shares (more on that below):

From $0.4486 in 2017 to $1.0476 in 2025: 2.34 times as much per share. The total rose every year from 2018 through 2025, 8 years in a row, and over the last five full years it grew 9.2% a year on average (2020 to 2025). 2026 isn’t in the table because its December payment hasn’t happened yet.

That is history, not a promise. Schwab’s own distribution schedule says it plainly: past distributions don’t indicate future ones, and there is no guarantee that distributions will be paid.

The 2024 split: why old amounts look three times bigger

SCHD split 3-for-1 in October 2024. Schwab says the split took effect on October 10, applied to shareholders of record at the close on October 9, and that shares began trading at their post-split price on October 11, 2024. Every share became three, each worth a third as much, and the total value of a holding didn’t change.

The dividend per share followed. Schwab’s file lists the September 2024 payment as $0.7545 a share and the December 2024 one as $0.2645, which looks like a collapse but isn’t: $0.7545 on one old share is $0.2515 on each of the three shares it became. Every figure in this article divides the payments before the split by 3, so all of them compare with a share today. Our post on stock splits and dividends explains the adjustment in more detail.

Why some quarters pay less

The yearly total only went up, but the quarters didn’t. Of the 39 changes from one payment to the next, 16 were declines. The biggest drop was −24.2% in March 2018, and the biggest rise came right after it: +55.1% in June 2018.

One pattern stands out in the table on the SCHD page: the March payment was smaller than the December before it in every one of the 10 years in Schwab’s file, by between 5.1% and 24.2%. Schwab doesn’t explain the swings in its file, so we won’t guess. The practical point is simple: don’t read one smaller quarter as a dividend cut. Compare a full year with the year before.

What it means for your income

An example, to show the arithmetic: with 100 shares, the last four dividends came to 100 × $1.0541 = $105.41 for the year, and the latest quarter alone paid $26.65. Because the quarters vary, the last four payments are a better guide to a year’s income than the latest payment times four. Type your own share count on the SCHD page to see your numbers.

To collect a dividend you have to own the shares before the ex-dividend date. Buy on the ex-date or later and the seller gets that payment. For the December 2026 dividend, the last day to buy is December 8, 2026; the Will I Get the Dividend? calculator checks any buy and sell date against it. To see what reinvesting every payment could add up to, run SCHD through the DRIP Calculator, and to weigh it against keeping the money in a savings account, try Dividend Stock vs Savings Account or CD.

Sources

• Schwab Asset Management: SCHD product page (distributions, “Export Data” file, and the 2024 share split)
• Schwab Asset Management: Equity ETFs Distribution Schedule 2026
• FINRA Rule 11140: Transactions in securities “ex-dividend”
• SEC: Shortening the securities transaction settlement cycle to T+1 (2023)