How to use this calculator
- Totals: enter the dividends a company paid in a year and its shares outstanding. Both are in the annual report.
- Special dividends: optional. Enter any one-time payout you want to leave out of the regular figure.
- EPS: enter earnings per share and the payout ratio, if those are the numbers you have.
- One payment: enter the amount from a single dividend announcement and how often it is paid.
The formula
DPS = (Total dividends − Special dividends) ÷ Shares outstanding
DPS = EPS × Payout ratio
DPS = Dividend per payment × Payments per year
All three describe the same thing from different starting points. Total dividends is the cash the company sent to shareholders over the year. Shares outstanding is how many shares that cash was split across. EPS is the profit per share, and the payout ratio is the slice of that profit paid out. Payments per year is 12 for monthly, 4 for quarterly, 2 for semi-annual and 1 for annual.
Worked example
The starting numbers describe one company, seen three ways:
- From totals: $500,000,000 paid ÷ 250,000,000 shares = $2.00 per share.
- From earnings: $5.00 EPS × 40% payout = $2.00 per share.
- From one payment: $0.50 × 4 quarterly payments = $2.00 per share.
Each method lands on $2.00. When your own numbers don’t agree, the usual cause is a different share count, a special dividend, or a raise partway through the year.
Which share count to use
Companies report two figures: shares outstanding on a given date, and the weighted average over the year. Use the weighted average when you divide a full year of dividends, because the count changes as the company buys back or issues shares. If a company retires 5% of its shares through buybacks, the same total dividend works out to about 5% more per share. That is why DPS can grow faster than the total amount a company pays.
Regular and special dividends
A special dividend is a one-off payment, often after an asset sale or an unusually strong year. Including it makes that year’s DPS look high and the next year’s look like a cut. For projections, use the regular dividend only. The special one is still real money if you owned the shares on the ex-date; it just isn’t likely to repeat.
From DPS to the dividends you receive
Your own dividend income is DPS times the shares you held on each record date, not on any single day. If you bought halfway through the year, you only collected the payments after your purchase, so your total will be smaller than a full year of DPS. The same applies in reverse when you sell. For a full year of ownership, multiply the annual DPS by your share count; the Dividend Calculator does that and splits the result into monthly and per-payment amounts. Shares held in a tax-advantaged account pay the same DPS; only the tax on it differs. Foreign stocks may have tax withheld at the source, so the cash that arrives can be lower than the declared amount.
What DPS does and doesn’t tell you
DPS tells you how many dollars one share pays. It doesn’t tell you whether that is a lot. For that, compare it with the share price to get the yield, using the Dividend Yield Calculator, or with earnings to get the payout ratio, using the Payout Ratio Calculator. To see how fast DPS has been rising, try the Dividend Growth Calculator.
Tip: many annual reports print “dividends declared per common share” directly in the income statement or the selected financial data. Use that figure to check your own calculation.