Dividend Kings of 2026

Companies that pay -- and then grow -- their dividends every year generally have several important characteristics investors should look for:

• Durable competitive moats that help them generate steady profits year after year
• The ability to grow earnings per share over the long term
• Prudent board members and management who prioritize returning excess profits -- those not needed to support the long-term needs of the business -- to shareholders

What is a Dividend King?

Many investors are familiar with the Dividend Aristocrats®. (The term Dividend Aristocrats® is a registered trademark of Standard & Poor's Financial Services, LLC.) These stocks are members of the S&P 500 that have increased their dividends for at least 25 consecutive years.

But there's an even more elite group of dividend stocks that doesn't receive as much attention. Dividend Kings don't have to be members of the S&P 500, but they must reach an ultramarathon-like dividend streak -- at least 50 consecutive years of payout growth. Here's what you need to know about the Dividend Kings and how they can fit into your investment portfolio.

2026 Dividend Kings

These 57 stocks qualified as Dividend Kings as of Feb. 2, 2026, including two unofficial Dividend Kings that qualify depending on how you interpret dividend growth.

The industrial and consumer goods sectors make up more than half of the 2025 Dividend Kings list. This shouldn't be a surprise. Companies in these sectors tend to pay dividends and raise their prices with inflation, and many have also been in operation for a long time. The list breaks down as follows:

• 17 industrial companies
• 16 consumer goods
• 10 utility stocks
• 4 healthcare stocks
• 6 financial stocks
• 1 energy stock
• 1 materials stock
• 1 real estate stock
• 1 tech stock

There aren't any exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that focus exclusively on Dividend Kings. However, the ProShares S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats ETF (NOBL +1.63%) owns shares of all Dividend Aristocrats®.

Dividend King changes in 2026

Companies that make this list don't often lose their status; the things that make a company strong enough to make it 50 years with annual dividend increases are usually very durable. Plus, there's tremendous pressure on companies that have increased their dividends for 50-plus years to keep the streak going. No CEO wants to be known as the leader who messed up such an impressive dividend track record.

Fortunately, the list held up pretty well in 2025, with two new Dividend Kings joining the list. We have another joining the list in 2026, with industrial water treatment solutions and equipment maker Pentair (PNR +2.63%) announcing in December that it would pay out its 50th consecutive annual dividend increase in February 2026.

No stocks lost Dividend King status in 2025

Fortunately, 2025 proved to be a better year for Dividend Kings. In addition to multiple new members, none of the existing Kings lost their status, a bounce back from 2024 when several lowered their dividends.

A note on two unofficial Dividend Kings

Canadian Utilities (CDUAF +1.17%) and Tootsie Roll (TR +0.96%) are on this list but for slightly different reasons. Some investors may argue that they make the cut on a technicality or two.

Canadian Utilities is certainly a King if you're a Canadian investor; however, the changes in foreign exchange rates have made the effective dividend paid to U.S. investors fall at times in the past. We don't want to shortchange the company or our Canadian investor friends because of this. The dividends per share -- in Canadian dollars -- have indeed increased for 54 years in a row.

Tootsie Roll is a little more complex. To start, the company has a long history of paying a dividend, but the $0.09 quarterly cash portion of the dividend has remained unchanged for years.

Its payout has grown via the 3% stock dividend it has also paid every year for the past six decades. So, as long as the stock price increases in value, the total dividends paid grow. We thought this quirk was worth explaining in detail. It can be argued that maybe it isn't a King but is worthy of consideration for dividend investors.

Likely Dividend King winners in 2026

Three key factors could affect many stocks in 2026, including several of the Dividend Kings:

1. Inflation
2. Interest rates
3. A possible recession tied to the two factors above and deteriorating employment and consumer spending

Here are three Dividend Kings that could be winners in 2026:

2026 is off to a solid start, too, with the stock up more than 10% through January. Now lean and focused on its core pharma and medical devices businesses, investors are hopeful it can take the momentum of 2025 and accelerate in 2026.

Future Dividend Kings

Residential and commercial water management company Pentair (PNR +2.63%) is officially set to join the Dividend Kings in 2026, having announced in late December its 50th straight annual payout raise, which will happen in February.

Several other large, well-known companies are also primed to join the Dividend Kings list in the next few years. We'll update the list as they move closer.

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