Intel (INTC -2.63%) stock has more than tripled in 2026. As I write, shares trade near $119, up about 223% so far this year.
Longtime shareholders might remember another thing about the chipmaker: It used to pay them a dividend. Intel had paid one since 1992. It cut the quarterly payout to $0.125 a share early in 2023, then suspended it as of the fourth quarter of 2024 to prioritize liquidity for its investment plans.
Now that the stock has tripled, is the dividend coming back?
Intel, though, linked the dividend's return to its cash flow, not its stock price. And I don't think its cash flow is anywhere near where it has to be yet.
Image source: Intel.
Intel set the bar at cash flow
When it announced the suspension in August 2024, Intel also said what would bring the payout back.
"The company reiterates its long-term commitment to a competitive dividend as cash flows improve to sustainably higher levels," Intel said in its second-quarter 2024 earnings release.
This means free cash flow, or the cash left after Intel spends on its plants and equipment. Intel's own version, which it calls non-GAAP (adjusted) free cash flow, also includes government incentives and money from its factory partners.
By this measure, Intel hasn't cleared the bar. In 2025, its operations produced $9.7 billion of cash, but it made $17.7 billion of gross capital investments. Adjusted free cash flow that year was negative $1.6 billion. The number did go positive in the fourth quarter of 2025, at $2.2 billion. But the first quarter of 2026 came in at negative $2.0 billion, and the second quarter at negative $8.4 billion.
Granted, most of this second-quarter shortfall was from buying back the 49% stake in Intel's Ireland factory venture that it had sold to Apollo. That $14.2 billion deal closed in April. And the underlying business is making more cash. Second-quarter operating cash flow more than tripled year over year to $7.0 billion, and it was up sharply from the first quarter's $1.1 billion.
More spending ahead
But the second quarter also had unusually low spending. Intel's gross capital spending was just $2.7 billion, around half the first quarter's $5.0 billion. This rate likely won't hold.
In July, Intel lifted its 2026 capital spending outlook to more than $20 billion. With around $7.6 billion spent through June, the company would have to spend more than $12 billion in the final six months to reach it.
"[W]e are forecasting 2027 capital expenditures to be significantly above the 2026 levels with the vast majority spent across our US network," CFO Dave Zinsner said in comments released with the second-quarter results.
Intel also raised its investment in Intel 14A, its next manufacturing process, and has committed to ramping it in high volume in 2028.
Meanwhile, the balance sheet weakened in the first half. Total debt grew to $50.5 billion as of late June, from $46.6 billion when 2025 ended. Cash and short-term investments shrank to $29.7 billion from $37.4 billion.
Then, in August, Intel sold around $23 billion in new stock at $95 a share. It said the money might go to capital spending and working capital, and that the offering helps it keep "a strong balance sheet and its commitment to an investment-grade rating."
A company that just asked investors for $23 billion looks unlikely to start handing cash back to them soon. After all, paying a dividend now might mean raising money from new shareholders to pay current ones. It's worth noting that Intel hasn't bought back its own shares since the first quarter of 2021, either.
NASDAQ: INTC
Key Data Points
Would a dividend even matter?
Even if Intel restored its old $0.125 quarterly payout, it'd yield only around 0.4% at today's price -- much too low for anyone looking for a dividend stock. At the share price of around $21 just after the suspension was announced, that same $0.50 a year would've yielded about 2.3%.
And restoring it wouldn't be cheap. With around 5.3 billion shares outstanding after the August offering, $0.50 a share would cost Intel around $2.6 billion every year, money now going into its plants.
Will Intel bring back its dividend anytime soon? I don't expect it to. Intel made "sustainably higher" cash flow the test, and adjusted free cash flow has been negative for both quarters of 2026, with spending set to climb through 2027.
I'd guess that a restored dividend, if it comes, likely won't arrive until after the 14A ramp in 2028, when capital spending flattens out and the new plants start earning a return. Intel hasn't given a timeline of its own.
