Dividend Kings of 2025

Dividend Kings have a long history of delivering market-beating returns for investors and proving to be generally steady, safe holdings. A Dividend King is a company that's grown its dividend payment for at least 50 consecutive years.

Companies that pay -- and then grow -- their dividends every year generally have the sort of characteristics investors should look for:

• Durable competitive moats that help them generate steady profits year after year.
• Some ability to grow earnings per share over the long term.
• Prudent board members and management who prioritize returning excess profits not needed for reinvestment back to shareholders.

What is a Dividend King?

What is a Dividend King?

What's the most exclusive group of dividend stocks? It might not be what first comes to mind.

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.

2025 Dividend Kings

2025 Dividend Kings list

These 55 stocks qualified as Dividend Kings as of March 3, 2025, 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:

• 16 industrial companies
• 16 consumer goods
• 9 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 0.03%) owns shares of all Dividend Aristocrats®.

Changes in 2025

Dividend King changes in 2025

Although there's some risk that a potential recession could upend one or more of these dividend streaks, companies that make this list rarely lose their status. There's tremendous pressure on companies that have increased their dividends for 50-plus years to keep their streak going. No CEO wants to be known as the leader who messed up an impressive dividend track record.

Conversely, it takes a half-century to make this list, a rare feat indeed. Yet we have recently seen several companies achieve Dividend King status. Automatic Data Processing joined the exclusive club in 2024. So far in 2025, we have added one new Dividend King, RLI Corp, with its dividend increase in February adding it to the royal list.

These stocks are now former Dividend Kings

Despite management's efforts (or often because of them), not all companies stay on the list. In 2024, two former Dividend Kings cut their payouts, losing status.

Leggett & Platt (LEG -1.28%) was the first, slashing its dividend in April, ending a 52-year run of dividend growth. 3M (MMM 1.43%) cut its payout more recently, lowering the dividend in May and bringing its six-decade growth streak to an end. In the case of both companies, bloated expenses, weak growth, and a number of acquisitions that haven't gone well played a role in the financial results weakening and eventually leading to a need to cut the payout.

Two "unofficial" Dividend Kings

A note on two "unofficial" Dividend Kings

We have added Canadian Utilities and Tootsie Roll Industries to this list. Both have characteristics that make them Dividend Kings, though some investors may argue 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 recently made the effective dividend paid to U.S. investors fall. We don't want to shortchange the company or our Canadian investors because of this. The money the company has paid from its coffers every year has indeed increased for 53 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 also pays every year. So long as the stock price increases in value, the total dividends paid grows. We thought this quirk was worth explaining in detail.

Likely Dividend King winners in 2025

Likely Dividend King winners in 2025

Three key factors could affect many stocks in 2025, including several of the Dividend Kings:

1. Inflation
2. Interest rates
3. A possible recession tied to the two factors above

These factors could benefit some stocks but hurt others. Here are three Dividend Kings that could be winners in 2025:

1. Target

Target has been on a seriously rough ride in recent years. Like many other big-box retailers, the impact of inflation and supply chain challenges left the company with too many of the wrong goods and rising costs, pressuring its cash flow following the coronavirus pandemic.

The expectations of its e-commerce-driven business during the pandemic, along with some continued struggles with inventory and store-level execution, have weighed on its business in recent years, pulling shares to some of the lowest levels in the past five years. And while the business hasn't delivered the growth many expected, it's in far better shape than the stock would have many investors believe.

Its e-commerce investments and large physical presence are a powerful combination that should serve Target well. Target is a major supplier of consumer staples, and even as consumers feel the pinch on their discretionary spending, Target is built to profit across economic environments.

Trading for a cheap valuation and paying a safe dividend, Target looks like a great Dividend King to buy today and hold for the long term.

2. Altria

Some investors look at the tobacco giant with disdain; others simply won't buy a company whose products cause so much harm. But if that's not a concern for you, Altria should be on your list.

The company has had a number of missteps around vaping products in recent years, and its ability to crack the cannabis market isn't clear (nor is the future of cannabis's legality in many of Altria's markets).

However, it continues to generate mountains of cash -- $8.6 billion in free cash flow over the past four quarters -- and returns much of that, $6.8 billion, to shareholders in dividend income. It also sells a product its customers buy across every economic condition, making its sizable dividend safe in every economic environment.

3. Johnson & Johnson

Another Dividend King that's gone through a tumultuous past several years is Johnson & Johnson (J&J). However, the healthcare giant could emerge as a winning stock this year. To start, today's J&J is a more streamlined business, having divested Kenvue, its consumer products business, in 2023. Now, the company is focused on pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and technology exclusively.

Over the past few years, J&J stock hasn't made for a great investment even with dividend growth, returning under 9% in total over the past three years. However, despite the paltry return in recent years, the five- and 10-year returns are better, at closer to 8% per year on average even with the recent weakness. With the company now lean and focused on its core pharma and medical devices businesses, 2025 could be a great year to add J&J to your long-term dividend growth portfolio.

Future Dividend Kings

Future Dividend Kings

Here are some notable companies close to King status, and how long their current dividend growth streak is:

• Pentair (PNR -0.32%); 49 years
• MGE Energy (MGEE 0.34%); 49 years

There are several large, well-known companies that are also primed to join the Dividend Kings list in the next half-decade. We will update the list as they move closer!

Related investing topics

Why invest in Dividend Kings?

Why invest in Dividend Kings?

Dividend Kings aren't necessarily a good fit for every investor. Many of these stocks frequently deliver relatively low growth and may or may not prove better investments than the stock market average. For example, of the 10 Dividend Kings with the longest records for dividend increases, only one has outperformed the S&P 500 over the past 10 years, while six of the 10 have outperformed since 1990.

In other cases, their long records of growing payouts can make them reliable income generators, but being a Dividend King is no promise of market-beating returns.

Dividend Kings can be a great component of retirement portfolios or for investors looking for reliable income. Most of these stocks offer higher dividend yields than the average yield of S&P 500 members. Their consistency in paying and increasing dividend payouts can also provide a measure of confidence for anyone, depending on income generated by the dividend stocks they own.

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