CL Dividend Calculator

About CL

Colgate-Palmolive Company — ticker CL — is one of the oldest continuously operating consumer products companies in the United States and one of the longest-running dividend payers in the entire US equity market. The business was founded in 1806 by William Colgate as a soap and candle shop in New York City, which makes the corporate history older than the modern dividend itself. The company has paid a regular cash dividend for more than 125 years and has raised that dividend every year for more than sixty consecutive years, placing it firmly in the small "Dividend King" group of streaks of fifty years or longer. Among that group, CL's hike streak is one of the longest in the entire US market, and the underlying dividend-payment history is among the longest of any publicly traded American company.

CL operates in the Consumer Defensive sector, specifically household and personal products. The revenue base sits across four reporting segments. Oral Care is the largest at roughly half of revenue and includes the flagship Colgate toothpaste line, mouthwash, and the manual and electric toothbrush range; Colgate is the global number-one oral care brand by share, with leading positions in most major markets. Personal Care contributes about a fifth of revenue, anchored by Palmolive soap, Speed Stick deodorant, and Irish Spring. Home Care contributes roughly fifteen percent through Ajax, Fabuloso, and Suavitel. Pet Nutrition contributes the remaining fifteen percent through the Hill's Science Diet and Hill's Prescription Diet brands, which are sold primarily through veterinarian channels and premium retail and which have been the company's fastest-growing segment in recent years.

The geographic mix is the structural feature that most distinguishes CL from its consumer-staples peers: roughly seventy-five percent of revenue is generated outside the United States, with heavy weights in Latin America, Asia-Pacific, and Africa. CL is a US-listed stock but its earnings stream is heavily international, which means foreign-exchange translation and emerging-market consumer-spending trends move the reported numbers in ways that an investor in a US-focused name does not see. The margin profile is consistent with a premium-brand consumer business — gross margins in the low sixty-percent range, supported by pricing power in oral care and pet nutrition, and operating margins in the low twenty-percent range.

The dividend mandate has been built into the company's capital-allocation policy for so long that it functions as a structural commitment rather than a discretionary use of cash. The payout ratio typically runs in the fifty-five to sixty-five percent range of earnings, which is high enough to reflect mature-business cash-distribution discipline but low enough to leave meaningful headroom for reinvestment in brand support, R&D, and bolt-on acquisitions. Expense ratio is not applicable to individual stocks — the figure you'll see in the calculator above is zero, since there is no fund wrapper between you and the underlying shares.

The dividend has never been cut in modern history. It has occasionally grown more slowly than long-term inflation in particular years, but it has never been reduced or suspended, which is the relevant test for a dividend-streak investor.

How CL pays dividends

CL pays cash dividends quarterly. The board declares the per-share amount each quarter, and the ex-dividend dates typically fall in the early part of January, April, July, and October, with pay dates roughly two to three weeks later in the same month. Holders who own shares as of the close on the day before the ex-date receive the dividend; holders who buy on or after the ex-date wait for the next quarterly payment. On the ex-date the share price drops by approximately the distribution amount on the open, reflecting the fact that the company has paid the cash out of its balance sheet.

Holders who DRIP through their broker receive additional shares purchased at the prevailing market price around the pay date. Most major brokers offer fractional-share DRIP for CL, so the full cash distribution is reinvested even when the per-share amount divided by the share price doesn't produce a whole number. The mechanics are identical to any other quarterly US dividend stock — there is no managed-distribution policy, no covered-call overlay, and no return of capital. The cash that funds the dividend comes from operating earnings; CL collects revenue from product sales worldwide, pays manufacturing and marketing costs and taxes, services its debt, and the residual is available for capital return.

Recent growth pattern: CL has typically raised the quarterly per-share amount once per year, with the new rate taking effect on the first dividend payment following the announcement. The size of the annual hike has historically run in the low-to-mid single-digit range. This is slower than the long-term equity dividend growth rates produced by faster-growing companies in less mature industries, and it is also slower than some other Dividend Kings; it reflects the maturity of the core consumer-products categories and the FX translation drag that periodically compresses reported earnings growth. A meaningful share of total return for CL therefore comes from the income line rather than from price appreciation, which is the defining shape of a mature Dividend King's return profile.

Because the increase happens once per year rather than spread over four quarters, the year-over-year dividend growth rate compounds cleanly. The calculator on this page uses the trailing five-year dividend growth rate to project the income line forward; you can override this with a custom growth rate if you want to model a more conservative or more optimistic path. The same logic applies to the share-price growth assumption — the default uses the trailing five-year price growth rate, which for a slow-growth consumer staple like CL tends to sit in the low single digits.

Who CL suits

CL suits investors who prioritize income stability, a multi-decade hike streak, and exposure to non-US consumer demand inside a single US-listed ticker. The yield typically sits in the low single digits — above the broader S&P 500 average but below the headline figures offered by high-yield names or covered-call funds. The trade-off is the standard Dividend King shape: CL trades a higher yield for a much higher confidence that the income will continue and grow, and it adds an international-revenue feature that pure-US consumer staples names lack.

In taxable accounts, CL's dividends are qualified for the long-term capital-gains rate, given the standard sixty-day holding-period rule (the share must be held for more than sixty days during the 121-day window centered on the ex-date). Most buy-and-hold investors clear this threshold easily. In tax-advantaged accounts — IRAs, Roth IRAs, 401(k)s — the qualified-dividend treatment is moot because no current-year tax applies; the structural advantage of a long-running dividend grower is the compounding of share count via DRIP without tax friction.

Compared to dividend-focused ETFs such as SCHD, CL offers concentrated exposure to a single mature business rather than a diversified basket. A CL investor accepts company-specific risk — including risks from category-share competition in oral care, regulatory pressure on emerging-market consumer pricing, and currency translation effects given that three-quarters of revenue is generated outside the US dollar zone. SCHD, by contrast, holds roughly one hundred names with a single-stock cap; it sacrifices some yield to eliminate the concentration risk. Many income investors hold both: CL for the long-streak signal and the international-consumer angle, SCHD for the diversification.

CL is generally considered a defensive holding because demand for toothpaste, soap, and pet food tends to be relatively insensitive to the economic cycle. This defensive character makes it a common building block in income-oriented portfolios designed to be held through cycles. As with any single-stock position, this content is educational only; it is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold CL, and individual circumstances vary.