MO Dividend Calculator
Dividend growth rate (CAGR)
| Year | Yield | Div / share | Annual income | Yield on cost | Cumulative income | Portfolio value | Shares |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5.4% | $4.20 | $580.00 | 4.7% | $580.00 | $13,850 | 177.75 |
| 2 | 5.2% | $4.38 | $778.31 | 5.3% | $1,358 | $18,199 | 217.04 |
| 3 | 5.1% | $4.57 | $990.85 | 5.8% | $2,349 | $23,099 | 256.00 |
| 4 | 4.9% | $4.76 | $1,218 | 6.2% | $3,568 | $28,608 | 294.63 |
| 5 | 4.7% | $4.96 | $1,462 | 6.6% | $5,030 | $34,789 | 332.95 |
| 6 | 4.6% | $5.17 | $1,723 | 7.1% | $6,752 | $41,710 | 370.96 |
| 7 | 4.5% | $5.39 | $2,001 | 7.5% | $8,753 | $49,447 | 408.67 |
| 8 | 4.3% | $5.62 | $2,298 | 7.9% | $11,052 | $58,080 | 446.07 |
| 9 | 4.2% | $5.86 | $2,616 | 8.3% | $13,667 | $67,699 | 483.18 |
| 10 | 4.1% | $6.11 | $2,954 | 8.7% | $16,621 | $78,401 | 519.99 |
Year 1-10 dividend income (preview)
Based on a $10,000 initial investment with $200.00 monthly contributions, DRIP on.
Historical dividends per share
Recent dividends
| Ex-date | Cash amount | TTM yield | Fwd yield | Share price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-03-25 | $1.06 | 6.6% | 6.6% | $63.78 |
| 2025-12-26 | $1.06 | 7.2% | 7.4% | $57.60 |
| 2025-09-15 | $1.06 | 7.9% | 6.5% | $64.89 |
| 2025-06-16 | $1.02 | 6.9% | 6.9% | $58.80 |
| 2025-03-25 | $1.02 | 7.1% | 7.2% | $56.71 |
| 2024-12-26 | $1.02 | 7.6% | 7.8% | $52.60 |
| 2024-09-16 | $1.02 | 7.7% | 7.9% | $51.70 |
| 2024-06-14 | $0.98 | 8.8% | 8.8% | $44.32 |
| 2024-03-22 | $0.98 | 9.0% | 9.1% | $42.98 |
| 2023-12-20 | $0.98 | 11.9% | 9.7% | $40.30 |
| 2023-09-14 | $0.98 | 8.6% | 8.9% | $44.10 |
| 2023-06-14 | $0.94 | 8.6% | 8.6% | $43.95 |
Source: Polygon.io. Last 12 dividend distributions, most recent first. TTM yield = sum of last 12 months of payments ÷ share price on ex-date. Forward yield = this payment × detected payout frequency ÷ share price on ex-date.
About MO
Altria Group, Inc. — ticker MO — is the US-focused tobacco company that was created out of the 2008 spin-off of Philip Morris International from the historical Philip Morris Companies. The pre-split entity is one of the longest-running dividend payers in the US market; the streak of consecutive annual dividend increases spans more than five decades on a combined-history basis, placing MO firmly within the "Dividend King" category despite its corporate restructuring. The streak continued without interruption through the 2008 spin-off (with a one-time adjustment to reflect the loss of the international business) and has continued through every year since.
Altria operates in the Consumer Defensive sector, specifically the tobacco and nicotine-products category. Its principal business is the US-market cigarette franchise — Marlboro is the dominant US cigarette brand by share — and the company has secondary positions in smokeless tobacco (Copenhagen, Skoal), oral nicotine pouches (on!), and various nicotine alternatives including a non-controlling equity interest in Anheuser-Busch InBev (a legacy holding from earlier corporate transactions) and recent investments in adjacent nicotine-product categories. The defining feature of the cigarette business is structural unit-volume decline — the number of cigarettes sold in the US falls every year as the smoking-rate denominator shrinks — partially offset by price increases that have historically allowed nominal revenue and earnings to grow despite the falling volume base.
The high dividend yield — historically running in the mid-single-digits to high single digits, well above any other large-cap consumer staple — reflects both the genuine cash-flow productivity of the business and market skepticism about the long-run trajectory of US tobacco demand. The yield is, in a meaningful sense, a risk premium. Investors are being compensated for accepting a category that faces secular volume decline, regulatory pressure (FDA authority over nicotine content, menthol bans, flavored-product restrictions), litigation tail risk, and growing ESG-driven exclusion from institutional and index-fund holdings. Many ESG-screened funds and pension mandates simply cannot hold tobacco names, which permanently caps the buyer base and contributes to the elevated yield.
Credit quality: Altria carries investment-grade credit ratings, supported by strong free cash flow conversion from the cigarette business and a disciplined capital-return policy. Expense ratio is not applicable to individual stocks — the figure you'll see in the calculator above is zero. The dividend has been raised annually for more than five decades on a combined-history basis; the per-share amount has compounded substantially over that window, though the rate of increase has slowed in recent years as management balances continued returns to shareholders against the underlying volume erosion in the cigarette franchise.
How MO pays dividends
MO pays cash dividends quarterly, on a January–April–July–October cadence. The board typically announces an annual dividend increase in late August, with the new rate effective on the October pay date. 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 cash leaving the balance sheet.
Holders who DRIP through their broker receive additional shares purchased at the prevailing market price around the pay date. Major brokers offer fractional-share DRIP for MO, so the full cash distribution is reinvested even when the per-share amount divided by the share price doesn't produce a whole number. 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 on the US tobacco business. Because the cigarette business produces high free cash flow conversion (operating cash flow is largely free of substantial reinvestment requirements; the cigarette manufacturing footprint is mature and capital-light), the dividend is funded by genuine recurring cash generation rather than borrowing or asset sales.
Recent growth pattern: MO has typically raised the quarterly per-share amount once per year, with the new rate taking effect on the October payment. The size of the annual hike has historically run in the mid-single-digit range, though it has trended lower in recent years as management has balanced the dividend growth path against the structural revenue pressure on the cigarette franchise. The trailing five-year dividend growth rate is meaningfully lower than it was a decade ago, which is the typical late-stage pattern for a Dividend King in a structurally declining category — the streak continues but the rate of increase moderates.
A note on the high payout ratio: MO's dividend consumes a large fraction of reported earnings. The company has historically targeted a payout ratio above 75% of adjusted earnings, which leaves limited retained earnings for organic reinvestment and tends to amplify any pressure on the operating business. The calculator on this page uses the trailing five-year dividend growth rate to project the income line; you can override this with a custom growth rate if you want to model a more conservative path that reflects the slowing of recent increases or a more optimistic path that assumes the historical pattern continues.
Who MO suits
MO suits investors who want a high current income yield, are comfortable with the specific risks of the tobacco category, and have a clear view on the long-run trajectory of US nicotine demand. The yield is structurally elevated relative to the broader market, the dividend has been raised every year for more than five decades, and the cash generation from the cigarette franchise is genuine and durable in the near term. For an income-focused investor with a multi-year horizon who is willing to accept the underlying business risk, the income line is among the highest available from a single Dividend King.
The risks are not abstract and deserve explicit framing. First, structural volume decline: US cigarette consumption falls every year, and management's offsetting price increases cannot continue indefinitely without accelerating the volume decline. The long-run question for the franchise is not whether the volume base shrinks — it does — but how quickly, and whether nicotine-pouch and alternative-product growth can offset the cigarette decline before the cigarette base becomes too small to sustain the current dividend. Second, regulatory risk: the FDA has authority over US tobacco products and has periodically signaled pressure on nicotine levels, menthol products, and flavored variants. Any binding regulatory change could disproportionately affect Altria's specific product portfolio. Third, ESG exclusion: a growing fraction of institutional capital is mandated to avoid tobacco holdings, which permanently constrains the buyer base for MO shares and contributes to multiple compression. Fourth, litigation tail risk: tobacco litigation in the US has not produced a major adverse outcome in many years, but the category remains an attractive target for plaintiff bars and state attorneys general.
In taxable accounts, MO's dividends are qualified for the long-term capital-gains rate, given the standard holding-period rule. The high absolute yield means the tax friction in a taxable account is material — a high yield generates a high annual tax bill on the income line, which is a meaningful drag on after-tax compounding. Many MO investors specifically prefer to hold the position inside a tax-advantaged wrapper (IRA, Roth IRA, 401(k)) to capture the full yield without the annual ordinary-income or qualified-dividend tax drag, especially in a Roth IRA where the future distributions in retirement are tax-free.
Compared to broad dividend ETFs like SCHD, MO offers significantly higher current yield with significantly higher single-stock and category-specific risk. SCHD's quality screens specifically exclude many of the structural-decline characteristics that define MO; an MO investor is making an explicit bet that the tobacco-category risk is more than compensated by the yield premium. This content is educational only; it is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold MO, and individual circumstances vary.
Hypothetical scenarios
Scenario 1: $10,000 invested at MO at the start of 2010
Consider a hypothetical purchase of $10,000 of Altria stock at the start of 2010 — two years after the 2008 spin-off of Philip Morris International had separated the US-focused tobacco business into a standalone entity. By that point the post-spin dividend policy was established, the streak from the combined-history era continued in MO's own ledger, and the company was trading at a single-digit-yield range. The initial $10,000 would have purchased several hundred shares at the entry price.
Holding from 2010 through to the present with DRIP enabled, the three compounding forces operated in very different proportions than for a lower-yield Dividend King. First, the per-share dividend grew at a meaningful annual rate — high single digits on average in the earlier years of the window, moderating to mid-single digits in more recent years as the growth pace slowed. Second, the share count grew substantially through DRIP because the yield was high enough that each quarterly reinvestment added a meaningful fraction of a percent to the share base; across more than fifteen years of monthly compounding events, the share-count contribution to the total income line is the largest single force in the projection. Third, the share price has been comparatively range-bound over the window — punctuated by both rallies and prolonged drawdowns — which means the share-price contribution to total return is materially smaller than for a growth-oriented holding.
The illustrative outcome is dominated by the income line rather than by share-price appreciation. The annual dividend received in the most recent year of the window is many multiples of the year-one dividend on the same initial position, driven primarily by the combination of a growing per-share dividend and a much larger share count from DRIP. The total-return picture is mixed: investors who held through the period collected substantial income but saw modest share-price contribution. MO is offered here as a structural illustration of a high-yield Dividend King over a long horizon, not as a forecast.
Scenario 2: $50,000 today plus $500/month for 20 years
Consider a hypothetical accumulation strategy: $50,000 starting capital, plus $500 per month added on a regular cadence for 20 years, all in MO. The calculator on this page can model this exactly — set Initial investment to $50,000, Extra contribution to $500, Contribution frequency to Monthly, time horizon to 20 years, and leave DRIP on.
The mechanics: each month, the new $500 buys additional shares at the current price, which adds to the share count and therefore to next quarter's dividend. Each quarter, the dividend received from all accumulated shares is reinvested, adding more shares at the prevailing price. Because MO's starting yield is high, each quarterly DRIP event adds a meaningful fraction of a percent to the share base — meaningfully more than for a low-yield holding of the same dollar size. Over 20 years this high-yield reinvestment combined with the DCA contribution flow produces a position where the annual dividend stream alone is a sizable income line.
What's worth focusing on in the calculator is two things at once. First, the annual dividend column climbs faster than for a comparable lower-yield holding because the high starting yield does more compounding work each quarter. Second, the projection's total-return picture depends heavily on the share-price growth assumption — if the projection assumes price stays flat, almost all return comes from the income line; if it assumes meaningful price appreciation, the total-return figure improves but the share-price contribution remains a secondary factor. That asymmetry — high income contribution, lower price contribution — is the defining structural shape of a long-horizon high-yield Dividend King position.
These scenarios assume the historical pattern of dividend growth continues at a similar rate, the underlying cigarette franchise continues to generate sufficient cash flow to fund and grow the dividend, and no major adverse regulatory or litigation outcome disrupts the payout cadence. Real outcomes depend on the long-run trajectory of US nicotine demand, MO's continued execution on price-led revenue growth despite volume decline, tax treatment in your specific account, and the broader US equity environment. Educational only; not a forecast.
Sources & methodology
Dividend history and price data come from Polygon.io's reference and aggregates endpoints. Forward yield is computed as the sum of the most recent four cash distributions divided by the previous-close share price. The dividend growth rate shown on this page is the compound annual growth rate of total annual distributions across the available history in this snapshot.
Last updated: 2026-05-15.
Information here is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Past dividend history does not guarantee future payments. Verify all figures with the issuer or a registered financial advisor before making investment decisions.