VT Dividend Calculator
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Dividend growth rate (CAGR)
| Year | Start Balance | Start Shares | Share Price | Dividend / Share | Dividend Yield | Yield on Cost | Annual Dividend | Total Dividends | End Shares | End Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $10,000 | 63.24 | $172.19 | $1.31 | 0.76% | 0.76% | $93.71 | $93.71 | 78.30 | $13,483 |
| 2 | $13,483 | 78.30 | $187.52 | $1.46 | 0.78% | 0.84% | $124.95 | $218.66 | 92.30 | $17,308 |
| 3 | $17,308 | 92.30 | $204.21 | $1.61 | 0.79% | 0.93% | $160.24 | $378.90 | 105.34 | $21,511 |
| 4 | $21,511 | 105.34 | $222.38 | $1.79 | 0.80% | 1.02% | $200.10 | $579.00 | 117.49 | $26,128 |
| 5 | $26,128 | 117.49 | $242.17 | $1.98 | 0.82% | 1.11% | $245.07 | $824.07 | 128.84 | $31,203 |
| 6 | $31,203 | 128.84 | $263.73 | $2.20 | 0.83% | 1.21% | $295.78 | $1,120 | 139.47 | $36,781 |
| 7 | $36,781 | 139.47 | $287.20 | $2.44 | 0.85% | 1.32% | $352.94 | $1,473 | 149.43 | $42,916 |
| 8 | $42,916 | 149.43 | $312.76 | $2.70 | 0.86% | 1.43% | $417.34 | $1,890 | 158.79 | $49,662 |
| 9 | $49,662 | 158.79 | $340.59 | $3.00 | 0.88% | 1.55% | $489.85 | $2,380 | 167.60 | $57,084 |
| 10 | $57,084 | 167.60 | $370.91 | $3.32 | 0.90% | 1.68% | $571.50 | $2,951 | 175.92 | $65,251 |
S&P 500 is included only as a total-portfolio-value reference — it isn't the most meaningful benchmark for income-focused strategies. The 10% baseline reflects the index's long-term nominal total return (price + dividends), a reference rather than a forecast.
Historical dividends per share
Dividend-led pattern. Over 5 years VT's dividend grew 10.88%/yr — roughly 1.8× VOO (5.91%) and 2.9× VYM (3.79%). Share price grew 8.90%/yr in the same window. Yield drifted from 3.3% to 2.1%.
For reinvesters, each DRIP buys cheaper income than the previous — yield-on-cost compounds upward. For total-return investors, dividend growth here is outpacing capital appreciation.
Based on dividends paid December 2008 to March 2026.
Recent dividends
| Ex-date | Cash amount | TTM yield | Fwd yield | Share price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-03-20 | $0.33 | 1.85% | 0.96% | $136.32 |
| 2025-12-19 | $1.12 | 1.83% | 3.17% | $140.50 |
| 2025-09-19 | $0.48 | 1.70% | 1.39% | $137.47 |
| 2025-06-20 | $0.59 | 1.84% | 1.92% | $123.74 |
| 2025-03-21 | $0.39 | 1.92% | 1.31% | $117.60 |
| 2024-12-20 | $0.88 | 1.94% | 2.97% | $118.11 |
| 2024-09-20 | $0.42 | 1.88% | 1.42% | $117.90 |
| 2024-06-21 | $0.58 | 1.96% | 2.06% | $112.43 |
| 2024-03-15 | $0.42 | 2.11% | 1.56% | $108.14 |
| 2023-12-18 | $0.80 | 2.11% | 3.16% | $101.41 |
| 2023-09-18 | $0.41 | 2.05% | 1.68% | $96.44 |
| 2023-06-20 | $0.65 | 2.06% | 2.71% | $96.17 |
Source: Polygon.io. Last 12 dividend distributions, most recent first. TTM yield = sum of this payment + (frequency − 1) prior payments ÷ share price on ex-date. Forward yield = this payment × detected payout frequency ÷ share price on ex-date.
About VT
The Vanguard Total World Stock ETF — ticker VT — is Vanguard's single-fund solution for global equity exposure and one of the broadest equity ETFs available to US holders by holdings count. The fund launched on June 24, 2008 and tracks the FTSE Global All Cap Index, an index designed to capture the entire investable global equity universe across developed and emerging markets and across large, mid, and small capitalization tiers. The resulting basket holds approximately 9,800 underlying securities, which is roughly an order of magnitude broader than any US-only total-market ETF and several times the breadth of typical international ETFs. The expense ratio is 0.07%, which is among the lowest globally-diversified expense ratios on the US-listed ETF shelf — the comparable institutional total-world mutual fund products often cost three to five times more for the same exposure.
The geographic composition is the structural feature that defines VT relative to any US-only or international-only alternative. The United States holding share runs in the 60-62% range in recent years, developed markets ex-US in the 28-30% range, and emerging markets in the 10-12% range. These weights are not policy targets — the fund is market-cap-weighted by index rule, so the geographic split is the realized market-cap weighting of global investable equity at each rebalance. The split drifts with relative market performance: a period of US outperformance lifts the US weight, a period of emerging-market outperformance lifts the EM weight, and the weights converge back toward whatever the global market-cap distribution is at the next rebalance. A holder of VT is implicitly accepting whatever global allocation the market is pricing rather than imposing a target US/ex-US split.
The sector composition reflects the global market-cap-weighted construction. Information Technology, Financials, Industrials, Consumer Discretionary, and Health Care typically dominate the top sectors, with Communication Services, Consumer Staples, Energy, Utilities, Materials, and Real Estate filling out the rest. Because the index is uncapped at the country and sector level — the only screen is investability — the basket carries the full sector profile of the world's listed equity, including the parts of the world (and the parts of the cap spectrum) that US-only indices structurally exclude. The number of holdings — roughly 9,800 — is large enough that no single name or sector dominates the fund's return; the top ten holdings together typically account for under 20% of the fund, compared with 30%+ concentration in S&P 500 trackers like VOO or IVV.
VT is not a dividend-focused fund in the methodology sense. Unlike VIG, SCHD, or NOBL, there is no streak filter, quality screen, or yield ranking applied to constituent selection — the index simply holds the global investable equity market in market-cap-weighted proportion. The fund pays a dividend because its underlying holdings do, but the distribution profile is what the global market produces rather than what a screened dividend-grower basket would produce. The forward yield on VT typically runs below pure-dividend ETFs and above non-dividend-focused growth-tilted alternatives — the calculator's measured forward yield is the relevant number to model against, since the global aggregate yield drifts with the relative weights of high-yield and low-yield regions and sectors over time.
How VT pays dividends
VT distributes cash dividends quarterly, on an approximately March–June–September–December cadence. Each quarter the fund aggregates the dividends paid by the ~9,800 underlying holdings during the period, retains a small portion for fund expenses, and passes the remainder through to shareholders on the pay date. The aggregate distribution is therefore the bottom-up sum of the underlying holdings' payouts, weighted by their respective index weights and net of the 0.07% expense ratio. The quarterly amount per share varies more than it does for a US-only dividend ETF — the global basket includes regions whose payment cadences differ (many European companies pay annual or semiannual rather than quarterly dividends, many emerging-market names pay irregularly), so the quarterly distributions VT shareholders receive can be lumpy quarter-to-quarter with the December payment typically running larger than the others as year-end annual dividends from international holdings settle.
The distribution character is mixed — and this is the structural feature of VT that differentiates it from US-only dividend ETFs at tax time. US-domiciled underlying holdings produce qualified dividends, which pass through VT to shareholders as qualified and qualify for the long-term capital-gains tax rate in taxable accounts assuming the standard sixty-one-day holding-period requirement is met. Foreign-domiciled underlying holdings produce non-qualified dividends — even if the underlying company would have qualified-equivalent treatment in its home jurisdiction, the foreign-corporation distributions generally do not meet the IRS qualified-dividend definition unless the foreign corporation is incorporated in a country with which the US has a qualifying tax treaty and certain additional conditions are met. The proportion of VT's distribution that qualifies in any given year varies with the realized weights and the specific holdings' payment patterns; the realized qualified percentage has historically run in roughly the 50-70% range based on Vanguard's annual reporting, but the exact figure is published each year on Form 1099-DIV and the supplementary tax documents Vanguard distributes.
Foreign dividend withholding is the other structural feature. When a foreign company pays a dividend to VT as a US-domiciled holder, the foreign country's tax authority typically withholds a portion — commonly around 15% under treaty rates — before the dividend reaches Vanguard. Vanguard passes through the gross-minus-withholding amount as the distribution, and the withheld portion is reported separately as foreign tax paid on the shareholder's 1099-DIV. The shareholder can recover this foreign tax in a taxable account by claiming the foreign tax credit (Form 1116) or, for amounts under the simplified threshold, as a direct credit without the form; in tax-advantaged accounts the foreign tax credit is generally lost because there is no US tax liability inside the wrapper to credit against. The scenarios page on this site discusses the account-placement implication in detail.
DRIP through Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, IBKR, or Robinhood works the same way it does for any quarterly US-listed ETF — the cash distribution buys additional VT shares at the prevailing price on or near the pay date, with fractional-share reinvestment supported. The calculator's projection of compounded income reflects the reinvestment of distributions; the underlying tax treatment in a taxable account would reduce the effective reinvestment dollar amount by the marginal tax on the non-qualified portion plus the foreign withholding that is recoverable only via the foreign tax credit, while a tax-advantaged wrapper would reinvest the gross distribution untaxed at the cost of losing the foreign tax credit.
Who VT suits
VT fits the one-fund global investor — the holder who wants a single position covering the entire investable equity market without making active calls on US versus ex-US weighting, developed versus emerging weighting, or sector tilts. The trade-off versus a US-only total-market fund like VTI is breadth at modest cost. VT carries a 0.07% expense ratio versus VTI's 0.03%, a four-basis-point difference that compounds modestly over a multi-decade horizon. The breadth comes with structural exposure to international markets, including the parts of the developed and emerging world that have underperformed US large-cap during the post-2010 US-led market regime. A holder who wants global diversification by default — accepting whatever the global market-cap weighting produces, with no view on US versus international going forward — gets that exposure cheaply in a single ticker. A holder who wants to express a tilt either way, or who wants to manage the foreign-tax-credit asymmetry across account types, may prefer the two-fund VTI + VXUS construction discussed on the scenarios page.
The trade-off versus a US-focused dividend ETF like VIG, SCHD, or VYM is purpose. VT is a market-cap-weighted broad-equity fund that pays a dividend incidentally; VIG, SCHD, and VYM are explicitly screened dividend-focused funds whose construction tilts toward higher-yielding or growth-disciplined dividend payers. The forward yield on VT typically runs below all three — the calculator's measured forward yield reflects the global market's aggregate yield rather than a screened-up basket's yield. For a holder whose primary objective is current dividend income, VT is the broad-equity choice rather than the dividend choice; for a holder whose primary objective is global equity exposure with the dividend income as the realized byproduct, VT is the single-fund solution.
The trade-off versus VOO is the bet on US versus global. VOO holds the S&P 500 — the largest 500 US companies, market-cap-weighted, with no international exposure. VT holds the entire global investable equity market including the S&P 500 within it at roughly the US weighting in global cap. A holder who believes US large-cap will continue to outperform global equity prefers VOO; a holder who is agnostic on the relative US-versus-global outcome or who wants exposure to the parts of the world VOO excludes prefers VT. The historical comparison through the post-2010 US bull market has favored VOO; the longer-window comparison going back through the 2000s lost-decade for US equity is closer. The honest reading is that VT and VOO are two different bets on what the next 20-30 years of equity markets will look like.
As with any ETF holding, this content is educational only; it is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold VT, and individual circumstances vary.
Hypothetical scenarios
Scenario 1: VT versus the VTI plus VXUS two-fund alternative
Consider the structural comparison between holding VT as a single global equity position and constructing the same global exposure with two Vanguard funds — VTI for US total market and VXUS for international total market (developed ex-US plus emerging markets). Both approaches target the same underlying universe; the differences are in cost, control, and operational labor.
On cost, VT carries a 0.07% expense ratio. VTI is 0.03% and VXUS is 0.07%. At a roughly 60/40 US-to-international weighting that approximates VT's realized geographic split, the blended cost of VTI + VXUS is about 0.6 × 0.03% + 0.4 × 0.07% = 0.046%, or roughly 4.6 basis points versus VT's 7. The annual cost saving is about 2.4 basis points — small in absolute terms (about $24 per year on a $100,000 position) but cumulative over a multi-decade horizon. Across a 30-year accumulation phase the cost differential becomes meaningful but not transformative; the choice is rarely made on expense ratio alone.
On control, the two-fund approach lets the holder choose the US-versus-international split rather than accepting whatever global market-cap weighting produces. A holder who wants 50/50, 70/30, or some other tilt that diverges from market-cap weighting can implement that with VTI + VXUS directly; the same tilt is not achievable with VT alone. Academic finance generally argues market-cap weighting is the reasonable default absent a specific reason to deviate, so the control benefit only matters to a holder who actually wants to deviate.
On operational labor, the two-fund approach requires periodic rebalancing. As US and international markets diverge, the realized weighting in a VTI + VXUS portfolio drifts away from the target split, and the holder needs to rebalance — by directing new contributions to the underweight side, by selling the overweight side (creating taxable events in a taxable account), or by accepting the drift. VT does this rebalancing automatically inside the fund at the index rebalance frequency, with no taxable event for the holder. For a holder who would otherwise let the two-fund split drift for years, the operational simplicity of VT is the meaningful benefit; for a disciplined annual rebalancer, the labor cost of the two-fund approach is modest.
The calculator-side guidance is to model VT directly at its measured forward yield and trailing five-year DGR for the single-fund projection, then for the two-fund comparison run VTI and VXUS through their respective ticker pages at the desired weighting and sum the income lines. The aggregate income projection from VTI + VXUS will run modestly higher than VT at equivalent weighting due to the expense-ratio differential compounding over the horizon, but the magnitude is small relative to the uncertainty in the underlying yield and growth-rate assumptions. The honest reading is that the choice between VT and VTI + VXUS is primarily an operational-preference question rather than an outcomes question.
Scenario 2: foreign dividend withholding tax and the foreign tax credit across account types
VT's distribution character introduces a tax wrinkle that US-only dividend ETFs do not have. Roughly 38-40% of the fund's underlying holdings are foreign-domiciled companies — developed markets ex-US plus emerging markets. When those companies pay dividends to VT, the foreign country's tax authority typically withholds a portion at the source before the dividend reaches Vanguard. The standard withholding rate under US tax treaty terms is commonly around 15%, though the exact rate varies by country (some withhold less under specific treaties, some withhold more — most emerging markets sit in the 10-25% range depending on the bilateral treaty). The withheld amount is reported on the shareholder's Form 1099-DIV as foreign tax paid, and Vanguard publishes annual supplementary documents quantifying the foreign-source income and the foreign tax breakdown by jurisdiction.
In a taxable account, the foreign tax withheld is recoverable as a credit against US tax liability via Form 1116 — the foreign tax credit. For shareholders whose total foreign tax paid is below the IRS simplified-method threshold (currently $300 for single filers and $600 for joint filers), the credit can be claimed directly on Schedule 3 of Form 1040 without filing Form 1116, which is the common path for most VT holders with moderate position sizes. Above the threshold, Form 1116 is required and the credit is limited to the US tax liability attributable to foreign-source income, so it is not always a dollar-for-dollar offset. For most moderate-income VT holders the credit functions approximately as a wash — foreign tax withheld at source comes back as a US credit.
The credit has structural limits. It can be lost or reduced if the holder is subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax in a way that disallows the credit, if foreign tax paid exceeds the foreign-source income limitation, or if the credit exceeds total US tax liability in the year (the excess can be carried back one year or forward ten, with a time-value cost). The realized recovery rate therefore depends on the holder's specific tax circumstances; the broad-band figure of "around 0.20-0.30% of NAV" reflects what typical moderate-income holders recover annually on a globally-diversified fund like VT in a taxable account.
In a tax-advantaged account — Roth IRA, traditional IRA, 401(k), 403(b), or HSA — the foreign tax credit is generally lost. The wrapper produces no US tax liability against which the credit can be claimed: there is no Form 1040 line for the IRA's foreign tax paid, because the IRA itself does not file a return and the holder reports IRA distributions as ordinary income (or qualified Roth distributions as tax-free) without any reference to the underlying holdings' foreign tax history. The foreign tax withheld at source is therefore a permanent leakage inside the wrapper — Vanguard pays the gross distribution into the IRA net of foreign withholding, and the withheld amount is gone for tax purposes. The structural drag on a globally-diversified fund inside a tax-advantaged account is the foreign tax withholding rate times the foreign-component dividend yield times the foreign weight, which works out to roughly 0.10-0.15% of NAV per year for VT in a Roth.
The account-placement implication is the structural argument against holding VT in a tax-advantaged account when a holder also has taxable account space. The conventional pattern is to hold VT (or any high-foreign-component fund) in a taxable account so the foreign tax credit can be claimed, and to hold pure-US funds like VTI, VOO, or US dividend ETFs like VIG and SCHD in the tax-advantaged accounts where the foreign-tax issue does not arise. Some holders go further and use VTI + VXUS in taxable (to maximize the foreign tax credit recovery) while using VT in a Roth purely for one-fund simplicity, accepting the lost foreign tax credit as the price of operational simplicity. Other holders prioritize tax-advantaged placement for any equity holding regardless of foreign component, accepting the foreign-tax leakage as a small cost relative to the larger benefit of compounding inside the Roth wrapper untaxed at distribution.
The calculator output does not model the foreign tax credit recovery or the foreign withholding drag; the projected income line is the gross distribution stream as the fund publishes it, before either taxable-account tax friction or tax-advantaged-account foreign-withholding leakage. A holder modeling realistic after-tax outcomes should mentally adjust the projected income line downward by their marginal tax rate on the non-qualified portion of distributions if in a taxable account, or by roughly 10-15 basis points of NAV per year for the lost foreign tax credit if in a tax-advantaged account. As with any ETF holding, this content is educational only; the calculator output is a model based on user-supplied inputs, not a forecast of realized future outcomes, and the foreign tax credit treatment depends on the holder's specific circumstances and should be confirmed with a tax professional.
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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: 2026-05-30.
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.
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