Which US Stocks Pay Dividends Monthly?

Imagine getting a small paycheck from the stock market, not just four times a year, but every single month. It’s an appealing idea, especially when your bills for rent, utilities, and groceries arrive like clockwork. What if your investment income could operate on that same monthly schedule, helping you build a stream of passive income?

While most famous companies that share profits with their owners—a payment called a dividend—do so quarterly, a special group of investments are built for a more frequent rhythm. These monthly payers are often a specific type of real estate company that collects rent each month, allowing them to pass that steady income on to their shareholders more regularly.

This guide explores who these companies are, explains the simplest way to compare them, and covers the key things you need to know before deciding if this approach fits into your financial goals or a potential dividend-based retirement plan.

Why Don’t All Stocks Pay Monthly Dividends?

It’s a great question: if monthly dividends line up so well with our bills, why aren’t they the standard? The answer lies in what a dividend actually is. A dividend is a way for a company to share its profits with its shareholders. When a company does well, it can decide to give a portion of its earnings back to you—the owner—as a cash payment.

The business world, however, largely operates on a three-month clock. Public companies are required to report their financial health and profits every quarter. Because dividends are paid out from these profits, it’s simpler and more logical for most to send out those payments on the same quarterly schedule. This is why you’ll find that the vast majority of dividend stocks, from Coca-Cola to Microsoft, pay quarterly.

This predictable rhythm makes the companies that do pay monthly special. They are the exception, not the rule, and they are often structured differently to generate more frequent income. Finding these monthly dividend stocks can feel like a bit of a treasure hunt, but they are out there.

Meet the Monthly Payers: Where to Find Stocks That Pay 12 Times a Year

The hunt for monthly dividend stocks often leads to two main places: specialized real estate companies and certain types of investment funds. These aren’t your typical tech or manufacturing giants; they are built from the ground up with a focus on generating consistent, frequent income.

A huge number of monthly payers are a special type of company called a REIT, which stands for Real Estate Investment Trust. Think of a REIT as a giant landlord. Its primary business is owning properties—like apartment buildings, shopping centers, or giant warehouses for companies like Amazon—and collecting rent. Because that rent comes in every month like clockwork, many reliable REITs pass that income directly to their shareholders in the form of a monthly dividend.

Another place to find monthly payouts is with certain ETFs, or Exchange-Traded Funds. An ETF is like a single investment that holds a basket of dozens or even hundreds of different stocks. While the individual companies in the basket might pay quarterly, some ETFs are specifically designed to collect all those scattered payments and then pay them out to you, the fund owner, in one convenient monthly check. This can be a simple way to get dividend income from many sources at once.

By focusing on these two categories, you can stop searching for individual needles in a haystack. Both REITs and some ETFs offer a clear pathway to building a more regular income stream.

A List of Popular Monthly Dividend REITs for Beginners

REITs are a fantastic starting point for finding companies that pay monthly dividends. While there are many out there, looking at a couple of well-known examples can help you see exactly how this strategy works in the real world.

To find these companies on an investing platform, you’ll use a ticker symbol. Think of a ticker symbol as a unique nickname for a stock. It’s a short, 1-to-5 letter code you use to find the exact company you’re looking for, much like using an airport code (like LAX or JFK) to book a flight.

Here are a couple of popular REITs known for their monthly payouts. This isn’t a recommendation to buy, but rather a starting point for your own research into some of the top US stocks with monthly dividends:

• Realty Income (O): This company famously calls itself “The Monthly Dividend Company®.” It owns thousands of standalone retail properties that it leases to essential, well-known brands like Walgreens, 7-Eleven, and Dollar General.
• STAG Industrial (STAG): This REIT focuses on owning large warehouses and distribution centers. These are the kinds of essential buildings used by e-commerce giants like Amazon to store and ship packages.

The next time you visit a local pharmacy or see a delivery truck on the highway, you might be looking at a business that helps generate steady income for REIT investors. While investing in individual high-yield monthly dividend REITs is one great path, it isn’t the only one. Another popular approach is to buy a whole basket of dividend stocks at once through monthly-paying ETFs.

A List of Monthly Dividend ETFs for Instant Diversification

Instead of picking just one company and hoping it does well, you can own small pieces of dozens of them all at once. That’s the core idea behind an Exchange-Traded Fund, or ETF. Think of it as buying a pre-made bundle of stocks. If one company in the bundle has a bad month, the others can help balance things out. This strategy, known as diversification, is the classic wisdom of not putting all your eggs in one basket, and it’s a powerful way to build a monthly dividend portfolio.

While many ETFs track the whole market, some are specifically designed to hold stocks that pay dividends. A handful of these are among the best monthly dividend ETFs for income because they collect all the different payments from the companies they own and then pay them out to you in a single, convenient monthly check. This gives you broad exposure to stocks for monthly passive income, not just real estate companies.

Here is a popular example to give you an idea of what’s inside one of these funds. Remember, this is for educational purposes, not a direct recommendation.

• Invesco S&P 500 High Dividend Low Volatility ETF (SPHD): This fund holds around 50 stocks from the famous S&P 500 (a list of 500 of the largest U.S. companies). It specifically selects the ones that have historically paid high dividends and shown more stable prices.

After seeing a few options—from individual REITs like Realty Income to a broad fund like SPHD—the next logical step is learning how to compare them. If one stock costs $50 and another costs $200, how can you tell which one offers a better income opportunity for your dollar?

How to Compare Monthly Dividend Stocks: Understanding “Yield”

When you’re looking at different investments, the share price alone doesn’t tell you much about the income it might generate. To make a true apples-to-apples comparison, investors use a simple but powerful metric called dividend yield. Think of it as a way to measure the income “bang for your buck” you get from a stock, expressed as a familiar percentage. It immediately tells you how much cash a company pays out in dividends each year relative to the price you pay for one share.

You can calculate it by taking the total dividend the company pays per share over one year and dividing it by the stock’s current price. For example, if a stock costs $100 per share and pays out a total of $4.00 in dividends for the year, its dividend yield is 4% ($4 ÷ $100 = 0.04). This single number is the most important of all monthly dividend stock screener criteria because it helps you quickly size up different opportunities, from a conservative fund to high-yield monthly dividend REITs.

This simple percentage is powerful because it gives you a universal benchmark. A 4% dividend yield on a stock can be directly compared to the interest rate on a savings account or a bond. It reframes the question from “How much does this stock cost?” to “How hard is my money working to generate income?” But while a higher yield can be tempting, it’s not the whole story. A surprisingly high yield can sometimes be a warning sign.

What to Watch Out For: The 2 Big Risks of Monthly Dividend Stocks

The idea of a monthly income stream from your investments is incredibly appealing, but it’s crucial to understand that no stock is a “guaranteed” paycheck. When considering monthly dividend stocks, there are two fundamental risks to keep in mind.

First, and most importantly, dividends are not set in stone. A dividend is a reward paid from a company’s profits, and if those profits dry up during a tough economic period, the company can choose to reduce the dividend amount or eliminate it completely to conserve cash. Unlike the fixed interest rate on a savings account, this income can—and sometimes does—change without warning.

Beyond the dividend itself, you also have to consider the stock’s price. This is known as principal risk. For example, imagine you buy a share for $100 and it pays you $5 in dividends over the year. That’s a great return. But if the stock’s price falls to $90 during that same year, you’ve lost $10 on your initial investment. The dividend income helps, but you would still be down $5 overall.

Understanding these risks is the difference between blindly chasing income and making an informed investment decision. It simply means choosing solid companies with care.

How Do I Actually Buy a Monthly Dividend Stock?

Understanding the landscape of monthly dividend payers is one thing, but how do you actually purchase a share? You can’t walk into a Walgreens and buy its landlord’s stock at the counter. All stock market investing happens through a special tool called a brokerage account. This is the essential first step on your investment journey.

Think of a brokerage account as a bank account, but for your investments. It’s where you’ll deposit money to buy shares, where your stocks will be held, and where any dividends you earn will arrive. Setting one up is the foundational step required to build a monthly dividend portfolio.

Getting started is often simpler than you might think. Many reputable financial companies offer brokerage accounts that you can open online in minutes, often with no fees or minimum deposits. Researching these platforms is the key to finding a secure home for the reliable monthly dividend stocks you choose.

Is Building a Monthly Dividend Portfolio Right for You?

The key takeaway is that monthly dividend stocks are often specialized companies, like REITs, that collect monthly rent and are structured to provide that steady income. This transforms the idea of a “stock paycheck” from a mystery into a tangible concept you can investigate.

The potential for compounding with monthly dividend payments is compelling, especially for creating a dividend-based retirement plan. Yet, deciding if this strategy is worthwhile means balancing that upside against real risks like dividend cuts or price drops. Dividend yield helps you compare opportunities, but it isn’t a guarantee of safety or return.

With this foundation, you’re ready for the most important next step: research. You can now confidently explore whether this approach fits your personal goals. You’ve moved from wondering about monthly dividends to understanding how they function—the first and most powerful step on any investor’s journey.