Methodology › Dividend Growth Score
Dividend Growth Score: How It Is Calculated
The Dividend Growth Score is a number from 0 to 100 that summarizes how strong the historical and financial evidence supporting dividend growth is: how fast the dividend has grown, how many years in a row it has risen, how much room the payout leaves, and how earnings and revenue have grown. This page sets out every input, table and weight.
Past growth does not guarantee future increases. The score describes what a company's dividend and financial record show up to its latest report. A company can slow, stop or reverse its dividend growth at any time.
What the score answers
The score answers one question: how strong is the historical and financial evidence supporting dividend growth? It combines the dividend's own record (its growth rate over five and ten years and its run of consecutive increases) with the financial measures that make further increases possible or harder: how much of earnings or cash flow is already paid out, and whether earnings and revenue have been growing.
What the score is not:
- Not a probability. A score of 80 does not mean an 80% chance of anything.
- Not a forecast. It summarizes reported figures and the dividend record as they stand; it does not project them.
- Not advice. It is the same for every visitor and takes no account of anyone's circumstances, holdings or objectives. It is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security, and it is not a credit rating.
- Not a complete picture. It uses only the measures listed on this page. Business prospects, management, competition, pending transactions, legal matters and anything else not in our data are not part of it.
Profiles
Businesses fund their dividends in different ways, so one set of ratios does not fit all of them. A bank's debt is its raw material, a real estate investment trust's earnings are reduced by property depreciation that does not consume cash, and a business development company holds loans valued at market prices. Each security is therefore assigned a profile, and each profile uses the measures that fit its kind of business. The profile comes from our classification of every security by type and kind of business, which is based on its listing, its filings with the SEC and our data providers' records (see Security classification).
The Growth Score uses the same weights for every rated profile except banks, which do not use revenue growth (see Weights). Two components change with the profile: the earnings growth measure, because reported earnings do not describe every kind of business equally well, and the payout measure behind payout headroom, which is the profile's main payout measure from the Safety Score.
| Profile | Earnings growth (EG) measure | Payout headroom (HR) measure and table |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinary companies, utilities, insurers | Growth of diluted earnings per share | Earnings payout ratio, standard headroom table |
| Banks | Growth of diluted earnings per share | Earnings payout ratio, bank headroom table |
| REITs, MLPs | Growth of operating cash flow per share; left out when that is not available (revenue growth already counts separately) | Operating-cash-flow payout ratio, cash-flow headroom table |
| BDCs | Change in net asset value (NAV) per share, on the NAV table | 3-year earnings payout ratio, standard headroom table |
| Funds, preferred shares and other securities | Not Rated (see below) | |
Inputs, sources and periods
Dividend inputs come from each security's dividend history as supplied by Financial Modeling Prep (FMP) and processed by our dividend engine: regular dividends only (specials and one-offs are excluded), adjusted for stock splits, and totaled by completed calendar year. Financial inputs come from companies' annual financial statements as supplied by FMP. The details of how payments are assigned to years are on the methodology page.
| Input | How it is calculated | Period |
|---|---|---|
| 5-year dividend growth (G5) | Compound annual growth rate of the total regular dividend per share, from five years before the last completed calendar year to that year. Not available unless both years are complete and both totals are positive | Last 5 completed calendar years |
| 10-year dividend growth (G10) | The same over ten years | Last 10 completed calendar years |
| Increase streak (STK) | Consecutive completed calendar years, counting back from the last one, in which the total regular dividend rose. It returns to zero as soon as a cut or suspension is recorded, including in the current year | Full dividend history on record |
| Payout headroom (HR) | The profile's main payout measure (see the table above), scored on a separate headroom table: the lower the payout, the more room to raise the dividend from current earnings or cash flow. A net loss, or zero or negative operating cash flow, behind that measure leaves no headroom and scores 0 | Trailing twelve months (BDCs: last 3 fiscal years) |
| Earnings growth (EG) | Compound annual growth rate of diluted earnings per share between the latest fiscal year and three years earlier. Earnings per share that is zero or negative at the end of the three years (whether it turned negative or was negative throughout) scores 0. A move from a loss to a profit has no growth rate and is left out, as is an earnings per share figure that disagrees with net income ÷ shares by more than 25%. REITs and MLPs: growth of operating cash flow per share on the same table, left out when not available. BDCs: change in NAV per share on the NAV table | Last 3 fiscal years (annual statements) |
| Revenue growth (RG) | Compound annual growth rate of revenue between the latest fiscal year and three years earlier. Not used for banks, because the revenue our data provider reports for a bank is mostly gross interest income, which moves with interest rates rather than with the business | Last 3 fiscal years (annual statements) |
Scoring tables
Each measure is turned into points from 0 to 100 using the fixed table shown for it. Between two listed values the points change in a straight line, and beyond the first or last listed value they stay at that row's points. For example, on a table that gives 100 points at 40% and 80 points at 60%, a value of 50% receives 90 points. The tables are the same for every security in a profile; they do not depend on how other securities score, except where a measure is explicitly compared with peers.
Dividend record
| Compound annual growth of the regular dividend, last 5 completed years | Points |
|---|---|
| −5% or less | 0 |
| 0% | 25 |
| 2% | 45 |
| 4% | 65 |
| 7% | 85 |
| 10% or more | 100 |
| Compound annual growth of the regular dividend, last 10 completed years | Points |
|---|---|
| −5% or less | 0 |
| 0% | 25 |
| 2% | 45 |
| 4% | 65 |
| 7% | 85 |
| 10% or more | 100 |
| Consecutive years of dividend increases | Points |
|---|---|
| 0 years | 10 |
| 1 year | 25 |
| 3 years | 45 |
| 5 years | 60 |
| 10 years | 80 |
| 25 years or more | 100 |
Payout headroom
| Earnings payout ratio (BDCs: 3-year average) | Points |
|---|---|
| 40% or less | 100 |
| 60% | 70 |
| 80% | 35 |
| 100% or more | 0 |
| Net loss behind the payout ratio | 0 |
| Earnings payout ratio | Points |
|---|---|
| 35% or less | 100 |
| 50% | 70 |
| 70% | 35 |
| 90% or more | 0 |
| Net loss | 0 |
| Operating-cash-flow payout ratio | Points |
|---|---|
| 60% or less | 100 |
| 75% | 70 |
| 90% | 35 |
| 105% or more | 0 |
| Operating cash flow zero or negative | 0 |
Earnings and revenue growth
| Compound annual growth of diluted earnings per share, last 3 fiscal years | Points |
|---|---|
| −10% or less | 0 |
| −5% | 15 |
| 0% | 40 |
| 5% | 75 |
| 10% or more | 100 |
| Earnings per share zero or negative at the end of the 3 years | 0 |
| Compound annual growth of revenue, last 3 fiscal years | Points |
|---|---|
| −5% or less | 10 |
| 0% | 40 |
| 4% | 75 |
| 8% or more | 100 |
| Change in NAV per share | Points |
|---|---|
| −25% or less | 0 |
| −15% | 30 |
| −5% | 70 |
| 0% or more | 100 |
The NAV table is the one used for BDCs in place of earnings growth; it is the same table as the Safety Score's NAV trend, so a BDC's NAV per share change counts in both scores. Any rise in NAV per share scores 100.
Weights
The weights add up to 100 for every rated profile except banks, which do not use revenue growth. For banks the remaining weights, which add up to 90, are scaled up to 100 (each counts for 11.1% more), and completeness is measured against those 90.
| Component | All other rated profiles | Banks | Banks, scaled to 100 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5-year dividend growth (G5) | 25 | 25 | 27.8 |
| Increase streak (STK) | 20 | 20 | 22.2 |
| Payout headroom (HR) | 20 | 20 | 22.2 |
| Earnings growth (or the profile's substitute) (EG) | 15 | 15 | 16.7 |
| Revenue growth (RG) | 10 | not used | not used |
| 10-year dividend growth (G10) | 10 | 10 | 11.1 |
| Total | 100 | 90 | 100 |
Missing data and completeness
Every Growth Score is published with a completeness figure: the share of the score's total weight whose inputs were available for that security. When an input is missing, it is left out and the remaining weights are scaled up so that they again add to 100; a missing input is never treated as zero and never filled with an estimate. Completeness tells you how much of the formula actually had data behind it.
A score is published only when completeness is at least 60% and every required input is present. Otherwise the security shows Not Rated, with the reason.
Out-of-date statements are treated as missing. If the latest usable financial statements for a company cover a period that ended more than 15 months ago, every input that comes from them (payout ratios, leverage, interest coverage, growth in revenue and earnings, cash-flow yield) is treated as missing for scoring, so the score's completeness falls and it may be Not Rated. The stock page can still show those older figures, labelled with their fiscal year.
| Share of the score's weight with data | Label |
|---|---|
| 90% or more | Complete data |
| 75% to under 90% | Most data available |
| 60% to under 75% | Partial data |
| Under 60% | Not Rated |
Required inputs: either the 5-year dividend growth rate (G5) or the increase streak (STK). A company with neither has too short or too broken a dividend record to describe its growth.
When a security is Not Rated
A security shows Not Rated, with the reason stored and shown, when any of these applies:
- It is a fund. ETFs, closed-end funds and fund or trust units: fund scores are not yet available. A fund's distributions depend on its holdings, its net asset value and, sometimes, return of capital, which these formulas are not built to assess.
- It is not a common share. Preferred shares, exchange-traded notes and baby bonds, units, warrants and rights: the scores apply to common shares. Payments on these securities are set by their terms (coupon, call date, ranking), which these measures do not capture.
- Its classification is incomplete. A security whose type, or whose issuer's kind of business, has not yet been classified cannot be assigned a profile, so it is not scored until it is.
- It is no longer covered. A security that has left our coverage keeps no current scores.
- It is not a current payer. It has paid no regular dividend in the last 12 months and has none declared and still to come; its only recent payments were one-off specials; its regular dividend has lapsed; its computed yield is treated as a likely data error; or a corporate action such as a spin-off makes its dividend record not comparable with today's shares. These are the same rules that decide whether a security shows a yield (see Yield calculation).
- An automated data check is holding it back. A check that marks one of its figures as likely wrong (shown as "Withheld" on our data quality page) withholds its scores until the check clears.
- A required input is missing. Neither the 5-year dividend growth rate nor the increase streak is available.
- Completeness is under 60%.
Score bands
The score is always shown as a number, with a short descriptive label. The labels describe the record; they do not predict future increases.
| Score | Label shown with the score |
|---|---|
| 80 to 100 | Very strong growth record |
| 60 to 79 | Strong growth record |
| 40 to 59 | Moderate growth record |
| 20 to 39 | Weak growth record |
| 0 to 19 | Very weak growth record |
Worked example
Illustrative only
The company below is hypothetical. Its figures are made-up round numbers chosen to show the arithmetic; they do not describe any real company.
The same hypothetical ordinary company used on the Safety Score page has grown its dividend by 7% a year over five years and 4% a year over ten, has raised it for 10 consecutive years, pays out 50% of its earnings, and has grown earnings per share by 5% a year and revenue by 4% a year over three years. A 50% payout lies halfway between the headroom table's 40% (100 points) and 60% (70 points), so it scores 85.
| Component | Hypothetical input | Points | Weight | Points × weight ÷ 100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5-year dividend growth (G5) | 7% a year | 85.0 | 25 | 21.25 |
| Increase streak (STK) | 10 years | 80.0 | 20 | 16.00 |
| Payout headroom (HR) | 50% earnings payout | 85.0 | 20 | 17.00 |
| Earnings growth (EG) | 5% a year | 75.0 | 15 | 11.25 |
| Revenue growth (RG) | 4% a year | 75.0 | 10 | 7.50 |
| 10-year dividend growth (G10) | 4% a year | 65.0 | 10 | 6.50 |
| Total | 100 | 79.50 |
The weighted points add up to 79.50, so the Growth Score is 79.5, "Strong growth record", completeness 100% ("Complete data"). If its 10-year growth rate were not available (for example because its record is shorter than ten years), that component would be left out, the other weights scaled back up to 100, and completeness would be 90%.
Updates and versioning
The Growth Score is recalculated every day in our morning data refresh, before the U.S. market opens, from the latest stored inputs. Each input is only as fresh as the data it comes from: prices, the dividend calendar and newly declared dividends refresh daily; financial statements refresh weekly, so a newly published quarterly report usually reaches the score within about a week of our data provider publishing it. The full schedule is on the methodology page, and the last refresh of each data set is shown on our data quality page. A daily snapshot of every score is kept, so changes over time can be traced.
The dividend growth rates and the streak use completed calendar years, so they change once a year when a year closes, or sooner when a cut or suspension ends a streak.
The formula version in use is 2026-10-19.4, introduced on October 19, 2026. The version is stored with every Growth Score, and any change to a curve, weight, rule or input bumps it. Each change is listed here with its date, so a score can always be matched to the formula that produced it. Scores calculated under different versions are not directly comparable.
| Version | Date | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-19.4 | October 19, 2026 | Financial statements whose period ended more than 15 months ago are no longer scored: the score treats them as missing, so its completeness falls and it may be Not Rated. Dividend-record fixes: a stock split dated on or the day before an ex-date no longer reads as a dividend cut when the payment was already quoted in post-split shares, and a switch from quarterly to monthly payments no longer reads as a cut. |
| 2026-10-19.3 | October 19, 2026 | REITs and MLPs: interest coverage measured on EBITDA (before depreciation). Banks: revenue growth no longer used in the Growth Score, because the revenue reported for banks is mostly gross interest income. S.A.F.E. Solid now requires a Safety Score of 80 or higher (was 70), because most U.S.-listed common stocks scored above 70. |
| 2026-10-19.2 | October 19, 2026 | Methodology review: a dividend cut counts against the dividend record only when the regular rate falls by 20% or more; earnings stability measured as a share of the years available, so a short history is not capped; earnings per share that is negative at the end of three years scores 0 instead of being left out; REITs and MLPs no longer fall back to revenue for earnings growth; the operating-cash-flow yield table starts from 0; insurers valued on book value like banks; BDCs valued on yield history and price to net asset value only; negative equity scores 0 on debt to equity; new Value Score labels. |
| 2026-10-19.1 | October 19, 2026 | First version of the Dividend Safety, Dividend Growth and Dividend Value Scores. DividendRank becomes the published composite of the three scores, replacing the earlier formula (yield, payout ratio, return on equity, price-to-book and length of payment history). The S.A.F.E. Solid check uses the Dividend Safety Score instead of DividendRank. |
Validation
Validation: a point-in-time test of the Safety Score against later dividend cuts is in progress; results will be published here when complete.
The test will compute the score as it would have stood at past dates, using only data available at each date, and compare it with the dividend cuts and suspensions that followed. Until results are published, no claim is made about how well any score has anticipated dividend changes.
The Growth Score is not part of that test.
Known limitations
- Past growth does not guarantee future increases. Every input describes the past or the latest reported period.
- Records have limits. Growth rates and streaks reach back only as far as our data provider's dividend history, so a streak can be shorter than counts published elsewhere for companies with very long records.
- Short windows. Earnings and revenue growth are measured over three fiscal years, so a strong or weak start or end year can move them considerably. One-time gains and charges in reported earnings are not removed.
- Recoveries leave gaps. Earnings per share that ends the three years at zero or below scores 0, but a move from a loss to a profit has no growth rate, so the component is left out rather than scored, and completeness shows this.
- Stand-in measures. REITs and MLPs use operating cash flow per share instead of FFO, AFFO or distributable cash flow per share; BDCs use NAV per share instead of net investment income. These industry measures are not in our data.
- The tables and weights are fixed judgments. They are Dividendly's own choices, set in advance, and have not been fitted to past dividend increases.
- Not everything that matters is measured. Management's dividend policy and guidance, analyst estimates and business prospects are not part of the score.
Related pages
- Methodology overview: yields, specials, growth and streaks, payout ratios, classification and refresh schedule
- Dividend Safety Score
- Dividend Value Score
- DividendRank and S.A.F.E. checks
- Data sources and data quality and corrections
- Editorial policy and disclaimers
- Found a figure that looks wrong? Report an error.
Research only. Dividendly's scores describe securities, not people: they are produced by the published formulas on these pages and are the same for every visitor. They are not investment advice and not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security. Data may be delayed, incomplete or wrong; see our disclaimers.