Ex-Dividend Date: Last Day to Buy Calculator

The ex-dividend date is the first trading day a stock trades without its next dividend. If you buy on or after the ex-date, the seller gets that dividend; if you own the shares when the market closes on the day before the ex-date, you get it. Since the U.S. moved to T+1 settlement on May 28, 2024, the ex-date and the record date are normally the same business day.

No. Buying on the ex-dividend date is too late for that payment; the seller receives it. You must buy by the close of the last trading day before the ex-date. Buying on the ex-date does qualify you for the following dividend, as long as you still hold the shares at its ex-date.

On the ex-dividend date itself. Once the market opens on the ex-date you are entitled to the dividend, so you can sell that day and still be paid on the payment date. There's no requirement to hold until the record or pay date. To pay the lower tax rate on qualified dividends, though, you must have held the shares for more than 60 days in the 121-day window around the ex-date.

You get the shares but not the upcoming dividend. The price usually opens lower by roughly the dividend amount, reflecting the cash that will go to the previous owner, so you are not losing value by buying on the ex-date. You simply get the next dividend instead.

For long-term investors it rarely matters: buying before gets you the dividend but you pay a price that includes it, while buying on or after gets you a lower price but no dividend. In a taxable account, buying just before the ex-date can mean paying tax on money that was effectively part of your purchase price. Buying a stock just to collect its dividend (dividend capture) usually fails once price moves, trading costs and taxes are counted.

Yes. Any purchase made on or before the last trading day before the ex-date qualifies, including two days before. Under T+1 settlement, a trade on the day before the ex-date settles on the ex-date, which is also the record date, so you're on the books in time.

Yes. If you owned the shares at the close of the day before the ex-date, the dividend is yours even if you sell on the ex-date or any time after. It is paid on the payment date.

The declaration date is when the board announces the dividend. The ex-dividend date is the cut-off for buyers. The record date is when the company checks its list of shareholders; under T+1 it is the same business day as the ex-date. The payment date is when the cash reaches your account, usually a few days to a few weeks later.

Search the ticker in the calculator above. We show the declared ex-date and pay date when the company has announced them, and otherwise estimate the next one from last year's schedule, marked as an estimate. Each stock also has a full ex-dividend history page.

When a special dividend is 25% or more of the stock's value, exchange rules set the ex-date to the first business day after the payment date. Until then the shares trade with a 'due bill' that passes the dividend to whoever owns them when it is paid.