Retail giant Nike has long been a staple in footwear and sports apparel, and since 2013, it has held one of the 30 coveted spots on the Dow Jones Industrial AverageAmerica’s oldest and most prestigious stock index. And, as an added perk for investors, the company behind the iconic “swoosh” logo also pays a quarterly cash dividend to shareholders.
In recent years, however, Nike’s stock has been on rocky footing, leaving some income investors wondering how safe its dividend is. Here’s everything you need to know about Nike’s dividend, including its history, yieldpayout ratio, and — perhaps most importantly — whether it’s a safe income stream for investors to rely on looking forward.
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Dividend payout frequency | Quarterly |
Per-share payout (quarterly) | $0.41 |
Per-share payout (annual) | $1.64 |
Dividend yield | 3.82% |
Dividend payout ratio | 106% |
As of 2026, Nike pays a dividend of $0.41 per share quarterly, for a total of $1.64 in dividends per share on an annual basis. According to Nikedividends are paid “on or about January 5, April 5, July 5 and October 5.” The last time Nike’s dividend was actually disbursed on the 5th of the month was July 5, 2023. Since then, the dividend has arrived one or more days “early.”
In 2025, Nike’s quarterly dividend was $0.40 per share, so an investor with 1,000 shares of Nike stock would have received $1,600 in dividends from the shoemaker that year.
Nike announced on Nov. 20, 2025, that it would raise its quarterly dividend by 1 cent, from $0.40 per share to $0.41 per share. The first $0.41 dividend was paid on Jan. 2, 2026, to shareholders of record as of Dec. 1, 2025.
Nike has a long history of increasing its dividend on an annual basis, something many mature companies do to reward long-term shareholders and signal strength to the market. This move came despite Nike’s stock struggling for the past few years after reaching an all-time high of around $166 per share in early November 2021. As of this article’s last update, Nike’s stock was trading around $44 per share.
Related: The Dow’s best dividend stocks: A shortlist for income investors
Nike paid its first dividend of $0.05 per share in 1984. Since then, it has split its stock six times, conducted many share buybacks, and continued paying dividends all the while, demonstrating an excellent history of rewarding long-term shareholders despite ups and downs in the market.
“Dividend aristocrat” is a prestigious term reserved for companies that have increased dividend payments on an annual basis for 25 years or more without interruption. And while Nike does have a long history of increasing its dividend, it still has a little further to go to achieve aristocrat status.
Per the company2026’s one-cent increase “marks the 24th consecutive year that NIKE has increased its quarterly dividend.” Should the company increase its dividend in 2027, it will officially become a dividend aristocrat.
More on Dow stocks’ dividends:
Dividend investors are often warned to be wary of high payout ratios, which express a company’s dividends per share as a percentage of its earnings per share. In other words, it’s a metric that tells investors how much of a company’s profits are being passed along to shareholders as dividends.
Ideally, a mature company might have a dividend ratio of 30% to 60%, indicating that it shares some of its profits with investors while still retaining enough cash to continue investing in its growth and other business objectives.
When a company’s payout ratio starts to climb too high, investors worry that a company may no longer be on stable financial footing. Either profits are falling, the company isn’t keeping enough cash on hand to maintain the business’s health, or both.
As of this article’s last update, Nike’s dividend payout ratio was over 100%, which most income investors would see as cause for alarm. In the very short term, this number means that Nike is paying more in dividends than it is actually earning in profit — a move that is not sustainable in the long run.
This startling metric, when viewed alongside Nike’s recent history of falling revenue and shrinking margins, could be seen as a red flag for the stock, at least in the short term. In fact, Seeking Alpha’s Ben Lakos advised investors to steer clear of the stock, warning that its “Current dividend and valuation do not compensate for macro headwinds and the lack of broad-based demand recovery.”
That said, Nike still has a reputation as a relatively reliable, mature blue-chip stock with unparalleled mainstream cultural relevance, and its management is clearly dedicated to maintaining and growing its dividend. For long-term income investors who believe in the company’s future, its relatively low share price could present an opportunity to pick up shares on the cheap and lock in a healthy dividend yield before the stock gets more rebounds to more expensive territory — something that is by no means guaranteed.
In other words, while Nike’s dividend may not appear safe, and the company’s financial health has been declining in recent years, the fact that it has spent the past two-plus decades chasing dividend aristocrat status means that cutting or canceling its dividend would be a last resort.
Related: History of Nike: Company timeline and facts
Phil Knight, Nike’s cofounder, owned 27,479,487 shares of Nike Class A stock and 35,815,174 shares of Nike Class B stock — for a total of as of his last SEC disclosure in July 2025. Both share classes pay the same dividend.
This means that in 2025, when Nike’s dividend was $0.40 per share, Knight would have received over $101 million in Nike dividends alone.
This story was originally published by TheStreet on Apr 16, 2026, where it first appeared in the Investing section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
