Hello, all. It’s my first post of 2026! I’m here with one of my annual posts… a summary of my dividend raises for the year (in this case, 2025). My Portfolio relies on dividend raises to keep my additional forward dividend income growing.
In past years, I’ve had reinvested dividends and new capital investment to advance my forward dividend income as well. However, now that I’m retired and no longer have a normal income, DRiPs have been turned off (so no reinvested dividends), and there’s really no cash being earned to invest. I now use my Portfolio dividends to help cover any monthly expenses I have.
So, moving forward, I’ll be counting on my dividend raises almost exclusively to generate more income from my Portfolio each year. I expect the dividend raises to outpace inflation, thus I should be getting an effective raise each year.
In this post, I’ll start with my usual table showing my total raise percentages for the stocks in my Portfolio. Then, I’ll note which Portfolio companies offered a larger raise in 2025 than in 2024. I’ll also provide my thoughts on some of the raise percentages.
Here we go…
In the rightmost column, if you see a ‘+’ that means that this year’s dividend raise is larger than the one I received from the same stock last year. A ‘*’ means that the stock was new to my Portfolio in 2025, or that I don’t have a “received raise percentage” from 2024 to compare to. I right-justified the ‘*’ to make it easier to see relative to the ‘+’.
Also, the ‘#’ column indicates the total number of raises received from that company in 2025 to make up that Total Raise percentage I listed.
Dividend raise percentages have trended downward in recent years, and that continued in 2025. While my Portfolio had 11 of its holdings increase their dividend raise percentage last year, this year that number increased to 14. That seems like progress, but overall the raise percentages have dwindled a bit.
I did have a couple of stocks provide a raise of 20% or more (which I consider ‘stellar’). This is the same number of stocks topping 20% as I’ve had in each of the past two years. The first stock was The Walt Disney Co. (DIS), providing a 50% hike. Surprisingly, this wasn’t an increase in percentage compared to 2024! Also, despite back-to-back impressive boosts, DIS still hasn’t returned its dividend to the level at which it was prior to its dividend suspension at the onset of the pandemic. The other 20%+ raise (which as exactly 20%) came from JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM). This was reached via two raises over the course of the year.
In the range of 15.00% to 19.99% (which I consider ‘outstanding’), there were 2 stocks – the same number as in 2024. The first stock was Amdocs Ltd. (DOX), with an 18.79% increase delivered via two raises during the year. Its 2nd raise was unexpected, and turned out to be an early announcement of their February, 2026 raise. So, technically, while DOX did raise twice, I’m not sure I should count the second one since it’s not even effective until after their January dividend payment. Second, Portfolio newcomer Intuit (INTU) came through with a 15.38% raise. INTU has delivered a double-digit raise each year since 2013 and that didn’t stop in 2025. I hope for more of this in the future, too.
With respect to the 10% to 14.99% range (which I consider ‘great’), I had 8 stocks land here – same as in 2024. Half of them provided better raises than in 2024, too. The raise from Omnicom (OMC) was the most surprising, as it ended a dividend freeze that OMC had been in (first raise in more than 4 years). Also surprising was the 10.06% raise from Nexstar Media Group (NXST), as it marked the first time that NXST has failed to raise at least 20% since it initiated its dividend in 2013. The other 6 stocks in this range: Visa (V), Fastenal (FAST), Automatic Data Processing (ADP), Broadcom (AVGO), Accenture (ACN) and NextEra Energy (NEE), were repeat participants in this range.
Adding up all the double-digit raises for 2025, I collected a dozen of them, which is 3 fewer than I had last year. A little more than 20% of my Portfolio stocks managed a double-digit raise.
In the range of 7.00% to 9.99% (which I consider ‘good’), I only had 4 stocks – down from 9 in 2024. Two of the four stocks gave raises that exceeded their ones from the previous year. Cummins (CMI), Illinois Tool Works (ITW) and Caterpillar (CAT) were repeat participants in this range. This is now 5 years in a row in this range for CAT, and 4 consecutive years for CMI. I like seeing this level of consistency, especially when the dividend raise percentage exceeds the rate of inflation. Microsoft (MSFT) barely dropped into this range after providing a double-digit raise last year.
In the range of 4.00% to 6.99% (which I consider ‘average’), I had 21 stocks – up from 14 in 2024. This range was the place to be for the majority of my holdings. Only 3 of the 21 companies in this group increased their raise percentage relative to 2024. Quest Diagnostics (DGX), Amgen (AMGN), AbbVie (ABBV), Procter & Gamble (PG), Merck & Co. (MRK), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Qualcomm (QCOM), Lockheed Martin (LMT), Texas Instruments (TXN), Lowe’s Companies (LOW), VICI Properites (VICI) and Main Street Capital (MAIN) were repeat participants in this range for 2025. Unfortunately, RPM International (RPM), General Dynamics (GD), UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Aflac (AFL), FedEx (FDX) and Pepsico (PEP) dropped into this range after being in a higher range last year.
In the range of 0%+ to 3.99% (which I consider ‘disappointing’) were 15 stocks – the same number as in 2024. Twelve stocks remained in this range from 2024. These stocks included NNN REIT (NNN), Union Pacific (UNP), Enbridge (ENB), Cisco Systems (CSCO), T. Rowe Price Group (TROW), Realty Income (O), BlackRock (BLK), Verizon Communications (VZ), Skyworks Solutions (SWKS), Medtronic (MDT), Eastman Chemical (EMN) and Air Products & Chemicals (APD). I’m hoping UNP and BLK can move to the range above by next year. Three stocks fell into this range compared to last year. These included Altria Group (MO), Nike (NKE) and Starbucks (SBUX). The fall from NKE was noteworthy, as its raise percentage dropped from 8.11% to 2.50%. SBUX sank from 7.02% last year to 1.64% this year.
As for frozen dividends, I had 2 of them in 2025: Hershey Co. (HSY) and UGI Corp (UGI). This is one less frozen dividend than I had last year, as Omnicom Group (OMC) finally raised. HSY went from a 14.93% raise in 2024 to 0% in 2025. High cocoa prices persisted in 2025, significant enough to stress the business and make the company think twice about a dividend raise. Their earnings payout ratio and free cash flow payout ratio remained strained, so the freeze may remain in place in 2026. The freeze from UGI makes it two years running now. Company metrics held steady in 2025, but didn’t necessarily improve (even though the stock saw some decent price appreciation). So, I’m unsure if UGI will offer up a dividend raise in 2026.
A few other notes…
I list 54 companies in the table above, however, there are currently 58 holdings in my Portfolio. One holding not shown is Meta Platforms (META), which raised their dividend (5%) prior to me establishing my position on the last day of October 2025. The 3 other holdings are closed-end funds, not stocks: DNP Select Income Fund (DNP), BlackRock Health Sciences Trust (BME) and PIMCO Corp. & Income Strategy Fund (PCN). These holdings (all monthly payers) rarely raise their high-yielding dividends, so, I won’t be showing them as frozen, but should they raise in future years I make a mention of it.
If I eliminated a stock from my Portfolio during 2025, it’s not included in the table above. However, if there was a dividend raise for one of them prior to my sale, I note it below (next to the company name). Here are the 8 positions that exited my Portfolio this year, in the order in which they departed.
- OGE Energy (OGE)
- Pinnacle West Capital (PNW)
- CVS Health (CVS)
- Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY)
- McCormick & Co. (MKC)
- American Tower (AMT) —> 4.94%
- Flowers Foods (FLO) —> 3.13%
- Comcast (CMCSA) —> 6.45%
There you have it… my dividend raise summary for 2025. With dividend raise percentages still slumping in 2025, I hope for better dividend growth in 2026. As noted at the beginning, dividend raises are the primary contributor to my forward dividend income added throughout the year, so nice growth here certainly benefits my Portfolio income.
Tell me about your dividend raises for 2025! Have you witnessed less generous dividend raises over the past couple of years? Did you have any raises noticeably outside of your range of expectations – either good or bad?