A dividend king is a company that has managed to increase dividends to shareholders for at least 50 years in a row.

There are only 52 such companies in the US, and perhaps a couple more in the rest of the world. It is not a small achievement to have been able to reward long-term shareholders with a dividend raise for over half a century.

Over the past 50 years, some calamities experienced include:

- Seven Recessions since 1967
- The Vietnam War
- The oil crisis in the 1970s
- Stagflationary 1970s
- Double digit interest rates in the 1980s
- Fall of the Soviet Union in 1991
- 9/11 in 2001
- The Dot-com bubble bursting in 2000
- The housing bubble bursting in 2007 - 2008
- ZIRP and NIRP since 2009

- The Covid-19 Pandemic

Throughout this calamity each of those businesses managed to grow earnings, and raise the dividend to their long-term shareholders. If you are looking for a long-term shareholder base, the best way to build it is by paying those owners more every single year. This is a simple, but novel idea for corporations to embrace.

When I first came up with the idea for the list of dividend kings in 2010, there were only eleven companies on it. Our 2025 list includes 52 companies.

We had five additions and zero deletions.

The new additions for the current year include:

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM)

MGE Energy (MGEE)

Pentair (PNR)

RLI Corp (RLI)

United Bankshares (UBSI)

There were no companies that were deleted from the list in 2025.

These actions brought the number of companies to 52, from 47 at the end of 2024.

These were consistent with my predictions from last year. It is a testament to the predictable nature of their businesses, not in my forecasting abilities.

Note, there were two name changes amongst the Dividend Kings.

Lancaster Colony (LANC) renamed itself to Marzetti (MZTI)

SJW Corp renamed itself to H2O (HTO)

I expect the following companies to join the list of dividend kings by 2026/2027:

McDonald's (MCD)

Sysco (SYY)

Medtronic (MDT)

Clorox (CLX)

There are a few companies, which are incorrectly listed as dividend kings elsewhere. One is Sysco (SYY). Upon review of their dividend history, I realized they only have 49 years of consecutive annual dividend increases under their belt. They would be eligible for inclusion in 2026. They kept dividends unchanged in 1975 and 1976. It pays to review the dividend history, before deciding

I did some research on historical changes of the Dividend Kings list, which you may find interesting. I reviewed the evolution of the dividend kings prior to 2007 in the article, which has not been done by anyone else.

Since 2010, there have been only six companies that have left the list. One, Vectren (VVC) was acquired. The second, Diebold (DBD), kept dividends unchanged, but ultimately ended up cutting them. The third, V.F. Corp (VFC) became a dividend king in 2022, but left the list after 2 months as the company cut dividends in February 2023. The year 2024 had a record number of deletions, as 3M (MMM), Walgreens (WBA) and Leggett & Platt (LEG) cut dividends.

There were no deletions in 2025.

The companies in the 2026 dividend kings list include:

Note: Data as of Dec 26, 2025

You can download the list from here

This track record is a testament to the stability of the underlying businesses that generated the earnings growth necessary to grow the dividend for half a century (and longer). This track record is an indication of a business that is relatively immune to outside shocks. This resilience throughout the period manifests itself into the long stretch of dividend increases, spanning over half a century.

While these companies are not investment recommendations, I post them as examples for further study by serious dividend investors. Studying the businesses, their industries, could give you clues as to the type of business that can flourish over a half of a century.

As I mentioned above, I have been compiling the list of dividend kings since 2010. To view the historical changes in the list, please follow the links below:

Dividend Kings List for 2025

Dividend Kings List for 2024

Dividend Kings List for 2023

Dividend Kings List for 2022

Dividend Kings List for 2021

Dividend Kings List for 2020

Dividend Kings List For 2019

2018 Dividend Kings List

Dividend Kings List for 2017

Dividend Kings for 2016

Dividend Kings List for 2015

The Dividend Kings Lis...