The best monthly dividend stocks right now include Realty Income, Agree Realty, Main Street Capital, and a handful of covered call ETFs that pay out every four weeks instead of every quarter. Most U.S. companies still send dividends four times a year, so a monthly payer is the exception, not the rule, and that exception matters if you are budgeting against a mortgage or a retirement withdrawal.
This guide covers the names that actually pay monthly, what their current yields look like, and where the risk sits in each one. It also covers the ETFs that have absorbed a lot of retail attention over the past two years, because a few of them yield far more than any REIT on this list, for reasons worth understanding before you buy.
What Makes a Stock a Monthly Dividend Payer
Most public companies pay quarterly because that lines up with their earnings cycle. A small group of REITs, business development companies, and closed-end funds pay monthly instead, mainly because their underlying income (rent checks, loan interest, option premiums) already arrives on a monthly schedule, so there is no real reason to hold it and batch it into a quarterly check.
That structure comes with a tradeoff. REITs and BDCs are legally required to pay out at least 90% of their taxable income to keep their tax status, which is <cite index=”14-1″>why the payout is elevated in the first place</cite>. That is not a red flag on its own, but it does mean less cash gets reinvested into the business than at a typical corporation, so growth tends to come from new acquisitions and share issuance rather than retained earnings.
Top Monthly Dividend Stocks to Know
1. Realty Income (O)
Realty Income markets itself as “The Monthly Dividend Company,” and the name is not just a slogan. As of July 2026, the REIT had <cite index=”13-1″>declared its 673rd consecutive monthly common stock dividend</cite>, paying $0.271 per share for an annualized rate of about $3.25. That works out to <cite index=”12-1″>a dividend yield near 4.95% to 5%</cite> at recent prices.
The company owns <cite index=”9-1″>a portfolio of over 15,500 properties across all 50 states</cite> and sits in the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats index on the strength of more than three decades of consecutive annual increases. Its AFFO per share, the REIT equivalent of free cash flow, <cite index=”14-1″>rose 6.6% year over year in the first quarter of 2026</cite>, and management raised full-year guidance alongside it. Recent deals include a joint venture into hyperscale data center assets, which shows the company diversifying beyond its traditional retail-anchor tenant base.
2. Agree Realty (ADC)
Agree Realty is a smaller, retail-focused net lease REIT that raised its monthly common dividend in July 2026 to $0.267 per share, an annualized $3.204 and roughly a 4.3% increase from the prior year. The board also lifted the payout on its Series A preferred shares in the same announcement, a signal that management is comfortable with both current earnings coverage and the balance sheet behind it.
The company has also been active on the capital markets side, running a $1.75 billion at-the-market equity program to fund new acquisitions. That is worth watching, since heavy share issuance can dilute per-share earnings growth even while the total dividend pool grows.
3. Main Street Capital (MAIN)
Main Street Capital is a business development company, meaning it lends to and takes equity stakes in private middle-market businesses rather than owning real estate. It carries a dividend yield of roughly 6.1%, an investment-grade BBB- credit rating, and an uninterrupted dividend streak stretching back 18 years. Because BDCs retain some earnings from successful exits before distributing them, Main Street has historically layered supplemental payouts on top of its regular monthly dividend during strong years.
4. Phillips Edison & Co (PECO)
Phillips Edison owns more than 300 grocery-anchored neighborhood shopping centers spread across 31 states, a tenant mix that tends to hold up well through economic downturns since grocery stores draw consistent foot traffic regardless of the broader retail cycle. The REIT pays a monthly dividend of $0.1083 per share, about $1.30 annualized, and has grown both revenue and net income every year since 2021. A recent quarter beat earnings expectations by 25%, and management raised its full-year funds-from-operations guidance afterward.
5. Healthpeak Properties (DOC)
Formed from the 2024 merger of Healthpeak and Physicians Realty Trust, this healthcare REIT still trades under the ticker DOC and pays a monthly dividend of roughly $0.1017 per share, about $1.22 annualized. Its tenant base leans on medical office buildings and outpatient facilities, a segment that has been steadier than traditional office space because healthcare leases tend to run longer and turnover less often.
Monthly Dividend ETFs Worth Watching
A separate category of monthly payers has grown fast over the past few years: covered call and option-income ETFs such as JEPI, JEPQ, and QYLD. These funds do not collect rent or loan interest. They generate income by selling call options against a stock portfolio, which caps some of the upside in exchange for a steady premium that gets distributed monthly.
That structure explains why some of these funds show double-digit yields well above anything on the REIT side of this list. A 12% or 14% yield from an option-income fund is not automatically better than a 5% yield from a REIT with growing rents behind it. The premium income is real, but it partly substitutes for price appreciation rather than adding to it, so total return still matters more than the yield number by itself.
JEPI writes calls against a lower-volatility slice of the S&P 500 and tends to land in the 7% to 8% yield range, trading some upside for a smoother ride. JEPQ applies the same approach to the Nasdaq 100, which is a more volatile index, so its option premiums and its yield both run higher, often into the low double digits. QYLD writes calls against the full Nasdaq 100 rather than a subset of it, capping more of the upside in exchange for one of the highest advertised yields in this group.
The tradeoff across all three funds is the same: option premiums replace some of the price growth an investor would otherwise capture by simply holding the index. In a strong bull market, a plain index fund can outperform any of these ETFs on a total return basis, even after accounting for the monthly income. In a flat or choppy market, the option premium becomes the main source of return, and that is when covered call funds tend to look their best next to a REIT or a BDC.
Risks and Tax Considerations
Monthly dividend stocks carry the same underlying business risks as any other equity, plus a few considerations specific to how they are structured.
- REIT and BDC dividends are generally taxed as ordinary income rather than at the lower qualified dividend rate, so they tend to work best inside a tax-advantaged account like an IRA.
- A high yield can reflect real risk pricing rather than a bargain. Realty Income’s roughly 5% yield sits only about one percentage point above the 10-year Treasury, which is a fairly tight spread for a REIT whose tenant base still carries some retail exposure.
- Monthly payment history can change. STAG Industrial, long included on older monthly dividend lists, switched from monthly to quarterly payments in January 2026, a reminder that this list needs regular updates rather than a one-time ranking.
- Frequency is not the same as quality. A company that raises its dividend slowly every quarter can still outperform a monthly payer with a flat or shrinking payout over a multi-year holding period, so monthly cash flow should be weighed against total dividend growth, not treated as the only metric that matters.
Building a Monthly Income Stream
Investors who want dividend checks landing every month, rather than in quarterly clusters, usually spread their holdings across three or four monthly payers with staggered payment dates rather than relying on one stock alone. Pairing a net lease REIT like Realty Income or Agree Realty with a BDC like Main Street Capital diversifies both the tenant and borrower base behind the income, which reduces the odds that a single sector downturn hits every position at once.
Before buying, it is worth checking each company’s payout ratio against its funds from operations or distributable cash flow, not just its net income, since REIT accounting makes GAAP earnings a poor stand-in for the cash actually available to pay the dividend. None of this is a recommendation to buy any specific stock, and dividend yields and payout safety change with market prices and company performance, so figures here should be checked against a live quote before making any decision.
For anyone acting on this information, a brief conversation with a licensed financial advisor is worth the time, particularly for tax placement decisions, since the right account type for these holdings depends on your full tax picture rather than the dividend yield alone.
