Want Income Now? 3 Stocks Paying 5% or More and the Risk That Comes With Each
Three stocks all yield above 5% and all carry decades of unbroken dividend payments, but each one asks you to accept a completely different kind of risk before that income hits your account.
Income buyers face a strange setup right now. The 10-year Treasury yields 5.19% as of Friday, Sept. 25, sitting in the 97.6 percentile of its trailing one-year range. That is the hurdle every high-yield equity must clear.
The three names below all pay dividends above 5%, all trade on the NYSE and all carry long payout histories. Each also carries a specific structural risk you must underwrite before the yield goes into your account. Dividend safety leads the framing here; the yield is what the market pays you to accept the risk.
Altria (MO): 6%+ Yield With a Shrinking Cigarette Base
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Altria (NYSE:MO | MO Price Prediction) trades around $63.36 on Sept. 25 and pays a 6.5% dividend yield on a $4.24 annualized payout. That clears our 6% line, so this one earns the ultra-high-yield label. The next payment lands Oct. 9, with an ex-dividend date of Sept. 15.
Dividend safety read: Altria’s first-half 2026 adjusted diluted EPS was $2.80, up 4.9%, and management raised full-year 2026 adjusted diluted EPS guidance to $5.61 to $5.72. Against a $4.24 dividend, that leaves comfortable coverage on a cash-earnings basis. Debt-to-EBITDA sat at 1.9 times at June 30, in line with the roughly two-times target, and smokable-products adjusted operating company income grew 4.2% to $5.7 billion in the first half at a 64.9% margin. Track record is the anchor: per Altria’s Q4 2025 disclosures, this is the 60th dividend increase in the past 56 years, including a 3.9% raise in 2025, and the company paid $7.0 billion in dividends in full-year 2025.
Bull case for income: Pricing power still works. Smokable price realization ran 4.5% in the second quarter, with Marlboro’s retail price up about 7% year over year. Management is still generating roughly $1 billion of excess cash after the dividend for buybacks, debt management, and opportunistic uses. Shares have also participated, with a 19.28% year-to-date total price gain layered on top of the yield.
The named risk: structural volume decline. Reported domestic cigarette volumes fell 3.2% in the second quarter, and the total U.S. cigarette industry is estimated to have declined 5%. Price mix has offset the volume erosion so far, but the runway is finite, and a $2.2 billion non-cash impairment on the NJOY e-vapor unit in 2025 is a reminder of how hard the transition to next-generation nicotine has been.
Verizon (VZ): High-Yield Telecom With a Leveraged Balance Sheet
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Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) trades near $47.13 on Sept. 25 and pays a 6% dividend yield on a $2.795 annualized rate. That is a high-yield name, not ultra-high-yield. The next payment date is Nov. 2, ex-date Oct. 9.
Dividend safety read: For a telecom, free cash flow is the metric that matters. Verizon posted Q2 2026 operating cash flow of $10.44 billion, up 16.3% year over year, and free cash flow of $6.43 billion, up 27.1%. Full-year free cash flow guidance was raised to $21.94 billion to $22.14 billion against $16.0 billion to $16.5 billion in capex. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 40.1%, and full-year 2026 adjusted EPS guidance was raised to $4.99 to $5.04. On the track record, management called the payout an “ironclad commitment” and pointed to the 20th consecutive year of dividend increases with an annualized raise of $0.07 per share, up 2.5%.
Bull case for income: Subscriber momentum has flipped. Verizon reported 184,000 postpaid phone net adds in Q2 2026 against a loss of 9,000 in the year-ago quarter, with postpaid phone churn of 0.92%, and broadband connections of roughly 17.1 million, up 34.5% year over year with the help of the Frontier close on Jan. 20. Combine growing free cash flow with a raised buyback plan of up to $4.5 billion for 2026, and the coverage math holds.
The named risk: leverage from the Frontier deal. Total unsecured debt sits at $136.5 billion, and net unsecured debt to adjusted EBITDA rose to 2.5 times from 2.2 times at year-end 2025. Management said on the Q2 call it remains on track to reach a target net unsecured leverage ratio of 2.0 to 2.25 times during the 2027 timeframe, but with the 10-year Treasury above 5%, every refinancing window is more expensive than the last. Verizon shares also lagged into this article, off 8.71% over the trailing week, and a MarketWatch headline flagged Verizon underperforming competitors on Sept. 22.
Realty Income (O): Monthly Payer With Rate Sensitivity
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Realty Income (NYSE:O) trades near $55.12 on Sept. 25 and pays a 5.89% dividend yield. The company pays monthly, with an annualized forward dividend of $3.258 and the most recent monthly payment set at 27 cents, next payable Oct. 15. High-yield, not ultra-high-yield.
Dividend safety read: For a net-lease REIT the coverage metric is AFFO per share, not GAAP earnings. Realty Income posted Q2 2026 AFFO per share of $1.09, up 3.8%, with year-to-date AFFO per share of $2.22, up 5.2%, and raised full-year 2026 AFFO per share guidance to $4.44 to $4.45. That comfortably covers the $3.258 annualized dividend. Portfolio occupancy was 98.8% with a blended rent recapture rate of 102.7%. The dividend record is the calling card: per Q2 2026 filings, this is the 115th consecutive quarterly dividend increase, following 670 consecutive monthly dividends declared as of Q1 2026, backed by a Fitch “A” long-term IDR with stable outlook.
Bull case for income: The pipeline is growing. Management raised full-year 2026 investment volume guidance to $10 billion, with Q2 global investments of roughly $2.6 billion closed at a 7.3% initial cash yield. On top of the retail base, Realty Income announced a $6 billion hyperscale data center joint venture and continues to add a third-party AUM platform. For an income investor who wants a monthly check that keeps stepping higher, this is the archetype.
The named risk: interest-rate sensitivity. With the 10-year Treasury above 5%, cap rates historically follow. Management said on the call that if the 10-year sits in a 4.6% to potentially 5% zip code, cap rates have historically followed, and warned that in a highly elevated cost of capital environment, cap rates will need to adjust. Leverage has ticked up to net debt/EBITDA of 5.4 times, from 5.2 times in Q1 2026, and 65.7% of annualized base rent comes from non-investment-grade tenants. Shares reflect the pressure, off 12.27% over the past month.
Which Risk Is Most Worth Taking
All three clear the 5% threshold with room to spare, and each pays coverage-supported dividends backed by a multi-decade payment record. Altria delivers the largest headline yield, but you are paid to underwrite a shrinking cigarette base. Verizon pays a high-5% yield with the fattest free cash flow, but leverage is elevated after Frontier. Realty Income offers the most defensible coverage on the correct metric (AFFO) and a monthly cadence, but sits directly in the crosshairs of a 10-year Treasury sitting in its 97.6 percentile. Rate risk is a cyclical problem; a shrinking end market is a permanent one. For income buyers who want yield without underwriting terminal decline, the rate-sensitivity risk at Realty Income is the one most worth taking here.
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Joel South covers large-cap stocks, dividend investing, and major market trends, with a focus on earnings analysis, valuation, and turning complex data into actionable insights for investors.
He brings more than 15 years of experience as an investor and financial journalist, including 12 years at The Motley Fool, where he served as an investment analyst, Bureau Chief, and later led the Fool.com investing news desk. He has also co-hosted an investing podcast and appeared across TV and radio discussing market trends.
