Home Depot’s Dividend Grew 935% Since 2009. Here’s What Investors Should Know
Home Depot has handed shareholders a dividend raise every year for over a decade, but the last two increases tell a very different story about where housing and free cash flow are actually headed.
Metric: Home Depot’s Quarterly Dividend Per Share
In 2009, with the housing market in collapse, Home Depot (NYSE:HD | HD Price Prediction) paid shareholders $0.225 per share each quarter. Today, the quarterly dividend is $2.33, roughly 10.4 times higher. For income investors at or near retirement, that one figure says more about how Home Depot operates than any single comp sales number.
Why the Dividend Tells You More Than Earnings
Earnings move with lumber prices, tariffs, and acquisition charges. A dividend is a cash promise the board renews four times a year, so it shows what management believes the business can fund across a full housing cycle. The February 2026 declaration marked Home Depot’s 156th consecutive quarterly cash dividend.
Growth paid for the climb. Revenue rose from $66.176 billion in the fiscal year ending January 2010 to $164.683 billion in fiscal 2025, while net income grew from $2.661 billion to $14.156 billion. The payout followed profits higher: $0.39 a quarter in 2013, $1.03 in 2018 and $2.09 in 2023.
Raises Are Shrinking as Housing Freezes
The pace has slowed sharply. The 2023 raise was 10%, followed by roughly 7.7% in 2024, 2.2% in 2025, and just 1.3% in 2026. Housing explains much of it. Existing home sales ran at 3.99 million annualized in September, a soft reading. On the second quarter call, management said housing turnover “has never been lower as a percentage of the housing stock” and saw “no sign of an inflection point at this moment.” Comparable transactions fell 1.0% that quarter while average ticket rose 2.8%.
Coverage Holds, but the Cushion Is Thinner
Fiscal 2025 dividends came to $9.152 billion against free cash flow of $12.646 billion, a payout of about 72% of free cash flow. That free cash flow fell 29.53% year over year. The forward annual dividend of $9.32 equals roughly 63% of fiscal 2025 adjusted EPS of $14.69. The first half of fiscal 2026 looks healthier: about $9.7 billion of free cash flow covered $4.64 billion in dividends. Leverage remains a factor, with net interest expense guided near $2.3 billion this year.
What Would Signal the Next Leg Higher
A bullish setup would include a pickup in housing turnover, operating cash flow recovering toward the $21.172 billion posted in fiscal 2023, and a February raise back in mid-single digits. A bearish setup would be another token increase, with free cash flow still trailing the dividend bill. Management’s guidance for EPS growth of flat to 4.0% suggests the next raise will stay modest. Meanwhile, shares fell 14.56% over the past year, lifting the yield to 2.87%.
Verdict
The size of each annual raise is the best real-time read on how confident Home Depot’s board feels about housing, and right now that read points to patience while coverage stays intact. For investors who want companies with even longer consecutive raise streaks, we ranked ten of them by valuation in a free Dividend Kings report.
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Chris Lange is a financial and geopolitical writer with more than a decade of experience covering a myriad of topics. He has published thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St., with past coverage focused heavily on stocks, IPOs, healthcare, defense, global affairs, and technology.
His work has been quoted, or referenced by a number of outlets including Business Insider, USA Today, Yahoo Finance, MSN, The Motley Fool, and many other publications. A graduate of Southwestern University, he studied business with a focus on investments and has previous experience in banking and startups.
When not reading or writing the news, he is following his passion for Lacrosse, playing chess, or building solar projects with his dad.
