DAX Dividends 2026: Yields, Dividend Kings and 10-Year Returns

DAX dividends in 2026 were a story of two extremes for investors in Germany's 40 largest listed companies: strong increases at banks, insurers and defence, cuts at the carmakers. We checked the payouts of all 40 DAX companies one by one against the companies' own disclosures – amounts, annual general meetings, ex-dates and payment dates. On top of that: the yield of every stock, the longest streaks without a dividend cut, and what an investment actually returned over ten years with dividends reinvested.

DAX dividends 2026: key takeaways

• Dividend kings: Beiersdorf and SAP have not cut their regular dividend since at least 1990 – at least 36 years in a row. SAP itself states that it has never reduced or cancelled its dividend since its IPO in 1988.
• Highest yield: Mercedes-Benz at 5.83% – even though the group cut its dividend by 18.6% to €3.50.
• Best 10-year performance: Rheinmetall with a total return of +1,727.8%. €10,000 grew to around €182,780.
• Raises: 29 of the 39 dividend-paying DAX companies raised their regular dividend in 2026, six held it, three cut it. Zalando pays no dividend.
• Quality beats yield: The highest DiviScores go to Allianz and Munich Re (93 out of 100 each) – both with a yield above 4% and a ten-year total return of more than 350%.

DAX dividend kings: no cuts for at least 36 years

In the US, "Dividend Kings" are companies that have raised their dividend for 50 consecutive years. No DAX company meets that bar. For the German market we therefore asked a stricter question: who has gone the longest without cutting its regular dividend? An unchanged dividend does not count as a cut, a skipped one does. Special dividends are excluded, stock splits are adjusted for.

"≥": the streak goes back beyond the earliest year we could document with company sources. Counted by payment year up to and including 2026; yield on the closing price of 30 Dec 2025.

Beiersdorf and SAP share the throne. Neither has lowered its regular dividend in any year since at least 1990. SAP puts it most clearly: since its IPO in 1988, the dividend has never been reduced or cancelled. The amounts, however, reveal an important difference: not cut does not mean raised. For 16 years – from 2008 to 2023 – Beiersdorf paid an unchanged regular dividend of €0.70 per share, topped up by a one-off €0.20 bonus in 2009. Only in 2024 did it rise to €1.00, where it has stayed since. SAP, by contrast, has increased its payout fivefold since 2008, from €0.50 to €2.50 per share.

Henkel (preference share) follows with at least 31 years without a cut, but held its dividend at €1.85 for six years from 2019 to 2024. Munich Re is the dividend king with the most growth: no cut since at least 2000, and a 20% increase to €24.00 per share in 2026 – the highest dividend per share in the entire DAX. Symrise has never cut since its first dividend in 2008 and has raised it every year since 2011.

Strikingly, many of today's streaks began in the financial crisis: Allianz (2009: €3.50 after €5.50) and Deutsche Post (2009: €0.60 after €0.90) last cut 17 years ago, GEA and Merck a year later. A prominent recent break is Fresenius: the dividend for fiscal 2023 was cancelled because of a legal payout ban tied to state energy-price relief.

Highest dividend yield in the DAX: the 2026 ranking

The dividend yield relates the 2026 dividend to the Xetra closing price on the last trading day of 2025 (30 Dec 2025) – the yield an investor who bought at the turn of the year earned on the 2026 payout.

Mercedes-Benz leads with 5.83% – and is a lesson at the same time. The group cut its dividend from €4.30 to €3.50. The high yield comes mainly from the share price: since the end of September 2016 Mercedes shares have lost 35.3%. The picture is similar for Volkswagen (preference share, 5.08%, dividend −17.3%) and BASF (5.06%, dividend unchanged at €2.25 after last year's cut). Vonovia and Daimler Truck are tied in second place at 5.09% each.

The carmakers show why a high yield alone is no reason to buy: it often reflects falling prices and uncertainty about future payouts. Investors looking for high yield and reliability end up with the insurers: Hannover Re (4.70%), Allianz (4.38%) and Munich Re (4.27%) raised their dividends by 38.9%, 11.0% and 20.0% in 2026.

Dividend increases and cuts in 2026: 29 DAX companies pay more

29 DAX companies raised their regular dividend in 2026. The biggest jumps compared with the previous year's total dividend:

• Commerzbank: €1.10 after €0.65 (+69.2%)
• MTU Aero Engines: €3.60 after €2.20 (+63.6%)
• Deutsche Bank: €1.00 after €0.68 (+47.1%)
• Rheinmetall: €11.50 after €8.10 (+42.0%)
• Adidas: €2.80 after €2.00 (+40.0%)
• Qiagen: $0.35 after $0.25 (+40.0%)
• Hannover Re: €12.50 after €9.00 (+38.9%)

Hannover Re deserves a second look: last year's €9.00 included a €2.00 special dividend. Under the new dividend policy the special payment has been folded into the regular dividend, which therefore rose from €7.00 to €12.50. Similarly at Airbus: the total dividend rose from €3.00 to €3.20, but the regular dividend went from €2.00 to €3.20, because 2025 included a €1.00 special dividend.

Unchanged were BASF, Bayer, Beiersdorf, Daimler Truck, Infineon and Merck. Cuts came from Mercedes-Benz (€3.50 after €4.30), Volkswagen pref. (€5.26 after €6.36) and Brenntag (€1.90 after €2.10). Siemens Energy is back with €0.70 after three years without a payout. Zalando has never paid a dividend.

10-year total return: the best DAX stocks with dividends reinvested

For the long-term view we calculated what became of €10,000 invested in each stock on 30 Sep 2016 – through 30 Sep 2026, with all dividends reinvested on the ex-date (gross, before taxes). Spin-offs such as Siemens Energy, Daimler Truck, Vitesco and AUMOVIO as well as rights issues are included – otherwise Siemens, Mercedes-Benz and Continental would look worse than they actually were for their shareholders.

Rheinmetall is the undisputed champion: +1,727.8% total return, or 33.7% a year. €10,000 grew to around €182,780. Far behind follow Commerzbank (+699.8%), RWE (+413.6%), Deutsche Börse (+403.0%) and Allianz (+401.1%). At Allianz, dividends make up a large part: the share price alone rose 215.1%; with dividends reinvested it became more than a fivefold increase.

The benchmark is the DAX itself, which as a performance index already includes dividends: it rose from 10,511.02 to 25,199.19 points, a gain of 139.7% or 9.13% a year. 18 of the 37 DAX stocks listed for at least ten years beat the index. At the other end are Zalando (−38.9%), Fresenius Medical Care (−36.3%), Bayer (−28.7%) and Continental (−27.1%) – in the red even with all dividends.

Daimler Truck (listed since December 2021), Siemens Energy (since September 2020) and Siemens Healthineers (since April 2018) have not been listed for ten years and are therefore not part of this comparison.

High yield or high quality? DAX stocks by DiviScore

The DiviScore rates dividend stocks on a scale from 0 to 100 across four pillars: long-term performance (up to 35 points), dividend quality covering continuity, growth, yield and payout ratio (up to 35 points), fundamental strength (up to 15 points) and stability and risk (up to 15 points). It answers a different question than the yield: how reliable is the dividend – and has the stock paid off overall?

The result is clear: none of the five yield winners has a DiviScore above 60. Two of them cut in 2026, and four are clearly down in share price over ten years – only Daimler Truck, listed since December 2021, is up since its IPO. The top of the DiviScore ranking, on the other hand, combines what dividend investors are really looking for: Allianz, Munich Re and Hannover Re yield more than 4%, raise reliably and have delivered a total return between 284.9% and 401.1% since 2016. Deutsche Börse and Siemens reach the top with a lower yield but a total return of 403.0% and 285.9% respectively.

DiviScores (as of 30 Sep 2026) and the full dividend history of every stock are available on the stock pages, for example Allianz or Mercedes-Benz, and in the DAX overview.

2026 ex-dividend and payment dates in numbers

The dividend season is concentrated in a few weeks: 21 of the 39 ex-dates fell in May and 11 in April. Siemens, Infineon, Siemens Healthineers and Siemens Energy pay as early as February because their fiscal year runs from October to September. Latecomers were Scout24 and Volkswagen in June and Qiagen in July. Hochtief is a special case: its ex-date was 30 Apr 2026, but the dividend was only paid on 7 Jul 2026. All dates are in the table below; upcoming payouts are in our continuously updated DAX dividend calendar.

All 40 DAX dividends 2026: the full table

The table can be sorted by any column. The raw data is available as a CSV download and may be used freely with attribution to "DiviScore" (licence CC BY 4.0).

Methodology and sources

• Constituents: the 40 DAX members on 30 Sep 2026. Hochtief replaced Porsche SE in the index on 22 Jun 2026.
• 2026 dividends: all payments with an ex-date in calendar year 2026, including special dividends (no DAX company paid one in 2026). Amounts in original currency, US dollars for Qiagen.
• Sources: every 2026 amount and date was checked against company disclosures – dividend announcements, AGM invitations, investor relations pages and annual reports, and for Qiagen its filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
• Yield: 2026 dividend divided by the Xetra closing price on 30 Dec 2025 (for Qiagen: NYSE closing price in US dollars).
• Years without a cut: regular dividend per share, adjusted for splits, consecutive payment years without a decrease versus the prior year. An unchanged dividend does not count as a cut, a skipped one does. Only what is documented by company sources is counted.
• Total return: 30 Sep 2016 to 30 Sep 2026, €10,000 starting capital, whole shares, dividends reinvested at the closing price on the ex-date, gross before taxes and costs. Spin-offs are reinvested at the value of the allocated shares on their first trading day, subscription rights at their theoretical value. We cross-checked the results against a second, independent data source.
• DiviScore: as of 30 Sep 2026. Values on the stock pages are updated daily and may therefore differ.

Transparency note: in the course of this review we also cleaned up our own database – among other things duplicate dividend records, estimated dates and the pre-2016 dividend history of several stocks. The stock pages on diviscore.com now show the same verified figures as this article.

FAQ: DAX dividends 2026

Which DAX stock had the highest dividend yield in 2026?

Mercedes-Benz at 5.83%: a €3.50 dividend on a closing price of €60.07 on 30 Dec 2025. The dividend, however, was cut by 18.6%. Vonovia and Daimler Truck follow at 5.09% each.

Which DAX companies cut their dividend in 2026?

Three: Mercedes-Benz (€3.50 after €4.30), Volkswagen pref. (€5.26 after €6.36) and Brenntag (€1.90 after €2.10). 29 companies raised their dividend and six kept it unchanged.

Who are the DAX dividend kings?

Beiersdorf and SAP: neither has cut its regular dividend since at least 1990, i.e. for at least 36 consecutive years. They are followed by Henkel pref. (at least 31 years) and Munich Re (at least 26 years).

Which DAX stock performed best over the last ten years?

Rheinmetall, with a total return of +1,727.8% from 30 Sep 2016 to 30 Sep 2026, including reinvested dividends. €10,000 grew to around €182,780. The DAX gained 139.7% over the same period.

When do DAX companies pay their dividends?

Mostly in spring, shortly after the annual general meeting: in 2026, 21 ex-dates fell in May and 11 in April. Siemens, Infineon, Siemens Healthineers and Siemens Energy pay in February, Qiagen in July. Payment usually follows two to three business days after the ex-date – Hochtief only pays in July.

Which DAX company does not pay a dividend?

Zalando. The online retailer has never paid a dividend and again carried its profit forward in 2026.