3 Divine Dividend-Growth ETFs

When you research a dividend stock or fund, chances are the first number you sniff out is dividend yield, which makes sense. After all, that number represents how much income you're likely to receive each year as a percentage of your investment.

But ideally, stocks pay out for a whole lot longer than one year. And that's the idea behind dividend-growth investing: You're looking not just at what a company can pay you today, but its ability, willingness, and potential to pay you even more going forward.

We can do this via dividend stocks, but we can also do this efficiently and broadly by purchasing exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Let me introduce you to some of the best dividend-growth ETFs to buy.

Disclaimer: This article does not constitute individualized investment advice. Individual securities, funds, and/or other investments appear for your consideration and not as personalized investment recommendations. Act at your own discretion.

5 Best Dividend-Growth ETFs to Buy

You can easily add dividend growth to your portfolio by purchasing individual stocks such as so-called Dividend Aristocrats and Dividend Kings that boast decades of uninterrupted dividend improvement.

But if you'd prefer to diversify your money across many dividend growers all at once, a basic dividend-growth fund can do just that.

The following are three of the best dividend-growth ETFs you can find. While there are many more such funds out there, these three have been selected for their varying approaches to this dividend strategy.

Related: 8 Best High-Yield Dividend ETFs for Income-Hungry Investors

Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF

• Assets under management: $110.2 billion*
• Dividend yield: 1.5%
• Expense ratio: 0.04%, or 40¢ per year on every $1,000 invested

The largest dividend ETF by assets is primarily concerned not with dividend yield, but dividend growth. And shareholders are benefitting from its massive scale (with more than $100 billion in assets currently), which has enabled Vanguard to recently lower the fees on this already cost-efficient fund.

The Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG) is a straightforward index fund that's benchmarked to the S&P U.S. Dividend Growers Index, which comprises stocks that have consistently improved their payouts on an annual basis for at least 10 consecutive years. As a further nod to the idea that high dividend yield isn't always high-quality dividend yield, VIG actually excludes the highest-yielding 25% of stocks that otherwise would be eligible for inclusion. The index also excludes companies that are working through bankruptcy proceedings.

It doesn't hold real estate investment trusts (REITs), either, but that's likelier about avoiding the different tax nature of REIT dividends than it is a negative statement about real estate.

Related: The 16 Best ETFs to Buy for the Rest of 2026

Vanguard's fund holds roughly 330 U.S.-based large-cap companies. It's market cap-weighted, which means the bigger the stock, the more influence its has on the portfolio. Indeed, the top 10 companies account for a full third of the fund's assets.

Many of VIG's components are stocks you'd be likely to associate with dividend income, including Eli Lilly (LLY) and Walmart (WMT). But you'll also get some "growthier" companies, such as semiconductor firm Broadcom (AVGO) and software giant Microsoft (MSFT). And while many yield-oriented ETFs are heavy in utility, consumer staples, and energy stocks, VIG is currently most concentrated in companies from the information technology, financial, and healthcare sectors.

In short, this Vanguard ETF provides a diversified portfolio of stable dividend-growth stocks. And you're paying less than ever before; Vanguard lowered the cost of VIG by a basis point, to 0.04%, at the start of 2026.

The only noteworthy downside is a modest yield that's currently about a half a percentage point more than the S&P 500. But by virtue of holding dividend growers, your yield on cost should improve over time.

* Vanguard fund assets are spread across multiple share classes, including mutual funds and ETFs alike. Assets listed for each fund in this story are for the ETF share class only.

Related: 10 Monthly Dividend Stocks for Frequent, Regular Income

ProShares S&P 500 Aristocrats ETF

• Assets under management: $11.1 billion
• Dividend yield: 2.1%
• Expense ratio: 0.35%, or $3.50 per year on every $1,000 invested

The ProShares S&P 500 Aristocrats ETF (NOBL) is laser-focused on dividend growth, but it sets a much higher bar than the aforementioned VIG.

This dividend-growth ETF invests in the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats: an elite group of stocks that have upped the ante on their payouts for at least 25 consecutive years. That means these companies, at a bare minimum, have improved their payouts through the dot-com bust, the Global Financial Crisis, and a pair of post-COVID bear markets. Impressive!

Related: Dividend Kings: The Full List of American Dividend Royalty

"From an evergreen standpoint, companies that consistently grow their dividends are demonstrating quality," says Simeon Hyman, global investment strategist at ProShares. "You can't manufacture a dividend out of thin air. These companies have to be generating consistent earnings, consistent cash flow, have appropriate levels of leverage … and that comes through in spades. If you look at the Aristocrats, you'll see things like better return on assets (RoA) compared to the S&P 500, and a whole host of other measures."

In other words ... the kinds of companies that have already proven many times that they can survive economic and market tumult.

Because NOBL is limited to just the Dividend Aristocrats, the portfolio is a tight group of about 70 holdings, including Exxon Mobil (XOM), Linde (LIN), and Consolidated Edison (ED). And despite their pedigree, this ETF equally weights all of its components, meaning no single stock has an outsized pull on performance.

Finally, the yield, while still modest, is higher than VIG's at a little more than 2%.

Learn More About These and Other Funds With Morningstar Investor

If you're buying a fund you plan on holding for years (if not forever), you want to know you're making the right selection. And Morningstar Investor can help you do that.

Morningstar Investor provides a wealth of information and comparable data points about mutual funds and ETFs—fees, risk, portfolio composition, performance, distributions, and more. Morningstar experts also provide detailed explanations and analysis of many of the funds the site covers.

With Morningstar Investor, you'll enjoy a wealth of features, including Morningstar Portfolio X-Ray®, stock and fund watchlists, news and commentary, screeners, and more. And you can try it before you buy it. Right now, Morningstar Investor is offering a free seven-day trial and a discount on your first year's subscription when you use our exclusive link.

ProShares MSCI EAFE Dividend Growers ETF

• Assets under management: $60.5 million
• Dividend yield: 2.6%
• Expense ratio: 0.50%, or $5.00 per year on every $1,000 invested

American companies obviously aren't the only companies that pay dividends, nor are they the only companies that grow their payouts from one year to the next. For instance, you can add geographic diversification to your dividend-growth efforts with funds such as the ProShares MSCI EAFE Dividend Growers ETF (EFAD).

Related: 8 Best High-Yield Dividend Stocks: The Pros' Picks

EFAD is built with companies found within the MSCI EAFE Index, which refers to developed-market countries found in Europe, Asia, and the Far East. The fund's tracking index invests in large- and mid-cap companies within the MSCI EAFE that have consistently increased their dividends annually for at least 10 years.

Country weightings aren't too dissimilar from what you'd find in a traditional developed-market ETF: a high level of concentration in Japanese companies (24%), followed by the U.K. (13%) and Switzerland (13%). Much like NOBL, EFAD is chock full of dividend-growing blue chips like Dutch semiconductor stock ASML Holding (ASML), Japanese semiconductor measurement leader Lasertec, and British safety equipment group Halma.

International developed-market stock funds often carry higher dividend yields than their American counterparts, and that's the case with EFAD. At well more than 2%, the yield is much better than what many U.S. dividend-growth funds offer.

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