3 High-Yield Dividend Stocks That Pay You Every Month

Monthly dividend stocks go above and beyond the norm, in more ways than one.

If you ever think you have it rough as an income investor, just look across the pond to Europe, where stock dividends often come only twice (in uneven amounts), even once per year. By comparison, we Americans have it pretty good—most of our dividend stocks pay regular, reliable payouts, and at a more frequent quarterly clip.

Still, if you've ever wished to yourself, "It would sure be nice to collect these dividends even more often" … well, wish no longer. While they're not terribly common, American exchanges boast dozens of monthly dividend stocks. And better still? As a group, monthly dividend stocks tend to pay us more than your average income-producing equity.

Today, I'm going to talk about the virtues of companies that distribute their cash monthly. Then after that, I'll introduce you to some of the best monthly dividend stocks you can find right now. Also, while there's no rule mandating that monthly payers yield more than the average stock, they typically do—even the skimpiest yield on this list is roughly 4x what the S&P 500 currently offers, and the top payer yields almost 16%.

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.

Why Monthly Dividends?

Monthly dividends, from a pure payout-schedule perspective, benefit every kind of investor in some way, but they clearly have a certain appeal to retirees.

Think about what I said before: U.S.-based stocks are the most frequent dividend payers, and even then, they're only paying dividends every quarter. Also, they're not paying during the same quarters—different stocks have different schedules, with some paying in Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct, some in Feb/May/Aug/Nov, and some in Mar/Jun/Sep/Dec. Well, depending on how much you have invested in stocks with different schedules, you could be receiving your checks in uneven clumps, which makes them difficult to budget around.

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

Monthly dividend stocks? If all goes well, you're getting the same exact payout every month (with the occasional annual payout hike, to boot). That's outstanding news to retirees. After all, they're not working anymore—but they still have bills to pay, and bills still come monthly.

There's also a tangible (albeit slight) benefit to investors of any age: quicker compounding.

When a company pays a dividend, you can choose to have it go straight to your account for use as you'd like … or you can immediately reinvest those dividends, which many people do when they're not already retired.

Let's say you buy $10,000 worth of shares in a stock with a 5% yield and hold it for 30 years. It never gains a dime, but you collect the same level of dividends the entire time.

• If that stock paid you quarterly, you'd end up with a balance of $44,402.13.
• If that stock paid you monthly, you'd end up with a balance of $44,677.44.

Sure, $275 isn't world-changing, but more is still more. If nothing else, it's a case for including a few of these income investments as part of a diversified portfolio.

Which Stocks Pay Monthly?

One last thing to know before I introduce my list of monthly dividend payers: They're largely not what you'd consider "normal" stocks.

A "normal" stock is, say, an Apple (AAPL) or a Coca-Cola (KO)—virtually always a plain-vanilla C corporation with no unusual rules or designations.

But for whatever reason, most monthly dividend stocks tend to involve companies with specialized structures, such as real estate investment trusts (REITs), master limited partnerships (MLPs), business development companies (BDCs), and royalty trusts. These businesses all have one thing in common: They're mandated to pay out large percentages of their taxable income or cash flow back to shareholders—which come in the form of dividends (or dividend-esque "distributions").

In general, all these special classes tend to deliver much higher yields than your average stock. That's great for income hunters, but remember: Higher yields can often involve higher risk, or at least a bigger emphasis on income at the cost of lower price returns.

So today, I'm going to point you in the direction of monthly dividend-paying stocks that largely garner positive opinions from the Wall Street analyst set. This is a short set of three companies from my larger list of the best monthly dividend stocks to buy.

Stocks are listed in order of dividend yield, from smallest to largest.

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Realty Income

• Industry: Commercial real estate
• Market capitalization: $58.1 billion
• Dividend yield: 5.2%

Any roundup of the best monthly dividend stocks should include Realty Income (O), which literally bills itself as the "Monthly Dividend Company."

No, really. They even registered the nickname.

Realty Income is a real estate investment trust focused on single-tenant commercial properties. It owns more than 15,500 properties in the U.S., U.K., and eight other countries that are under long-term net-lease agreements. It currently boasts more than 1,800 different tenants—including 7-Eleven, Dollar General (DG), Walgreens (WBA), Wynn Resorts (WYNN), and Life Time Fitness (LTH)—across 92 widely varying industries.

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

It's a behemoth in the space, and it keeps getting bigger, both naturally and by acquisition. For instance, in 2021, it bought fellow net-lease REIT VEREIT. Then in 2024, it bought out another net-lease play, Spirit Realty Capital.

"O has been very active, acquiring both investment and non-investment grade assets," say Stifel analysts, who call the stock a Buy. "The company has one of the sector's strongest balance sheets, in our view, the lowest costs of capital, and pays a consistent and growing monthly dividend."

A reflection of that balance sheet comes from Fitch Ratings, which recently assigned the company a long-term issuer default rating of "A" with a "Stable" outlook. "The team highlighted this development puts the company among a group of only four U.S. REITs receiving the same or equivalent rating from 1 of the 3 major rating agencies," Stifel adds.

And again, the monthly dividend isn't just generous—it has been outright bulletproof. Realty Income has paid 673 consecutive monthly dividends and increased the payout for 115 consecutive quarters.

Related: The 10 Best Dividend ETFs [Get Income + Diversify]

EPR Properties

• Industry: Experiential real estate
• Market capitalization: $4.7 billion
• Dividend yield: 6.0%

EPR Properties (EPR) might be responsible for one of your favorite places, and you just don't know it yet.

Once known as Entertainment Properties Trust, EPR Properties is an "experiential" real estate firm whose locations are dedicated to helping you learn, stretch out, and play. This is a 346-property portfolio, leased out to 57 tenants in 43 states and Canada, that includes movie theaters, water parks, ski resorts, Andretti Karting & Games go-karting, TopGolf gamified driving ranges, golf courses, fitness studios, private schools, early childhood education centers, and more.

EPR is also growing its amusement-park roster, completing the purchase of six attraction properties back in April (and it added seven overall). "Spending during the quarter was primarily allocated towards the acquisition of the previously announced Six Flags portfolio acquisition," write Stifel analysts (Buy). "EPR noted that it spent $304.4 million on the seven-property portfolio and expects to spend $11.0 million on improvements across the portfolio over the next two years."

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JPMorgan analysts, who rate the stock at Overweight (equivalent of Buy) lay out the strength of its most recent earnings: "Overall, we think EPR had a good quarter, and the bottom line is that it is back to making investments and can do so with capital costs that have been coming down. That’s a strong setup, in our view, with its growth trending better than most net lease REITs."

EPR has been paying and raising its monthly dividend for years. Most recently, in February, it announced a 5% bump higher to 31¢ per share, putting this monthly dividend stock at a yield north of 6%. 

Related: 15 Best Long-Term Stocks to Buy and Hold Forever

Capital Southwest Corp.

• Industry: BDC
• Market capitalization: $1.6 billion
• Dividend yield: 10.2%

Business development companies (BDCs) are specialized firms that provide capital for small- and midsized businesses. It's a small niche in the public markets—only a few dozen trade on U.S. exchanges—but it's also one of the highest-yield corners of Wall Street. That's because, like REITs, they must distribute at least 90% of their income in the form of dividends in exchange for exemption from corporate income tax.

Capital Southwest Corp. (CSWC) is a BDC that focuses on lower-middle-market companies with $3 million to $25 million of EBITDA. It primarily deals in first lien debt, which makes up 90% of the portfolio at fair value. Equity makes up 9%, and the remaining sliver is split between second-lien and subordinated debt.

This is a much wider portfolio than Gladstone Investment, at around 130 companies. It spreads its $2.1 billion in assets across a couple dozen industries, though most prominent at the moment are healthcare services, consumer services, media & marketing, and consumer products, all of which enjoy low double-digit weights.

Related: 10 Dividend-Growth Stocks That Wall Street Loves Now

The company recently reported decent results for the first quarter of its fiscal 2027. Net investment income (NII) was in line with Wall Street estimates. Non-accruals (loans in which the borrower has stopped making payments, and the lender has stopped recording interest income) held at 1.1% after a decline from 1.5% between Q3 and Q4 of fiscal 2026. And almost 90% of its debt investments enjoyed the top "1" or "2" rating (out of 5) on Capital Southwest's internal rating scale.

"We continue to expect [net asset value, or NAV] outperformance versus the group in future quarters due to CSWC’s internally managed model, moderate leverage, and top-quartile return on equity," says B. Riley Securities analyst Sean-Paul Adams (Buy).

Capital Southwest also uses a regular-and-supplemental dividend strategy, though it's far more stable than GAIN's. The company has been paying a 19.34¢ monthly dividend since it converted away from its quarterly schedule in 2025. But it also paid out 6¢ per share in supplemental distributions in each of the past six quarters. On its own, the regular dividend equates to a 9.8% yield. Add in the supplemental, and that percentage nears 11%.

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