Payout ratio

The share of a company’s profit that it pays out as dividends.

How it’s calculated

Dividends ÷ net income.

How to read it

A 50% payout ratio means half of profit is paid to shareholders and half kept in the business. Above 100% means the company paid out more than it earned that year.

A temporary dip in profit can push the ratio up for a year without the dividend being at risk.

How StockDecks scores it

Part of the Dividend reading (Premium Full Score). A payout ratio above 100% caps the dividend score at 0, because it can’t be sustained indefinitely.

It is one of the measures behind the Dividend rating. Every measure, benchmark and weighting is set out on the methodology page.

Real examples

Across the 91 companies StockDecks has a page for with this figure available, as of 24 October 2026, the middle value is 49%.

Lowest

NVIDIA 3.5% · Alphabet 4.3% · Meta Platforms 7.2%

Highest

Anglo American 552% · Whitbread 267.2% · Merck & Co. 266.7%

Figures from Yahoo Finance, captured 24 October 2026. Being high or low on one measure says little on its own — each company page shows how this measure sits alongside the others.