Dividend King Stocks: What a 70-Year Raise Streak Tells You

What a dividend king is

The term is investor shorthand for a company with a very long unbroken record of yearly dividend raises. We could not find a year cutoff in a primary source, so this post doesn't state one. The three companies below report streaks of 64 and 70 years in their own releases.

Two things have to be true each year. The company pays a dividend, and the payment is higher than the year before. A flat year ends the streak. So does a cut.

Paying and raising are separate records, and the gap between them can be wide. P&G says it "has been paying a dividend for 136 consecutive years," going back to its 1890 incorporation. It has raised that dividend in 70 of those years.

That's also the simplest way to treat the label: as a claim you can check. If a company has a streak this long, it tends to say so in the release each time it raises the payout.

Three streaks, straight from the filings

Here are three companies that state their own streaks, with the 2026 raise each one announced. You can pull up the same names on MarketPlays: Procter & Gamble (PG), Coca-Cola (KO) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ).

Sources: P&G dividend release, April 2026 (SEC EDGAR); Coca-Cola press release, February 2026; Johnson & Johnson first-quarter 2026 exhibit (SEC EDGAR).

A 64-year streak that reaches 2026 began in the early 1960s. That means the raises kept coming through 2008 and through 2020.

The dollar totals are large too. Coca-Cola said it "returned $8.8 billion in dividends to shareowners in 2025," and has paid $101.9 billion since January 1, 2010 (Coca-Cola February 2026 release).

What the raises look like up close

Look at the size of the raises in that table. They were 3%, about 4% and 3.1%. Coca-Cola's raise works out to two cents a share each quarter.

The streak count goes up by one whatever the size of the raise. Coca-Cola's two-cent bump counted as its 64th increase in a row, and P&G's 3% raise counted as its 70th.

Here's an illustrative example, using only the per-share rates in the releases. It ignores taxes and assumes the share count stays the same.

• 100 shares of Coca-Cola at the new annual rate of $2.12 pay $212 a year. At the 2025 rate of $2.04, the same shares paid $204. The raise adds $8.
• 100 shares of Johnson & Johnson at $5.36 pay $536 a year, against $520 at the old rate of $5.20. The raise adds $16.
• 100 shares of P&G at $1.0885 a quarter pay $108.85 each quarter.

None of that tells you what the 100 shares cost. The releases give dividends per share and leave out the share price, so the yield depends on the day you buy. The same $2.12 is a bigger yield on a cheaper share and a smaller one on a pricier share.

It also helps to hold the raise up against inflation. A 3% raise adds buying power in a year when prices rise 2% and loses it in a year when they rise 5%. Those two inflation rates are made up for the example; the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the real figure each month.

What a streak tells you and what it leaves out

A board declares each dividend one payment at a time. A streak is a record of past votes, and nothing in it binds the next one. The dividend releases cited here give the streak and the new rate. They don't give the share of profit that the dividend uses up, so that figure has to come from the earnings report.

The dividend is also only part of what a shareholder earns. A payout can rise for years while the share price falls, and the two together decide the result.

There's a built-in bias as well. A 64-year streak needs a company that has paid dividends for at least 64 years, so the group leans toward old businesses, like these three that sell soap, soft drinks and medicine. A firm that went public in the last few decades can't have a streak that long, however strong its dividend.

How to check a streak yourself

Because the label is informal, the safest source is the company. It takes a few minutes.

1. Find the latest dividend release. Companies post them on their investor pages, and many attach them to filings on SEC EDGAR, as P&G and Johnson & Johnson did in April 2026.
2. Look for the streak sentence. P&G's reads "has increased its dividend for 70 consecutive years."
3. Compare the new rate with the old one. Johnson & Johnson's release gives both: $1.34 a quarter, up from $1.30.
4. Read the earnings report from the same quarter and compare profit per share with the dividend per share. That gap is the cushion behind the next raise.

Investors considering dividend growers often compare them with other income themes before picking. The MarketPlays tag index groups stocks by sector and theme, and the Explore page shows which stocks are trending and moving.

Key takeaways

• A dividend king is an informal label for a company with a very long unbroken record of yearly dividend raises. There is no official list.
• P&G states 70 years of increases in a row, and Coca-Cola and Johnson & Johnson each reached their 64th in 2026 (company releases).
• The 2026 raises were small: 3% at P&G, about 4% at Coca-Cola and 3.1% at Johnson & Johnson.
• A streak doesn't tell you the yield, the payout share of profit or the share price trend. Those need the share price and the earnings report.
• You can confirm any streak in the company's own dividend release, usually in one sentence.

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