- Pays: monthly — usually going ex-dividend on the last business day of the month.
- Paying since: 2008 — one of the longest records of any high-yield monthly payer.
- What it is: a mortgage REIT — AGNC borrows short-term money to buy government-backed mortgage bonds and pays out the spread between the two rates.
- The remarkable streak: exactly $0.12 per share every month since April 2020 — six years without a single change, up or down.
- The honest history: before the freeze came a decade of cuts — today's $1.44/year is far below what AGNC paid in its early years. High yield, no growth, real interest-rate risk.
AGNC is a mortgage REIT: its dividends are paid from an interest-rate spread, are taxed as ordinary income, and have been cut before when that spread compressed.
AGNC pays monthly. Each point below is one dividend since 2008 — a fascinating shape: the high, descending payouts of its first decade, then the perfectly flat line since 2020.
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Each point is one payment; the line ends at the most recent payout. The table below totals them by year.
| Recent Ex-Dividend Dates | Dividend / Share |
|---|
"Next expected" is estimated from AGNC's recent payment rhythm — the fund announces exact dates shortly before each payout, and the data feed can lag a few days. You must own shares before the ex-dividend date to receive that payout; the cash typically arrives days later. See every fund's upcoming date on the live dividend calendar.
A real total-return estimate, assuming every payout was reinvested — including what happened to the share price. Before taxes and fees. Past performance does not predict the future.
Now Estimate Your Own Future
These are assumptions, not a prediction. Want the full chart and tax options? Open the full calculator →
AGNC's chart is really two charts. The first decade shows a mortgage REIT riding rate cycles the hard way: rich payouts after the financial crisis, then cut after cut as its lending spread compressed. The second, from April 2020 onward, is a ruler-flat 12 cents a month — through a pandemic, a historic rate-hiking cycle, and everything since. That flatness is a management choice: pay a level the portfolio can sustain across scenarios, and let the yield float with the share price.
What the dividend chart doesn't show is the share price, which has drifted down over the long term — which is why the total-return backtest above is the number that matters. A double-digit yield on a slowly-eroding share is a very different investment than a double-digit yield on a stable one. Note too that REIT dividends are taxed as ordinary income — details here — so AGNC belongs in an IRA if you have room.
| Year | Total Dividends / Share | Payments | Change vs Prior Year |
|---|
Data source: Yahoo Finance. Figures are per share; the current year may be partial and figures should be verified against official sources.
Calculated from complete calendar years in the data above. Past results don't guarantee future payments.
When Is AGNC's Next Ex-Dividend Date?
AGNC pays monthly — usually going ex-dividend on the last business day of the month. The exact date of each payout is announced by the fund only shortly beforehand, so no site can promise the next date — but the live schedule box above shows the most recent ex-dividend date and the expected window for the next one, computed from AGNC's actual payment rhythm. Remember: you must own shares before the ex-dividend date to receive that payout.
AGNC's Record: Two Different Decades
AGNC Investment Corp. has paid a dividend without interruption since 2008 — quarterly in its early years, monthly since late 2014, nearly 170 checks in all — through the financial crisis, a zero-rate decade, a pandemic, and the fastest hiking cycle in modern history. The record splits cleanly in two: a first decade of high but repeatedly-cut payouts, and the current era — $0.12 per share, every month since April 2020, without a single change. The chart above shows both eras; the yearly table beneath it shows the totals settling at $1.44.
How a Mortgage REIT Actually Makes Its Dividend
AGNC doesn't own buildings. It borrows short-term money, buys long-term government-guaranteed mortgage bonds, and earns the spread between the two rates — multiplied by substantial leverage. The genius and the flaw are the same fact: the spread is thin and moves with the Federal Reserve. When the curve cooperates, a double-digit yield flows out monthly. When it inverts — as it did through 2022–23 — the math gets ugly, and AGNC's book value absorbs the damage. The dividend survived that stretch unchanged, which is genuinely impressive; the share price did not escape it.
Where AGNC Fits
AGNC is a tool for income-first investors who understand they're holding a leveraged rate bet, not a growing business — ideally inside a tax-advantaged account, given the ordinary-income taxation. It pairs naturally with growers like SCHD (rising income, lower yield) rather than substituting for them. For the other famous monthly payer with the opposite philosophy — a growing dividend at a third the yield — see Realty Income's history.
The Tax Rules That Hit REIT Dividends Hardest
Ordinary vs. qualified, the pass-through deduction, and why account choice can matter more than yield — in plain English.
Read: How Are Dividends Taxed?