- Pays: monthly.
- First paid: September 2002 — every payment since is charted below.
- What it is: an index fund holding U.S. Treasury bonds with 20+ years to maturity — the market's benchmark vehicle for long-duration government debt.
- Fee: 0.15% expense ratio (issuer page).
- The character: maximum interest-rate sensitivity — long-duration Treasuries swing hard when rates move, in both directions. The income is Uncle Sam's; the volatility is all duration.
Bond-fund income is the market's most transparent: the fund passes through what its holdings yield, so the chart below is really a chart of interest rates as lived by income investors — no option overlays, no engineered payouts.
TLT pays monthly. Each point below is one dividend since September 2002.
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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 TLT'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.
Most funds on this site manufacture yield — options sold, leverage added, payouts engineered. TLT just owns debt and forwards the interest. That makes its chart the honest baseline: whatever an option-income fund pays above this is the price of the extra risk it carries.
Watch how differently it moves from the equity-income funds — overlay TLT against any of them on the compare tool, and find its next payday on the live dividend calendar.
| 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 TLT's Next Ex-Dividend Date?
TLT pays monthly. 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 TLT's actual payment rhythm. Remember: you must own shares before the ex-dividend date to receive that payout.
TLT's Record So Far
TLT — the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF — launched in July 2002 and has paid monthly since September 2002. The chart above shows every declared dividend.
Twenty Years of Monthly Checks
TLT's record stretches back to 2002 — through the financial crisis, zero rates, and 2022's historic bond bear market. The payment line tells the whole rate era: shrinking checks through the 2010s as old high-coupon bonds matured, then swelling ones as rates normalized. Few charts anywhere compress two decades of monetary history this legibly.
Reading the Chart Honestly
For a bond fund, the payment line tracks interest rates and the share price tracks them inversely — judge the package on total return for your holding period, not either line alone. The compare tool puts TLT beside anything else we track.
See Every Fund's Next Payday
The live dividend calendar computes expected ex-dividend windows for every fund we track — one page, all the paydays.
Open the Dividend Calendar