Warren Buffett loves dividend stocks. He always has, even though Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) has never paid a dividend.
But more than half of the stocks in the holding company's roughly $260 billion equity portfolio do. The best Buffett dividend stocks produce substantial income for the Oracle of Omaha.
In 2024, Berkshire Hathaway received $5.2 billion in dividend income, down from $5.5 billion in 2023 and $6.0 billion in 2022 as it sold more of its equity holdings and moved proceeds to U.S. Treasuries.
Dividend stocks can generate impressive total returns (price change plus dividends) for investors in the long term.
"Regular dividend increases lift the yield on an investor's original cost basis," writes Dan Burrows, senior investing writer at Kiplinger.com, in his story highlighting Wall Street's best dividend stocks.
"Stick around long enough, and the modest yield you received on your initial investment can hit double digits one day," Burrows writes. That's certainly been the case with Berkshire Hathaway.
In the last three years, BRK.B has averaged an annual total return of 19.3% vs 12.8% for the S&P 500.
What Buffett has to say about dividend stocks
Here's what Buffett said about dividends in his 2020 letter to shareholders: "BNSF (Railway) has paid substantial dividends to Berkshire — $41.8 billion in total. The railroad pays us, however, only what remains after it both fulfills the needs of its business and maintains a cash balance of about $2 billion.
"This conservative policy allows BNSF to borrow at low rates," Buffett explained, "independent of any guarantee of its debt by Berkshire." BNSF is a Berkshire-owned business.
Berkshire's dividend-paying stocks generated more than $5.2 billion in dividend income in 2024, with a significant amount from its top five holdings.
How we chose the best Buffett dividend stocks
The list includes only those stocks held by Berkshire that yield as much or more than the S&P 500's current 1.3% yield, which is why we didn't include Apple (AAPL), currently yielding 0.5%.
All the names featured here have attractive dividend yields and are supported by solid fundamentals. They've generated impressive income streams for Berkshire Hathaway.
With that in mind, here are five of the best Buffett dividend stocks.
Data is as of May 15. Dividend yields are calculated by annualizing the most recent payout and dividing by the share price. Berkshire Hathaway portfolio data is provided by WhaleWisdom.com.
Coca-Cola
- Market value: $308.3 billion
- Dividend yield: 3.0%
- Percentage of Berkshire Hathaway portfolio: 11.7%
- Berkshire Hathaway ownership stake: 9.3%
Coca-Cola (KO, $71.64), one of Berkshire's oldest holdings, is one of the best Buffett dividend stocks.
The Oracle of Omaha started buying the beverage giant's stock in 1988, building his stake to 23.4 million shares and a total value of $1.8 billion by the end of 1989.
The Dow Jones stock is now Berkshire's third-largest holding, valued at $28.6 billion. That compound annual growth rate of about 8.2% is almost identical to the broad market in the past 35 years.
However, that doesn't consider the company's hefty dividend, which currently arrives at an annualized payout of $2.04 per share. Since January 1, 2010, Coca-Cola has paid $93.1 billion in dividends to shareholders and the beverage company has increased its annual payout for 63 consecutive years.
Based on Berkshire's 400 million shares, it gets $816 million in dividends annually from KO. In other words, the $1.8 billion Buffett paid to buy the KO stake he had accumulated by the end of 1989 would be paid off in roughly two years solely from the current dividend payment.
It's a miracle of compounding in action, and management continues to position the company for growth.
In September 2024, Coca-Cola and Bacardi announced they would release Bacardi rum and Coca-Cola as a ready-to-drink (RTD) pre-mixed cocktail in several European markets and Mexico in 2025.
In March, Coca-Cola announced it would launch vodka-based versions of its Minute Maid lemonade and pink lemonade as part of its push into alcoholic beverages through its Red Tree alcoholic beverages subsidiary, established in July 2023 to formalize its participation in the alcoholic beverage industry.
"We are continuing to develop our portfolio as a total beverage company, including in the growing alcohol ready-to-drink market," said Chairman and CEO James Quincey.
Analysts like KO, as evidenced by a consensus Buy rating among the 25 who cover the blue-chip stock.
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Bank of America
- Market value: $334.3 billion
- Dividend yield: 2.3%
- Percentage of Berkshire Hathaway portfolio: 10.2%
- Berkshire Hathaway ownership stake: 8.3%
Bank of America (BAC, $44.38) is Berkshire Hathaway's fourth-largest holding behind Apple, American Express (AXP) and Coca-Cola. Buffett first acquired BAC stock in the third quarter of 2017. Berkshire is the bank's largest institutional shareholder, with 680.2 million shares.
Buffett has significantly reduced the holding company's stake in one of America's biggest banks. As recently as the second quarter of 2024, Berkshire owned 1.03 billion BAC shares. In the final two quarters of 2024, it sold 34% of its holdings and unloaded another 7% in the first quarter of 2025.
In April 2023, Buffett said he sold many of Berkshire's bank stocks because he didn't think they were nearly as solid an investment as they once were. From 2020 to early 2023, Berkshire closed out its positions in JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC) and U.S. Bancorp (USB).
BAC remains one of only four stocks that account for more than 10% of Berkshire's equity portfolio. Buffett had good things to say about the bank and its CEO in 2023: "I like [CEO] Brian Moynihan enormously. And I just don't wanna, I don't wanna sell it," he told CNBC's Becky Quick.
"But I did sell banks that we'd owned for 25 or 30 years," he elaborated. "And if they asked me why I did it, I told them — I just think the system isn't set up quite right in terms of connecting punishment to culprits on something that's important."
BAC plans to spend $4 billion on AI tech initiatives in 2025, representing about one-third of what it spends on technology each year.
Though Buffett will step down as CEO at the end of 2025, Berkshire is likely to hold its BAC position while he remains chairman of the board.
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Chevron
- Market value: $246.4 billion
- Dividend yield: 4.8%
- Percentage of Berkshire Hathaway portfolio: 7.69%
- Berkshire Hathaway ownership stake: 6.7%
Like most energy stocks, Chevron (CVX, $142.26) has struggled in 2025, though its year-to-date loss has narrowed recently to 1.1% vs a gain of 0.7% for the S&P 500.
The good news is the integrated oil and gas company's stock is down much less than Occidental Petroleum (OXY), Berkshire's other significant oil and gas play, which has lost more than 10% so far this year.
Chevron's first-quarter results revealed a business struggling with lower oil prices — adjusted earnings of $2.18 per share were down 26% year over year. Return on capital employed was 8.3% in the first quarter, down 410 basis points compared with the first quarter of 2024.
Chevron's production was 3.353 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, 7,000 barrels higher than a year ago, although downstream earnings fell by 28% to $3.76 billion due to lower realized oil prices.
However, investors shouldn't worry about the safety of the dividend. Despite lower earnings, it still delivered $1.3 billion in free cash flow in the first quarter.
"Over the last three years, Chevron has returned more than $78 billion of cash to shareholders. Despite changing market conditions, our resilient portfolio, strong balance sheet and consistent focus on capital and cost discipline position us to deliver industry-leading free cash flow growth by 2026," said CEO Mike Wirth in Chevron's earnings announcement.
CVX has grown its payout for 38 consecutive years, making it one of the best Buffett dividend stocks. Its annualized payment of $6.84 yields nearly 5.0%.
Chevron remains one of the best value stocks, trading at just 12.4 times forward earnings, well below its five-year average of 18.7, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
That's very reasonable.
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Mitsubishi
- Market value: $75.6 billion
- Dividend yield: 4.0%
- Percentage of Berkshire Hathaway portfolio: N/A
- Berkshire Hathaway ownership stake: 9.7%
Mitsubishi (MSBHF, $19.90) is one of five Japanese trading companies Berkshire owns. It represents the largest of the five as a percentage of Berkshire's equity portfolio.
Buffett first invested in the five companies in July 2019. Berkshire's 2024 annual shareholder letter discussed why it increased its holdings in Mitsubishi and the others beyond its original 2019 investment.
"Each of the five companies increase dividends when appropriate, they repurchase their shares when it is sensible to do so, and their top managers are far less aggressive in their compensation programs than their U.S. counterparts," Buffett wrote.
The cost of the investments at the end of 2024 was $13.8 billion. The market value of the five as of May 6 was $25.79 billion, with Mitsubishi accounting for nearly 29%.
In addition to the general reasons for owning all five of the Japanese trading houses Buffett shared, there are specific reasons he's allocated the most significant amount of capital to Mitsubishi.
For starters, as a conglomerate, it operates similarly to Berkshire, utilizing three corporate principles to guide it: Shoki Hoko, a corporate responsibility to society; Shoji Komei, operating with integrity and fairness; and Ritsugyo Boeki, expanding with a global focus.
Mitsubishi operates eight business groups ranging from Environmental Energy to Power Solutions and everything in between. In fiscal 2025 (March year-end), the net profit of the eight segments was $5.12 billion, with Mineral Resources and Environmental Energy accounting for 58% of Mitsubishi’s profits.
In this regard, it's not very different from Berkshire, with Berkshire Hathaway Energy and its insurance operations doing much of the heavy lifting.
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Kroger
- Market value: $44.7 billion
- Dividend yield: 1.9%
- Percentage of Berkshire Hathaway portfolio: 1.3%
- Berkshire Hathaway ownership stake: 6.9%
Kroger (KR, $67.62) is one of the largest grocery chains in the U.S., with 2,731 stores in 35 states and the District of Columbia serving more than 11 million customers daily.
It reported $147.12 billion in sales in 2024, down 1.9% compared with 2023. Net earnings were down 6.6% to $3.25 billion. But Kroger still managed to generate $1.78 billion in free cash flow, ample support for its dividend.
On March 3, Rodney McMullen resigned as CEO after an investigation by Kroger's board revealed he had personally behaved in an unethical manner inconsistent with company policy on business ethics.
Board Chair Ron Sargent replaced McMullen as CEO on an interim basis. The board is conducting a national search for a new permanent CEO.
Kroger is Berkshire's 11th-largest equity position.
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