Dan Burrows
Warren Buffett loves dividend stocks. He always has, even though Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) doesn't pay a dividend.
But more than half of the stocks in the holding company's $257 billion equity portfolio do. The best Buffett dividend stocks produce substantial income for the Oracle of Omaha's company.
In fiscal 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 for dependable dividend growth. "Stick around long enough, and the modest yield you received on your initial investment can hit double digits one day."
That's certainly been the case with Berkshire Hathaway.
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, 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 last year, 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 1.2% 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 September 19. Berkshire Hathaway portfolio data is provided by WhaleWisdom.com.
Bank of America
- Market value: $387 billion
- Dividend yield: 2.1%
- Percentage of Berkshire Hathaway portfolio: 11.1%
- Berkshire Hathaway ownership stake: 8%
Bank of America (BAC) is Berkshire Hathaway's third-largest holding behind Apple and American Express (AXP). Buffett first acquired BAC stock in the third quarter of 2017. Berkshire is the bank's second-largest shareholder, with 605.3 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.
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Chevron
- Market value: $314.7 billion
- Dividend yield: 4.4%
- Percentage of Berkshire Hathaway portfolio: 6.8%
- Berkshire Hathaway ownership stake: 6.9%
Like most energy stocks, Chevron (CVX) has struggled in 2025, lagging the broader market by more than five percentage points through late September.
The good news is the integrated oil and gas company's stock is down much less than Occidental Petroleum (OXY), Berkshire's other major oil and gas play, which has lost more than 6% so far this year.
Chevron's second-quarter results revealed a business struggling with lower oil prices — adjusted earnings of $1.77 per share from $2.55 per share a year ago. Chevron's U.S. and worldwide production hit a new company record, but profits were hurt by lower crude oil prices, as well as lower income from upstream and downstream equity affiliates.
However, investors shouldn't worry about the safety of the dividend. Despite lower earnings, it still delivered $4.9 billion in free cash flow in the quarter.
Indeed, the company returned $5.5 billion of cash to shareholders during the quarter, including share repurchases of $2.6 billion and dividends of $2.9 billion.
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 more than 4%.
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Coca-Cola
- Market value: $285.9 billion
- Dividend yield: 3.1%
- Percentage of Berkshire Hathaway portfolio: 11%
- Berkshire Hathaway ownership stake: 9.3%
Coca-Cola (KO), 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 fourth-largest holding, valued at $28.3 billion.
KO's hefty dividend currently arrives at an annualized payout of $2.04 per share. Since January 1, 2010, Coca-Cola has paid more than $93.1 billion in dividends to shareholders. As one of the most reliable dividend growth stocks, 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.
Analysts like KO, to, as evidenced by a consensus Buy rating among the 25 who cover the blue-chip stock tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence.
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Kroger
- Market value: $43.4 billion
- Dividend yield: 2.1%
- Percentage of Berkshire Hathaway portfolio: 1.4%
- Berkshire Hathaway ownership stake: 6.9%
Kroger (KR) 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.
Over the last five years, Kroger has increased the dividend at a compound annual rate of 14.5%, notes Argus Research analyst Chris Graja, who rates shares at Buy.
"On June 26, Kroger raised the quarterly dividend by 9% to $0.35 per share," Graja writes. "We are raising our FY26 estimate to $1.34 from $1.28, a reasonable 28% of our FY26 EPS estimate. We are raising our FY27 dividend estimate to $1.44 from $1.40 per share."
Kroger is Berkshire's 12th-largest equity position.
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Mitsubishi
- Market value: $92.9 billion
- Dividend yield: 3.1%
- Percentage of Berkshire Hathaway portfolio: N/A
- Berkshire Hathaway ownership stake: 10.2%
Mitsubishi (MSBHF) is one of a handful of Japanese trading companies Berkshire owns. It represents the largest of the group as a percentage of Berkshire's equity portfolio.
Buffett first invested in the Japanese 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 companies as of May 6 was $25.79 billion, with Mitsubishi accounting for nearly 29%.
In addition to the general reasons for owning the Japanese investments 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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