Dividend Yield on Cost Calculator Singapore 2026
See how your dividend yield grows over time as S-REIT and stock payouts rise — free calculator with real-time results in SGD.
Your Investment
Your Yield on Cost Projection
Yield on Cost Growth Over Time
For educational purposes only. Assumes constant dividend growth and share price growth — actual S-REIT and stock dividends vary year to year. Not financial advice.
Understanding Yield on Cost for Singapore Dividend Investors
Yield on cost (YoC) measures your dividend income against what you originally paid for a stock or REIT unit — not its current market price. For Singapore investors building long-term income portfolios around S-REITs and dividend growth stocks, YoC tells a different story than the headline yield you see on SGX or a brokerage screen. A REIT trading at a 5.5% current yield today might already be paying you 8% or more on your original cost if you bought it several years ago and distributions have grown. This calculator projects that trajectory forward using your own assumptions for dividend growth and reinvestment, so you can see how patient, long-term holding compounds your income stream in SGD terms.
Not financial advice. All figures are for educational reference only. Data as at Q2 2026 unless noted.
Why Yield on Cost Matters for Long-Term Investors
Current dividend yield is useful when you’re deciding whether to buy a stock or REIT today. Yield on cost is more useful once you already own it — it shows whether the income from that original investment is actually growing, which is the entire point of a dividend growth strategy. A S-REIT or stock with a modest 4-5% starting yield but consistent distribution-per-unit growth can produce a far higher yield on cost after a decade than a static, higher-yielding counter that never raises its payout.
S-REITs vs Dividend Growth Stocks: Different Yield on Cost Paths
S-REITs are structured to distribute at least 90% of taxable income to unitholders, so DPU growth tends to be steadier but slower — driven by rental reversions, acquisitions and occasional equity fund-raising (which can dilute DPU). Dividend growth stocks listed on SGX, by contrast, retain more earnings and can compound dividend growth faster in good years, but with less predictability. Plugging different dividend growth assumptions into the calculator above lets you compare how a “slow and steady” S-REIT and a “faster but lumpier” growth stock might each play out over your investment horizon.
How to Use This Yield on Cost Calculator
- Initial investment: Enter the amount in SGD you invested (or plan to invest) in a dividend stock or S-REIT.
- Initial dividend yield: Set the starting yield at the price you paid — most S-REITs today yield roughly 5-7%, dividend stocks vary more widely.
- Dividend growth rate: Set your assumption for how fast the annual dividend or DPU grows — conservative REITs might use 2-4%, faster dividend growers 6-10%.
- Share price growth: Set an assumed annual price growth rate — this only affects how many extra units your reinvested dividends can buy.
- Investment horizon: Choose how many years you plan to hold.
- Reinvest dividends (DRIP): Toggle on to see the compounding effect of reinvesting every payout into more units.
The calculator instantly shows your projected yield on cost, annual dividend income, cumulative dividends received, and estimated portfolio value at the end of your chosen horizon — plus a chart comparing dividend-growth-only yield on cost against the effective yield you’d achieve with DRIP.
Pro tip: Combine this calculator with our Retirement Planning Calculator to see how a growing dividend income stream fits into your overall retirement plan.
Contents — Click to Expand
- What Is Yield on Cost (YoC)?
- How Yield on Cost Compounds Over Time
- Yield on Cost vs Dividend Yield: Which Should You Track?
- Best Platforms for Building a Dividend Portfolio in Singapore
- Singapore Tax Treatment of Dividends and S-REIT Distributions
- Using Yield on Cost to Plan Your Retirement Passive Income
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Is Yield on Cost (YoC)?
Yield on cost is your current annual dividend or distribution per share/unit, divided by the price you originally paid, expressed as a percentage. If you bought a REIT unit at S$1.00 and it now pays S$0.07 a year in distributions, your yield on cost is 7% — regardless of whether the unit today trades at S$0.90 or S$1.30. This is different from the “dividend yield” quoted on most broker apps and financial sites, which always uses the current market price as the denominator. YoC only rises over time if the company or REIT actually grows its payout; a static or falling dividend means your yield on cost never improves, no matter how long you hold.
How Yield on Cost Compounds Over Time
There are two separate drivers in the calculator above. The first is pure dividend growth: if your dividend grows at 6% a year, your yield on cost on the shares you already own rises at roughly the same 6% annual rate, compounding — 5% today becomes roughly 8.4% after ten years, with no extra capital added. The second driver is reinvestment (DRIP): every dividend you plough back into more shares or units increases your share count, so future dividend payouts grow faster than the per-share growth rate alone would suggest. This is why the “effective yield” line in the chart above typically pulls further ahead of the “yield on cost” line the longer your horizon runs — the gap between the two lines is the value DRIP adds on top of organic dividend growth.
Yield on Cost vs Dividend Yield: Which Should You Track?
Current dividend yield (dividend ÷ today’s price) is the number that matters when you’re deciding whether to buy or add to a position now — it tells you what return you’d earn at today’s price. Yield on cost matters after you’ve already bought, because it tracks how the income from that specific investment decision has actually performed. A common mistake is comparing a stock’s YoC against another stock’s current yield to decide whether to switch — that’s an apples-to-oranges comparison. The right comparison when deciding whether to hold or switch is always current yield versus current yield, using today’s price for both.
| Metric | Formula | Best used for |
|---|---|---|
| Dividend Yield | Annual dividend ÷ current price | Deciding whether to buy/switch today |
| Yield on Cost | Annual dividend ÷ original purchase price | Tracking how an existing holding’s income has grown |
Best Platforms for Building a Dividend Portfolio in Singapore
Most Singapore investors build a dividend and S-REIT portfolio through a CDP-linked brokerage or a robo-advisor with direct SGX access. FSMOne and other CDP-linked brokers let you hold shares and REITs directly in your own name at low commission, which suits investors who want to track individual counters for yield on cost. Endowus gives access to CPF, SRS and cash portfolios built around funds and REIT-focused strategies, useful if you’d rather diversify across a basket of S-REITs than pick individual counters. Syfe offers cash-based income and REIT portfolios with automatic dividend reinvestment options for investors who want the DRIP effect modelled in this calculator without manually reinvesting each payout themselves. Always check each platform’s current CPF/SRS eligibility and fee schedule before committing, as product features change over time.
Singapore Tax Treatment of Dividends and S-REIT Distributions
Under Singapore’s one-tier corporate tax system, dividends paid by Singapore tax-resident companies are generally tax-exempt in the hands of individual shareholders — the company has already paid corporate tax, so there’s no further tax on the dividend itself. Most S-REIT distributions to individual unitholders are also tax-exempt, provided the distribution qualifies under the tax transparency treatment that MAS and IRAS extend to S-REITs, though the exact treatment can differ if a distribution is structured as a capital return rather than income. This tax-exempt treatment is one reason yield on cost is such a clean, useful number for Singapore investors — in most cases, the yield you calculate is close to the actual after-tax cash you receive, unlike in markets with dividend withholding tax.
Using Yield on Cost to Plan Your Retirement Passive Income
Because yield on cost strips out market price noise, it’s a more stable number to plan retirement income around than current market yield, which swings with sentiment and interest rates. If your yield on cost across a diversified S-REIT and dividend stock portfolio reaches 8-10% after 15-20 years of dividend growth and reinvestment, that’s the passive income rate applied to your original invested capital — not to whatever the portfolio happens to be worth on a given day. Run your own numbers through our Retirement Planning Calculator to see how this income stream stacks up against your expected retirement expenses, and read our Passive Income Singapore guide for a broader look at building multiple income streams alongside CPF LIFE.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good yield on cost for Singapore dividend stocks or S-REITs?
There’s no fixed benchmark, but many long-term S-REIT and dividend stock holders consider a yield on cost of 7-10% after 10-15 years of holding to be a solid outcome from an initial yield of 4-6%. The number that matters most is the trend — a rising yield on cost year after year signals genuine distribution growth, not just a lucky entry price.
Is yield on cost a useful way to measure investment performance?
It’s useful for tracking income growth on a specific holding, but it’s not a complete performance measure on its own. A high yield on cost can mask a stock or REIT that has gone nowhere or fallen in price — for total return, you still need to look at capital gains or losses alongside the dividend income.
How much passive income will I have after 20 years if I reinvest dividends?
It depends heavily on your starting yield, dividend growth rate and whether you reinvest. Using this calculator with S$10,000 invested at a 5% starting yield, 6% dividend growth and DRIP reinvestment, you’d project roughly S$6,000+ in annual dividend income by year 20 — try entering your own numbers above for a personalised projection.
What is the difference between dividend yield and yield on cost?
Dividend yield divides the annual dividend by today’s market price and changes every time the price moves. Yield on cost divides the same annual dividend by the price you originally paid, so it only moves when the dividend itself is raised or cut.
How much of my portfolio should I allocate to dividend growth stocks versus high-yield REITs in Singapore?
Many Singapore investors blend the two — higher-yielding S-REITs for near-term income and lower-yielding but faster-growing dividend stocks for long-term yield on cost growth. A common starting split is 60-70% S-REITs and fixed income, with the remainder in dividend growth stocks or ETFs, adjusted to your own risk tolerance and time horizon.
Which Singapore platform is best for building a long-term dividend portfolio?
It depends on whether you want to hold individual counters or diversified funds. CDP-linked brokers like FSMOne suit investors who want direct ownership of specific S-REITs and stocks, while robo-advisors like Endowus and Syfe suit investors who prefer a managed, diversified income portfolio with less hands-on rebalancing.
Can I use my SRS or CPF savings to invest for yield on cost growth?
Yes — SRS funds can be invested in SGX-listed dividend stocks and REITs through most brokerages, and CPF Ordinary Account savings can be invested through the CPF Investment Scheme (CPFIS) via approved banks and platforms, subject to CPFIS eligibility rules. Check our CPF and SRS calculators for the contribution limits and tax relief mechanics specific to each account.
What dividend growth rate should I use in this calculator?
For established, well-diversified S-REITs, a conservative 2-4% long-run DPU growth assumption is reasonable given occasional equity fund-raising dilution. For dividend growth stocks with a strong track record of raising payouts, 6-10% is more typical, but always base your assumption on a company or REIT’s actual 5-10 year distribution history rather than a single strong year.
Does yield on cost affect my actual returns or just look good on paper?
Yield on cost itself doesn’t change your total return — it’s simply a way of measuring income against your original investment. But the underlying driver behind a rising yield on cost, consistent dividend growth, does directly affect your real cash income and typically supports the share or unit price over time too.
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