Nifty dividend yield at 1.23%, and the payout behind it

The number

The Nifty 50's dividend yield was 1.23% on 1 October 2026. That is the past twelve months of dividends paid by the index's companies, divided by its price.

It is NSE's own published figure. The daily series is on our Nifty P/E ratio page alongside the P/E and P/B.

Against the long record

The yield series runs back to 1 January 1999: 6,876 sessions. Over that time:

• the median yield is 1.30%;
• 4,464 sessions, about 65%, yielded more than today;
• the peaks all came at market lows.

The 2008 reading came in the global financial crisis, and the 2020 one on the day of the Covid-crash low, with the index at 7,610.25.

A dividend yield rises when prices fall faster than dividends. That is why it spikes in crashes and sinks in booms.

The series also has the break that NSE's P/E has. On 31 March 2021, when NSE moved to consolidated figures, the yield went from 1.07% to 0.96% in a day.

The puzzle: a low P/E and a low yield

The Nifty 50's P/E of 19.19 is lower than on all but four days since March 2021, as our Nifty P/E post sets out. Cheap shares usually yield more. These do not.

The answer is in the dividends themselves. Multiplying the index by its yield gives the dividends behind one unit of the index, in index points. Dividing the index by its P/E gives the earnings the same way.

Dividends rose every year to 2025. In 2026 they have fallen in every quarter, by 17.5% since the end of December, while earnings rose 1.7%. Against 1 October 2025, dividends are down about 17.1%.

The share of profit paid out, the yield times the P/E, is 23.6%. Since March 2021 it has ranged from 23.6% to 36.5%, with a median of 28.4%. Today is the low.

Mid and small caps: record low yields

The broader indices show the same thing more sharply.

• The Nifty Midcap 150 yielded 0.72%. Its lowest since March 2021, 0.58%, came on 21 September 2026.
• The Nifty Smallcap 250 yielded 0.62%. Its lowest, 0.55%, came on 18 September 2026.

Both hit their lows in the same fortnight that prices were falling. The Midcap 150 post has its full valuation picture.

At the other end, the indices of state-owned companies yield far more: Nifty CPSE 2.99%, Nifty PSE 2.81%. Nifty IT yields 2.83%: at a P/E of 17.80, that means its companies pay out about half of their profit.

What this does not tell you

The worked-out dividend figure is approximate. NSE publishes the yield to two decimals, so at 1.23% the dividend figure carries an error of up to about 0.4%. It also moves when companies join or leave the index, not only when they change their payouts.

A falling payout is not bad news by itself. Companies that keep more of their profit may be reinvesting it. Or a few large payers may have cut. The index-level number cannot say which.

The yield is not your return. It is the cash portion only. Most of an equity investor's return has come from price, and a growth-option fund pays you nothing in cash anyway.

It is not a timing tool. The yield peaks were obvious afterwards. On the day, nobody knew the bottom had come.

Where to go from here

The Nifty P/E ratio page charts the yield back to 1999. If dividends are what you want from equity, the dividend yield fund rankings and the guide to dividend yield funds are the place to start.