Stocks / VZ
What If You Had Invested in Verizon 10 Years Ago?
Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) with real monthly prices, dividends reinvested, through November 2026.
VZ $45.69 ▼ -0.93% last close, Nov 06, 2026
If you had invested $1,000 in VZ in November 2016, today it would be worth
$1,575
Same $1,000 in the S&P 500 (SPY): $3,907
If you had put $500 a month into VZ since November 2016, your $60,500 would be worth today
$78,282
Same plan in the S&P 500 (SPY): $129,289
More options in the What If calculator.
VZ live price chart
VZ returns by period
| Period | Total return | Per year | $1,000 became | SPY per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | +18.5% | +18.5% | $1,185 | +8.8% |
| 3 years | +44.9% | +13.2% | $1,449 | +18.7% |
| 5 years | +25.1% | +4.6% | $1,251 | +11.5% |
| 10 years | +57.5% | +4.6% | $1,575 | +14.6% |
| 20 years | +294.2% | +7.1% | $3,942 | +10.6% |
| Since 1985 | +3524.8% | +9.0% | $36,248 | — |
VZ year by year
Best full year: 1989 (+62.5%). Worst: 2005 (-22.2%).
| Year | VZ | SPY | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (so far) | +19.6% | +8.7% | |
| 2025 | +8.9% | +17.7% | |
| 2024 | +13.1% | +24.9% | |
| 2023 | +2.7% | +26.2% | |
| 2022 | -20.0% | -18.2% | Slowing subscriber growth, competition from T-Mobile and rising interest rates, which make high-yield stocks less attractive, pushed Verizon down about 20%. |
| 2021 | -7.5% | +28.7% | |
| 2020 | -0.1% | +18.3% | |
| 2019 | +13.8% | +31.2% | |
| 2018 | +11.3% | -4.6% | |
| 2017 | +4.0% | +21.7% | |
| 2016 | +20.7% | +12.0% | |
| 2015 | +3.6% | +1.2% | |
| 2014 | -0.5% | +13.5% | |
| 2013 | +18.6% | +32.3% | |
| 2012 | +13.2% | +16.0% | |
| 2011 | +18.2% | +1.9% | |
| 2010 | +22.6% | +15.1% | |
| 2009 | +3.8% | +26.4% | |
| 2008 | -18.1% | -36.8% | |
| 2007 | +22.2% | +5.1% | |
| 2000 | -16.2% | -9.7% | Bell Atlantic and GTE merged to form Verizon just as the telecom bubble burst. |
VZ: all at once or every month?
Take $12,000: all of it on day one, or $1,000 a month for a year. Across every starting month since 1985 (491 of them), the lump sum was ahead after 12 months in 324 (66%). Verizon has gone sideways for long stretches, so monthly buying won surprisingly often, including most starts in 2001-2002, 2008 and 2021-2022. The best case for monthly investing was a start in September 2001, when it finished the year 24% ahead.
Worst drop
VZ's worst fall in this history was -55.4%, a loss of more than half, from September 1999 to September 2002. Getting back to the old high took until February 2011: 101 months from the bottom and 11.4 years from the peak. $1,000 invested at that peak shrank to about $446 at the low.
The telecom bubble. Bell Atlantic and GTE merged to form Verizon in 2000, just as investors soured on telecom after years of heavy spending on networks. The stock lost more than half and, even with dividends reinvested, took until early 2011 to recover.
Verizon dividends
VZ paid $2.81 per share over the last 12 months, in January, April, July and October. At $45.69 that is 6.16%, a high yield, so a large part of the return arrives as cash. From 2020 to 2025 the yearly payout grew +2.0% a year, slowly, a little below inflation. The yearly total did not fall once in the last ten years. Amounts are adjusted for splits.
| Year | Dividends / share | Change | Yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $2.72 | +1.9% | 6.69% |
| 2024 | $2.67 | +1.9% | 6.68% |
| 2023 | $2.62 | +2.0% | 6.96% |
| 2022 | $2.57 | +1.9% | 6.53% |
| 2021 | $2.52 | +2.1% | 4.86% |
| 2020 | $2.47 | +2.0% | 4.21% |
| 2019 | $2.42 | +2.1% | 3.95% |
| 2018 | $2.37 | +2.1% | 4.22% |
| 2017 | $2.32 | +2.2% | 4.39% |
| 2016 | $2.27 | +2.6% | 4.26% |
Yield = each year’s dividends divided by the price at the end of the year.
VZ dividend history: last 12 payments
| Ex-dividend date | Amount | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 09, 2026 | $0.7080 | +0.0% |
| Jul 10, 2026 | $0.7080 | +0.0% |
| Apr 10, 2026 | $0.7080 | +2.6% |
| Jan 12, 2026 | $0.6900 | +0.0% |
| Oct 10, 2025 | $0.6900 | +1.8% |
| Jul 10, 2025 | $0.6780 | +0.0% |
| Apr 10, 2025 | $0.6780 | +0.0% |
| Jan 10, 2025 | $0.6780 | +0.0% |
| Oct 10, 2024 | $0.6780 | +2.0% |
| Jul 10, 2024 | $0.6650 | +0.0% |
| Apr 09, 2024 | $0.6650 | +0.0% |
| Jan 09, 2024 | $0.6650 | — |
How much Verizon do you need for $1,000 a month?
About $194,840, or roughly 4,264 shares at $45.69. That uses VZ's last 12 months of dividends ($2.81 a share, a 6.16% yield) and is before tax.
| Income | Invest | Shares | Paid as |
|---|---|---|---|
| $500 | $97,420 | 2,132 | $1,500/qtr |
| $1,000 | $194,840 | 4,264 | $3,000/qtr |
| $2,000 | $389,680 | 8,529 | $6,000/qtr |
VZ pays quarterly (ex-dividend in Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct), so “$1,000 a month” really arrives as about $3,000 four times a year.
The payout grew only 2.0% a year over the last five years, slower than inflation, so the same income buys a little less each year.
Check the price too. Not counting dividends, VZ went from $51.96 at the end of 2021 to $45.69 today (-12.1%). So part of what the dividends paid was given back in the share price.
These are mostly qualified dividends, taxed at 0%, 15% or 20% at the federal level depending on your income, plus any state tax. In an IRA or Roth IRA there is no tax on them along the way.
Want to build toward it with monthly buys? Try the dividend calculator with VZ's numbers filled in.
Stock splits
- April 1986: 2-for-1
- May 1990: 2-for-1
- June 1998: 2-for-1
One share bought before 1986 is 8 shares today.
About Verizon
| Company | Verizon Communications Inc. |
| Listed | NYSE (as Verizon since 2000) |
| Sector | Communication services (telecom) |
| Dividend | Paid; raised every year for nearly two decades |
Verizon was formed in 2000 when Bell Atlantic, one of the regional phone companies created by the 1984 breakup of AT&T, merged with GTE. The price history here before 2000 is Bell Atlantic's. Today most of its money comes from wireless phone plans, where it competes with AT&T and T-Mobile.
In 2014 Verizon bought Vodafone's 45% share of Verizon Wireless for about $130 billion, one of the largest deals ever, and in 2021 it spent about $45 billion on 5G airwaves at a government auction. Those purchases left it with a lot of debt, one reason the share price has gone mostly sideways for years.
For most holders Verizon is an income stock. Its yield has usually been far above the market's, and most of its total return has come from dividends rather than price gains.
A bond-like stock
Investors often treat Verizon like a bond: a steady payout from a business that changes slowly. That cuts both ways. When interest rates rose in 2022, safe Treasury bonds suddenly paid much more, and Verizon's stock fell because its dividend looked less special by comparison.
Spinoffs along the way
Verizon has also spun off pieces of itself: its phone directory business in 2006, and rural phone lines passed to FairPoint in 2008 and Frontier in 2010. Shareholders received shares in those companies, and the adjusted prices on this page count that value, so the returns here are a little higher than Verizon's share price alone suggests.
Questions about VZ
Did VZ beat the S&P 500?
No. Over the last 20 years it trailed by 3.5 percentage points a year: +7.1% a year for VZ against +10.6% for SPY, dividends reinvested. Its worst fall was about the same as SPY's.
When does Verizon pay its dividend?
Quarterly, usually at the start of February, May, August and November. Verizon typically announces its yearly increase in early September.