Dividend heroes
Looking for consistent income? Meet the investment trusts that have grown their dividends, year after year.
Investment trusts have a unique advantage when it comes to paying a regular income.
Unlike other types of investment fund, investment trusts don’t have to pay out all the income they receive from their portfolios each year. They can save up to 15% and tuck it away in a revenue reserve. This allows them to hold back some of the income they receive in good years and use it to boost dividends when payouts might otherwise be falling.
This structural benefit has enabled many investment trusts to pay consistently rising dividends for decades, through good times and bad – a record unrivalled by other kinds of fund, such as ETFs or open-ended funds.
It’s important to remember that dividends are never guaranteed. Your income from investment trusts, just like your capital, can fall as well as rise.
The AIC's dividend heroes are the investment trusts that have consistently increased their dividends for 20 or more years in a row.
The next generation of dividend heroes are investment trusts that have increased their dividends for at least ten years, but less than 20.
Source: theaic.co.uk / Morningstar. Companies with the same number of years of consecutive dividend increases are ordered by the date the final dividend was declared. Data as at 30th April 2026
