How dividend income actually works.
Start with your first payment and work up from there. Every figure comes from the funds listed on this site, not from a textbook example.
Receiving your first dividend
What happens between buying a fund and the cash arriving — the three dates that decide whether you get paid, and why the amount is rarely the one you calculated.
Read Canadian taxHow dividend income is taxed in Canada
The same $100 of distributions can cost you nothing or nearly half. Return of capital, the dividend tax credit, foreign withholding, and which account switches each one on or off.
Read How they workWhat a covered call ETF actually is
Where a 10% yield comes from when the underlying shares pay 3% — what the fund sells, what it gives up, and the market conditions that decide whether the trade was worth it.
Read The goalLiving off dividends in Canada
What it actually costs to replace a salary with distributions, why the number is larger than the yield suggests, and the failure mode that catches people two years in.
Read Where to hold itTFSA or RRSP for dividend income
Both shelter the income. They do not shelter the same things, and one of them switches off the main tax advantage these funds have.
Read A smaller questionMonthly or quarterly dividends
Monthly feels better and compounds slightly faster. Neither is the reason to pick a fund, and the schedule hides a cash-flow trap.
Read The long readGetting the most out of dividend investing
What decides whether an income portfolio grows or quietly shrinks: realistic yields, protecting capital, living off the income, and the mistakes that cost people money.
Read ReferenceGlossary
Plain definitions of every term this site uses — ex-date, return of capital, adjusted cost base, covered calls — each with the part people get wrong.
ReadEducational only. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell anything — see the disclaimer.
Then put it against your own numbers.
Explore every fund we cover, compare them side by side, and track what your holdings have actually paid.