How to Track Dividends: Spreadsheet, Broker Statement or App

The best way to track dividends depends on how many accounts you have. With one broker and a handful of stocks, the broker's own statements are enough; with several brokers, a spreadsheet or an app is the only way to see everything in one place.

A spreadsheet costs nothing and keeps your data with you, but you type most of the numbers yourself. An app does the typing for you and adds a forecast, in exchange for a subscription or for access to your accounts. This guide compares the three honestly and includes a free spreadsheet template. OnlyDividends, which publishes this article, makes one of the apps, so that section sticks to what the app does and does not do.

Two free templates. Make a copy of the Google Sheets dividend tracker: it covers US-listed stocks and fills in prices and dividends for you. Or download the Excel template (.xlsx): it works for stocks on any market, offline, and you type the dividends yourself.

The three methods compared

Broker statements and the 1099-DIV: free and already there

Your broker already records every dividend. FINRA Rule 2231 requires brokerage firms to send an account statement at least once every calendar quarter, and FINRA's guide to reading a brokerage statement describes an income summary section that shows the income earned and its source.

At tax time, US brokers add Form 1099-DIV. According to the IRS instructions for Form 1099-DIV, the form is filed for each person paid $10 or more in dividends. It gives you the year's total (box 1a), the qualified part (box 1b) and any foreign tax paid (box 7), which is everything your tax return needs.

What the broker does not give you:

• One view of several brokers. Each statement and each 1099-DIV covers one firm. Two brokers mean two documents to add up, and retirement accounts get no 1099-DIV at all.
• A forecast. Statements look backward. Some show an estimated annual income, which FINRA's guide describes as "only an estimate".
• An after-tax view. A US resident is paid the full dividend, and the tax comes later on the return. The statement shows the gross amount, not what you keep.

When this is enough: one broker, a few holdings, and no need to know next month's income. In that case you do not need a spreadsheet or an app. Download the statements once a year and keep them.

The spreadsheet: build it column by column

A dividend tracker spreadsheet needs three things: a list of what you own, a log of what you were paid, and a summary that adds the log up. The template has one sheet for each, plus a short "Read me".

Download the free dividend tracker template (.xlsx). It works in Excel and Google Sheets, has no macros and connects to nothing. The rows already filled in are fictional examples.

If you only hold US-listed stocks and prefer Google Sheets, make a copy of the Google Sheets dividend tracker instead. You enter a ticker, a share count and a cost per share. It fetches the price with GOOGLEFINANCE and the dividend from Finviz and StockAnalysis. The rest of this section describes the Excel template.

Sheet 1: Holdings

One row per stock and per account. You type columns A to H. Columns I and J are formulas.

The IF only keeps empty rows blank. With the example rows:

That is a forecast of $528 a year after tax, or $44 a month.

Sheet 2: Payments

One row each time a dividend reaches your account. You type the date, the ticker, the gross amount, the tax withheld and the account.

Columns G and H are helper columns. They pull the year and the month number out of the date so the summary can sort payments without any complicated date formula.

For a US resident, column D is usually zero on US stocks and filled in on foreign ones. In the example, EXD pays $60.00, $9.00 is withheld, and $51.00 arrives.

Sheet 3: Summary

You type one thing: the year, in cell B2. Each month's line then adds up the matching Payments rows:

=SUMIFS(Payments!$C$2:$C$500,Payments!$G$2:$G$500,$B$2,Payments!$H$2:$H$500,3)

Read it as: add up the gross amounts (column C) where the year (column G) equals the year in B2 and the month (column H) equals 3. The same formula on columns D and E gives tax withheld and net. Below the twelve months:

• Total for the year: =SUM(B5:B16)
• Average per month: =B17/12
• Total by year: one line per year, with the formula below

=SUMIF(Payments!$G$2:$G$500,$A21,Payments!$C$2:$C$500)

The two sheets do not measure "net" the same way. On the Payments sheet, net is the cash that arrived: gross minus the tax withheld before payment. On the Holdings sheet, the tax rate is your own estimate of the total tax, so its net figure is a forecast of what you keep.

The formulas cover 100 holdings (rows 2 to 101) and 499 payments (rows 2 to 500). To go further, copy the last row's formulas down and raise 500 in the Summary formulas.

With the ten example payments, the summary for 2026 reads:

Using the template in Google Sheets

Google's help page on importing spreadsheets gives the steps: open a spreadsheet in Google Sheets, click File, then Import, choose the .xlsx file, select "Create new spreadsheet" and click Import. Every formula in the template exists in both Excel and Google Sheets.

What GOOGLEFINANCE can and cannot do

Google Sheets has a GOOGLEFINANCE function that fetches market data, and it is tempting to use it for dividends. Google's documentation for GOOGLEFINANCE lists the attributes it returns for a stock: price, volume, market capitalization, price/earnings ratio, earnings per share, 52-week high and low, and a few others. There is no dividend, dividend yield or payment date attribute in that list.

The same page says that "mutual fund attributes are currently not supported in Google Sheets", that the function "does not support most international exchanges", and that quotes "may be delayed up to 20 minutes".

So GOOGLEFINANCE can put a share price next to each holding. The dividend per share has to come from somewhere else. The Excel template leaves it for you to type, and does not use the function at all.

The Google Sheets tracker takes the other route: it uses IMPORTXML to read the dividend from the Finviz and StockAnalysis pages for each ticker. That saves the typing for US stocks, at two costs. The cells can take a while to fill in after you open the sheet, and an import stops working if the site changes its page or limits requests. If a dividend cell stays empty, check the amount on the company's investor relations page.

Where spreadsheets break down

Manual entry. Every payment is a row you type. A portfolio of 30 quarterly payers means 120 rows a year, each one a chance for a typing mistake.

Dividend changes. The forecast is only as current as column D. If EXA raises its dividend from $2.00 to $2.20, your income goes from $200 to $220, and the sheet keeps saying $200 until you change it.

Stock splits. After a 2-for-1 split, 100 shares at $2.00 become 200 shares at $1.00. The income is still $200. Update the shares but not the dividend and the sheet shows 200 × $2.00 = $400.

Foreign currencies. The template adds amounts up as plain numbers. A dividend in euros and one in dollars cannot share a total unless you convert one of them yourself, at a rate you look up.

Withholding tax. The rate withheld depends on the country and on your tax forms, and what arrives is not always what the treaty promises. You record it payment by payment. The rates are in foreign dividend withholding tax.

Apps: two families and a privacy trade-off

Dividend tracker apps fall into two families.

Apps that link to your brokerage account. You connect the account and the app reads your holdings and transactions, usually through a third-party data service. Nothing to type, and the data follows your trades.

Apps with manual entry. You type a ticker and a number of shares. The app fills in the dividends from public company data. There is less automation and no access to your account.

A dividend forecast only needs a ticker and a share count, so linking is a choice, not a requirement. What to check before you link an account is covered in dividend tracker apps and your privacy. For six apps from both families compared side by side, see the best dividend tracker apps.

What OnlyDividends does and does not do

We make OnlyDividends, so here are the facts without the pitch. It belongs to the second family.

What it does:

• You enter a ticker and a share count. The app pulls the payment schedule and amounts for stocks on 71 exchanges and refreshes them every day. You can check whether a stock is supported before you install it.
• A calendar shows the last 3 months of payments and the next 8 months, each labeled Received, Confirmed or Estimated. A monthly chart shows the same income over time.
• You set a tax rate once, and can override it for each portfolio. The calendar, the chart and the payment-day notifications then show income after tax.
• Share counts adjust on their own after a stock split.
• Holdings stay in their own currency, and totals convert to a base currency: USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, CHF or AUD.
• It never connects to a bank or a brokerage account.

What it does not do:

• It does not read your broker, so it does not know what was actually deposited. When you buy or sell, you update the share count yourself.
• The tax rate applies to a whole portfolio, not to each stock. After-tax amounts are estimates, not a tax record.
• It asks for no cost basis and no purchase dates, so it shows no gains, losses or returns.
• It does not show ex-dividend dates, only payment dates.
• It does not follow ticker changes for you.
• The free plan covers 3 stocks in 1 portfolio. Beyond that it is a paid subscription: €6.99 a month or €49.99 a year, for up to 250 holdings in 5 portfolios.

For a tax return you still need the broker's documents.

Which one should you use

The methods also combine. You can keep the broker's documents for tax and use a spreadsheet or an app only for the forecast.

Keep it simple

A tracker is useful when it answers three questions: how much did I receive, how much will I receive, and how much do I keep. Every extra column is one more thing to maintain, and an abandoned spreadsheet is worth less than a short one that is up to date. Start with the columns in the template and add one only when you have missed it twice.

What to record, whichever method you use

Five things for each payment:

1. The date it was paid
2. The gross amount
3. The tax withheld, if any
4. The net amount that arrived
5. The account it arrived in

IRS Publication 550 says: "You should keep a list of the sources and investment income amounts you receive during the year", along with the forms that report it, such as Form 1099-DIV.

The records matter at tax time for three reasons. Dividends are taxable even when no form is sent. Your own list lets you check the 1099-DIV instead of trusting it. And foreign tax withheld can only be claimed as a credit if you know how much it was. The rules are in how dividends are taxed, and the gross-to-net calculation in your real dividend income after taxes.

The IRS page on how long to keep records gives 3 years as the general rule for records that support a tax return. Records about property, such as shares, should be kept until that period runs out for the year you sell them.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best way to track dividends?

With one broker and a few stocks, the broker's statements and Form 1099-DIV are enough. With several accounts, use a spreadsheet if you do not mind typing each payment, or an app if you want a forecast without the upkeep.

Is there a free dividend tracker spreadsheet?

Yes, two. The Google Sheets tracker covers US-listed stocks and fills in prices and dividends for you. The Excel template works for any market, in Excel and Google Sheets, with a Holdings sheet, a Payments sheet and a Summary that totals income by month and by year.

Can Google Sheets pull dividend data automatically?

Not with GOOGLEFINANCE. Google's documentation lists price, volume, market capitalization, earnings per share and similar attributes, and no dividend attribute. A sheet can import dividends from financial websites with IMPORTXML, as the Google Sheets tracker on this page does for US stocks, but those imports are slow to load and can break. Otherwise dividend amounts are typed by hand.

How do I track dividends in Excel?

Keep one sheet of holdings and one sheet of payments. Multiply shares by the annual dividend per share for a forecast, and use SUMIFS on the payments sheet to total what you received by month and by year.

Does my broker track my dividends for me?

Yes, for that account. Statements list each dividend paid, and Form 1099-DIV totals the year. A broker does not add up accounts held at other firms.

Do I need a dividend tracker app?

No. An app saves the typing and shows upcoming payments, which helps with many holdings or several accounts. With a small portfolio at one broker, the statements are enough.

How do I track reinvested dividends?

Record the dividend as a payment like any other, because it is taxed in the year it is paid. The shares it bought are a new purchase, so add them to your share count.

How long should I keep dividend records?

The IRS gives 3 years as the general rule for records that support a tax return. Keep records about the shares themselves until that period ends for the year you sell them.

Disclaimer

This article is general information, not tax or investment advice. The template is a record-keeping aid, and its example rows are fictional. This site is published by the makers of the OnlyDividends app. Check your totals against your broker's documents, and ask a qualified tax professional about your own situation.