Eight FTSE 100 stocks to pay £6bn of dividends in March
There’s a windfall for income investors in the weeks ahead as some of the most generous blue-chips return cash to shareholders. Graeme Evans names them here.
26th February 2026 15:38
by Graeme Evans from interactive investor
A £772 million award for Barclays (LSE:BARC) shareholders will kick off the banking sector’s dividend season when the lender joins BP (LSE:BP.), Shell (LSE:SHEL) and AstraZeneca (LSE:AZN) among March’s biggest payers.
A total of £6.2 billion is set for distribution by eight FTSE 100-listed companies in the month, with Imperial Brands (LSE:IMB) and easyJet (LSE:EZJ) also in the dividend calendar.
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The Barclays dividend of 5.6p a share on 31 March represents this year’s first payment from a banking sector that handed over £14.9 billion in 2025.
The industry is the largest payer of UK dividends by some distance, with the next biggest in Computershare’s annual figures being oil, gas and energy at £11 billion.
The shareholders of Lloyds Banking Group (LSE:LLOY) will have to wait until 19 May, NatWest Group (LSE:NWG) until 5 May and HSBC Holdings (LSE:HSBA) 30 April for their full-year dividend payments.
The 2% increase in the total Barclays dividend for 2025 to 8.6p was short of some City hopes, although this was offset by robust forward guidance in annual results.
Barclays unveiled a three-year plan to return at least £15 billion to shareholders, with 2026’s dividend distribution set to rise to £2 billion from 2025’s £1.2 billion.
This prompted Bank of America to lift its estimate for this year’s total dividend to 15.3p a share, followed by 18.3p a share in 2027 and 21p in 2028. Together with share buybacks, it said that Barclays’ total yield is expected to be above the EU sector average at about 17% in 2026-27.
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The rebalancing of Barclays’ payouts towards dividends follows investor feedback, although buybacks are expected to remain the larger component of the annual distribution.
Shell bought back 6% of its shares in 2025, which together with a stronger pound means the value of its distribution planned for 30 March is smaller than last year at £1.55 billion.
The oil giant, which continues to buy back shares at a pace of $3.5 billion (£2.6 billion) a quarter, increased the dividend by 4% on a year earlier to 37.2 US cents in recent fourth-quarter results. The conversion into sterling will be based on the 16 March exchange rate.
Computershare recently projected that total UK share buybacks will total £63.6 billion in 2025, which compares with £30.8 billion in 2019.
It said that if this cash had been paid out as dividends instead, the UK’s 2025 dividend total would have seen £120 billion distributed rather than £87.5 billion.
BP, which recently paused its $750 million–a-quarter buyback programme in order to focus on strengthening its balance sheet, is due to hand over £944 million on 27 March.
This follows a 4% increase in the fourth quarter dividend to 8.32 US cents, with the sterling equivalent due to be announced on 17 March. BP’s current dividend yield of 5.2% is the highest of the month, followed by Imperial Brands at 4.9%.
The tobacco giant is scheduled to pay a fourth quarter dividend of 40.08p a share on 31 March, below the previous year’s 54.26p after Imperial moved to four equal quarterly payments.
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The smoothing of the payment profile has resulted in more consistent cash returns to shareholders throughout the year, compared to the previous 30:70 split.
AstraZeneca will contribute the biggest part of March’s FTSE 100 pot when it distributes some £2.5 billion through a second interim dividend of 159.5p a share. The company, which trades with a dividend yield of 1.6%, increased 2025’s overall total by 3%.
The other FTSE 100 dividends will see easyJet pay 13.2p a share on 27 March, Pershing Square Holdings Ord (LSE:PSH) 18.37 US cents on 20 March and Alliance Witan Ord (LSE:ALW) 7.08p on 31 March.
Company | Payment date | Current dividend yield (%) |
20-Mar | 1.0 | |
23-Mar | 1.6 | |
27-Mar | 5.2 | |
27-Mar | 2.9 | |
30-Mar | 3.6 | |
31-Mar | 2.1 | |
31-Mar | 1.8 | |
31-Mar | 4.9 |
Source: interactive investor, ShareScope. Data and any dividend conversions to sterling at exchange rates correct on 26 February 2026.
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