VOO QQQ VXUS Dividend Yield 2026: What This 3-ETF Portfolio Actually Pays You
VOO QQQ VXUS Dividend Yield in 2026: The Real Numbers
You're Googling "VOO QQQ VXUS dividend yield" because you own these three ETFs (or you're about to) and you want to know one thing: how much cash are they actually putting in your pocket?
Here's the answer, no fluff.
Quick Answer: 2026 Dividend Yields
| ETF | Current Yield | Annual Dividend (per share) | Share Price (approx.) | Expense Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VOO (S&P 500) | 1.25% | ~$6.80 | ~$545 | 0.03% |
| QQQ (Nasdaq-100) | 0.55% | ~$2.80 | ~$510 | 0.20% |
| VXUS (International) | 3.00% | ~$1.80 | ~$60 | 0.05% |
On a $100,000 portfolio split 60/20/20, you'd earn roughly $1,550/year in dividends — about $129/month.
Not life-changing money. But that's not what these ETFs are for. More on that below.
When Do VOO, QQQ, and VXUS Pay Dividends?
All three pay quarterly, but on different schedules. If you own all three, you're getting dividend payments almost every month.
| ETF | Q1 Payment | Q2 Payment | Q3 Payment | Q4 Payment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VOO | Late March | Late June | Late September | Late December |
| QQQ | Late March | Late June | Late September | Late December |
| VXUS | Late March | Late June | Late September | Late December |
All three ETFs tend to pay in the same weeks (late month of each quarter). So you'll get three deposits around the same time each quarter rather than spread out monthly.
Want monthly dividend income? You'd need to add something like SCHD, JEPI, or O (Realty Income) to fill the gaps — but honestly, for the accumulation phase, reinvesting quarterly dividends works just fine.
Portfolio Dividend Yield by Allocation
This is what everyone actually wants to know: "What's my blended yield at different splits?"
| Allocation (VOO/QQQ/VXUS) | Blended Yield | Annual Income on $100K | Monthly Income |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60/20/20 | 1.45% | $1,450 | $121 |
| 50/30/20 | 1.39% | $1,390 | $116 |
| 50/25/25 | 1.51% | $1,510 | $126 |
| 70/10/20 | 1.53% | $1,530 | $128 |
| 80/10/10 | 1.36% | $1,360 | $113 |
| 40/20/40 | 1.91% | $1,910 | $159 |
| 33/33/33 | 1.60% | $1,600 | $133 |
Blended Dividend Yield by Allocation
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
40/20/40 ████████████████████████████████████████ 1.91%
70/10/20 ██████████████████████████████████ 1.53%
50/25/25 █████████████████████████████████ 1.51%
33/33/33 ████████████████████████████████ 1.60%
60/20/20 ██████████████████████████████ 1.45%
50/30/20 █████████████████████████████ 1.39%
80/10/10 ████████████████████████████ 1.36%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
More VXUS = higher yield. More QQQ = lower yield.
The takeaway: More VXUS = higher dividend yield. More QQQ = lower yield but historically higher growth. Your split should depend on whether you're accumulating or need income now.
Historical Dividend Yields: Are They Going Up or Down?
| Year | VOO Yield | QQQ Yield | VXUS Yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 1.22% | 0.46% | 2.54% |
| 2022 | 1.57% | 0.60% | 3.46% |
| 2023 | 1.35% | 0.56% | 2.99% |
| 2024 | 1.19% | 0.52% | 2.85% |
| 2025 | 1.22% | 0.54% | 3.10% |
| 2026 | 1.25% | 0.55% | 3.00% |
5-Year Dividend Yield Trend
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
VXUS ████████████████████████████████████████ 2.5-3.5%
VOO ████████████████ 1.2-1.6%
QQQ ████████ 0.5-0.6%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
VXUS consistently pays 2-3x more than VOO in dividends
Key trends:
- VOO stays in the 1.2-1.6% range. Steady, boring, reliable.
- QQQ pays almost nothing. Tech companies prefer buybacks over dividends.
- VXUS is the dividend champion here. International companies (especially European) tend to pay higher dividends than US companies.
Expense Ratio Comparison: What You're Paying
| ETF | Expense Ratio | Annual Cost on $100K |
|---|---|---|
| VOO | 0.03% | $30 |
| VXUS | 0.05% | $50 |
| QQQ | 0.20% | $200 |
QQQ costs 6.7x more than VOO. On a $100K allocation to QQQ, you're paying $200/year vs $30 for VOO.
Pro tip: If you want Nasdaq-100 exposure at a lower cost, look at QQQM (0.15%) — same index, 25% cheaper. The only difference is lower trading volume, which doesn't matter for long-term holders.
Is VOO + QQQ + VXUS a Good Portfolio?
Short answer: Yes, but there's significant overlap.
VOO holds the S&P 500. QQQ holds the Nasdaq-100. About 85% of QQQ's holdings are already in VOO. When you own both, you're essentially overweighting tech and large-cap growth.
That's not necessarily bad — it's a bet that tech outperformance continues. But know what you're doing.
Holdings Overlap
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
VOO [████████████████████████████████████████] 500 US Large Cap
QQQ [███████████████████████████] 100 Nasdaq (85% overlap with VOO)
VXUS [░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░] 8,500 International (0% overlap)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The Reddit take from r/Bogleheads: Most Bogleheads would say just hold VTI + VXUS and skip QQQ entirely. Adding QQQ is a growth tilt, not diversification. If you want the simplest version of this portfolio, go VTI (80%) + VXUS (20%).
But if you believe in the Nasdaq's continued outperformance — and you're comfortable with the added volatility — VOO + QQQ + VXUS is a solid trio.
4 Ways to Maximize Dividend Income From This Portfolio
1. Turn On DRIP (Dividend Reinvestment)
Every brokerage offers automatic reinvestment. During the accumulation phase, reinvest every penny. A $1,500/year dividend reinvested at 10% growth becomes $24,000+ over 10 years.
2. Hold VXUS in Tax-Advantaged Accounts
VXUS dividends include foreign withholdings. In a taxable account, you can claim the Foreign Tax Credit. In a Roth IRA, those withholdings are lost forever. However, the higher yield makes VXUS better in a taxable account where you get the credit.
3. Increase VXUS Allocation If You Want More Income
Bumping VXUS from 20% to 30-40% significantly increases your blended yield. In 2026, international stocks are also outperforming US stocks on a YTD basis, so you're getting growth AND income.
4. Add a Dividend ETF for Income Phase
When you're approaching FIRE, consider adding SCHD (3.4% yield) or SPYI (11.75% yield) to boost monthly income without selling shares.
The Bottom Line
VOO + QQQ + VXUS is a growth-first portfolio that happens to pay some dividends. Your blended yield will land between 1.3-1.9% depending on allocation — enough to reinvest and compound, not enough to live on.
And that's fine. Total return matters more than dividend yield during accumulation. These three ETFs have delivered 12-15% annualized returns over the past decade. The dividends are a bonus, not the main event.
When you're ready for income, that's when you shift toward higher-yield options. For now, reinvest those dividends and let compounding do its thing.
Calculate Your Dividend Income
Want to see exactly how much your specific portfolio would pay? Try our Dividend Calculator to project your income based on your holdings and allocation.
Planning for financial independence? Our FIRE Calculator shows how dividend reinvestment accelerates your timeline.
Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Dividend yields fluctuate and past payments don't guarantee future distributions. Consider consulting a fee-only fiduciary financial advisor for personalized guidance.