How much do I need to invest to live off dividends?

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To live off $50,000 per year in dividends you need roughly $1.25M invested at a 4% yield, $1M at 5%, or $833K at 6%. The math: target income ÷ portfolio yield = required principal. Most dividend investors target a 3.5–5% blended yield to balance income with safety. The exact number depends on three inputs: the annual income you need, your blended portfolio yield, and how much dividend growth you assume on top of the starting yield. A common framework is the 4% rule applied to a dividend portfolio: at a 4% yield, every $25,000 of annual income requires $625,000 invested. To replace a $50,000 salary you need $1.25M; for $100,000 of income you need $2.5M. The reason most planners use 4% rather than 6–8% is sustainability — yields above 5% are often paid by companies with elevated cut risk, so the higher headline yield can come with a meaningful drop in realised income over a 10–20 year horizon. Dividend growth changes the picture. A portfolio yielding 3% today that grows distributions at 7% per year will yield 6% on cost within a decade. That means investors with a longer horizon can start with a lower target principal and let compounding close the gap, as long as the underlying companies actually keep raising payments. HeyDividend's expected-income tool runs this calculation for your actual holdings — it pulls live yields, applies the most recent declared dividend growth rate per ticker, and projects forward income year by year so you can see the principal required to hit your target.