Investing term
What is Ex-dividend date?
The ex-dividend date (or 'ex-date') — the first trading day on which buyers no longer get the upcoming dividend.
The ex-dividend date is the cutoff: buy a stock on or after it and you don't receive the upcoming dividend — the seller keeps it. To collect the payout you must own the shares before the ex-date. On the ex-date the stock price typically drops by roughly the dividend amount, since new buyers no longer get that cash.
Own the shares before the ex-date and the dividend is yours, even if you sell on the ex-date. Buy on or after it and the seller keeps the payout.
For example
A stock pays a $1 dividend with an ex-date of the 10th; buy on the 11th and you miss this payout, and the price has already dropped about $1 to reflect it.
Learn it by doing
That's Ex-dividend date in theory — it clicks when you use it. Practise it hands-on in a free, interactive lesson (Stage 8, Corporate Actions: What Lands in Your Account).
Try the free lesson →Why it matters to you
The ex-date is the one date that decides who actually gets paid — more important than the payment date itself. It also quietly debunks the popular idea of "dividend capture": because the price falls by about the dividend on the ex-date, buying just before the payout and selling just after usually leaves you exactly where you started, minus tax. If you're timing a buy or sell around a dividend, this is the line that matters.
⚠ Buying just for the dividend isn't free money
The share price drops by roughly the dividend on the ex-date, because that cash is about to leave the company. So grabbing the payout right before the cutoff typically nets you nothing — and can even cost you once tax on the dividend is counted. The dividend comes out of the price, it isn't a bonus on top of it.