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Data last updated: Oct 19, 2026
Snapshot (as of Oct 19, 2026): Vanguard Total Bond Market Index I (VBTIX) pays a $0.29 annual dividend ($0.02 monthly), yielding 4.18% at $9.32/share. Source: Yahoo Finance, aggregated by MerryDiv.
Dividend Yield: 4.18%
Annual Dividend: $0.29 per share
Dividend Frequency: monthly
Years of Dividend History: 32
Vanguard Total Bond Market Index I dividend comes from a fund that tracks a broad index of U.S. investment-grade, taxable fixed income securities, spanning government, corporate, mortgage-backed, and asset-backed bonds with maturities over one year. The current yield is 4.24%, paid monthly. The last dividend amount was $0.2938 per share. VBTIX suits income-focused investors who want broad bond market exposure and a yield above 4%.
Vanguard Total Bond Market Index I dividend safety is not applicable (fund/ETF) in the traditional payout ratio sense. What drives the monthly distribution is the aggregate interest income from the fund's underlying holdings, which include government, corporate, and mortgage-backed securities selected through a sampling process, with at least 80% of assets held in index bonds. The most data-supported pressure point is the fund's history of year-over-year declines: per-share annual dividends fell from $0.3390 in 2012 to $0.2201 in 2021, a drop of more than 35%, reflecting how interest rate environments directly shape what VBTIX passes through to shareholders.
Vanguard Total Bond Market Index I dividend history shows a CAGR of -1.5% per year from 2008 to 2025. Per-share annual dividends moved from $0.4900 in 2008 to $0.3792 in 2025 (2026 is a partial year and excluded from this calculation). The largest annual increase in the window was 21.0% in 2023, reflecting how sharply rising interest rates can lift bond fund distributions in a single year.
| Period | CAGR | From | To |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3-Year | +15.1% | $0.25 (2022) | $0.38 (2025) |
| 5-Year | +6.3% | $0.28 (2020) | $0.38 (2025) |
| 10-Year | +4.1% | $0.25 (2015) | $0.38 (2025) |
VBTIX fits income-focused investors who want broad exposure to U.S. investment-grade bonds and are comfortable with a dividend that moves with interest rates rather than growing on a predictable schedule. The yield is high (above 4%), which is the fund's clearest strength. The trade-off is a long-run CAGR of -1.5% per year: the per-share payout in 2025 is still below what it was in 2008. Four consecutive years of increases through 2025 show recent momentum, but the history table contains multiple multi-year declines. Income is real; per-share growth over time is not.
| Payment Date | Amount per Share |
|---|---|
| 2026-09-30 | $0.0330 |
| 2026-08-31 | $0.0336 |
| 2026-07-31 | $0.0334 |
| 2026-06-30 | $0.0325 |
| 2026-05-29 | $0.0330 |
| 2026-04-30 | $0.0321 |
| 2026-03-31 | $0.0330 |
| 2026-02-27 | $0.0303 |
| 2026-01-30 | $0.0327 |
| 2025-12-31 | $0.0327 |
| Year | Total Dividends |
|---|---|
| 2026 | $0.2936 |
| 2025 | $0.3792 |
| 2024 | $0.3493 |
| 2023 | $0.3008 |
| 2022 | $0.2485 |
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