Dividends of Russian Companies in 2025 Shrank by a Quarter to 2 Trillion Rubles
High key rate and tightening of monetary policy led to a reduction in dividend payments by public issuers. Additional pressure came from the increase in corporate income tax.
Bloody dividend season: how the key rate and taxes destroyed Russian market returns
The Essence: what is really happening
Formally, the news looks like a statistical report: dividends fell by a quarter to 2 trillion rubles. But behind the dry numbers lies a tectonic shift in the behavior of Russian public companies. They no longer view dividends as a mandatory attribute of public status. This is a return to the Soviet model: profits stay inside, the shareholder is the last to get anything.
A non-obvious insight that press releases keep silent about: the actual reduction in dividends for minority shareholders is much deeper than 25%. The figure of 2 trillion rubles includes dividends going to the state as the main shareholder of Gazprom, Rosneft, and Sberbank. For a private investor holding free float, the available amount is about 665 billion rubles. That is 40-50% less than in the peak year of 2024. The market has not eaten a quarter, but almost half of what retail investors used to receive.
Timeline and context
The decline was two years in the making. In 2024, companies paid a record 4.3 trillion rubles — the last feast before the storm. In 2025, the amount fell to 3.6-3.9 trillion. Now we are talking about further compression to 3.2-3.5 trillion in 2026. What the media present as news about "the reduction for 2025" is actually an inertial echo of problems that have been building for 18 months.
Key dates: June 2025, when the Central Bank began a rate-cutting cycle from 21% to the current 14.5%, but the effect lags by 3-6 quarters. October 2025 — the corporate income tax increase from 20% to 25%, which embedded a minus 5 percentage points in each issuer's net profit. November 2025 — Urals oil fell to $52 per barrel, crushing exporters' ruble revenue. All three factors hit simultaneously.
Who wins and who loses
Direct losers are retail investors who held Gazprom shares. The company paid no dividends for 2024, none for 2025, and no expectations for 2026. Free cash flow is negative, minus 450 billion rubles. Gazprom minority shareholders have effectively lost all dividend income for two years ahead. A similar fate befell Severstal, MMK, NLMK — they abandoned interim payments.
Also losing are holders of Rosneft shares: dividends for 9 months of 2025 amounted to 122 billion versus 386 billion a year earlier — a threefold drop. Lukoil cut payments from 356 billion to 275 billion.
Winners are Sberbank and VTB. In a paradoxical reality, banks are the main beneficiaries of high rates. Sberbank paid a record 787 billion rubles in dividends. VTB returned to payments for the first time since 2021, allocating 137 billion with a dividend yield that could exceed 20% if the bank repeats a 50% payout. Banks earn superprofits from the fact that the rest of the business is suffocating from loans. This is an anomaly that cannot last forever.
The second hidden winner is the state. The budget will receive about 793 billion rubles in dividends from state-owned companies in 2025. This is more than a year earlier, despite the overall market decline, because the state's share of profits has increased. Private investors subsidize the budget through reduced payouts.
What the media are not telling
First: the increase in corporate income tax to 25% is not just a minus 5% to dividends. It is a structural shift that makes it unprofitable to distribute profits as dividends. Previously, a company paid 20% income tax and could distribute the remainder. Now, before a ruble reaches the shareholder, the state takes a quarter. The personal dividend tax remains 13-15%, but the combined burden on corporate profits before they become personal income has increased by about 6 percentage points. This subtle increase kills the margin of dividend strategies.
Second: many dividend cuts are not "we can't" but "we don't want to." Companies prefer to pay down debt and build a liquidity cushion because the cost of borrowing remains prohibitive even after the rate cut. Management reasons rationally: paying dividends now means depriving themselves of the ability to survive the next crisis cycle. But for an investor who bought shares for cash flow, this rationality looks like betrayal.
Third: the gap between announced dividends and actual money received is widening. Shares trade at a discount to dividend yield because the market does not believe companies will pay the same in the next cycle. The average dividend yield of the Moscow Exchange index is about 7-8%, but that is "paper" yield. Real yield, after taxes, inflation, and the risk of payment cancellation, is about 3-4%. A bank deposit at 13-14% looks much more attractive. And investors vote with their rubles: money flows out of stocks into deposits.
Forecast: next 30 days and 90 days
30 days. By the end of June, the peak of the spring-summer dividend season is expected. But total payments will be 20-25% lower than last year. VTB is to announce the dividend amount — this is a key moment. If the bank confirms a 50% payout (yield over 20%), it will cause a short-term surge of interest in the financial sector. If it chooses a conservative 25%, the market will get a signal that even successful banks are not ready to share. My forecast: 25-30%, which will disappoint speculators.
90 days. By September, the Central Bank will likely cut the rate by another 1-2 percentage points. This will trigger a reassessment of dividend stories. A rate cut makes deposits less attractive and gradually brings back interest in stocks. But the recovery will be slow — companies will first direct free cash flow to debt repayment, not dividends. I do not expect a full return to 2023-2024 levels before 2027.
Editorial forecast
Asset: Sberbank ordinary shares.
Direction: sideways with moderate pressure in the next 24-72 hours after the news of the dividend market contraction. Negative sentiment is already priced in, but there is no additional driver for growth.
Key levels: current quotes (guideline — 280-290 rubles per share). Support at 270, resistance at 300.
Confidence level: medium (45% sideways, 35% slight decline, 20% slight rise).
Main risk: A sudden announcement by the Central Bank of a more aggressive key rate cut at the next meeting (June 2026) — in this case, the banking sector will get a powerful boost, and Sberbank could exceed 310 rubles in a few days, completely invalidating the conservative forecast.
— Editorial Team
