The Rio Tinto Ltd (ASX: RIO) dividend will soon be allocated to shareholders. If any investors want to receive this dividend, they'll need to be quick.
The ASX mining share is committed to paying a good dividend, if profit allows. It's planning to pay a large dividend in just a few weeks. The critical date is the ex-dividend date – investors need to buy Rio Tinto shares before this date if they want to receive the payment.
Important dates for the Rio Tinto dividend
The ex-dividend date for the upcoming dividend is 7 March 2024, which is on Thursday. That means Wednesday is the last day to buy Rio Tinto shares to receive the dividend.
Investors won't have to wait long to receive the dividend – the payment date is 18 April 2024.
If investors want to take part in the dividend reinvestment plan (DRP), the election date is 5pm on 26 March 2024.
DRP shares will be purchased on-market as soon as practicable after the dividend payment date. Rio Tinto noted it may be necessary to carry out several market transactions to acquire the number of shares required. The DRP price will be the average of the deal prices for those transactions, which will be announced to the market.
How much is being paid?
Rio Tinto is going to pay a final fully franked dividend for the 2023 financial year of AU$3.9278 per share. This was an increase of around 20% compared to the final dividend for 2022.
The company determines its dividends in US dollars and pays the dividend to ASX shareholders in Australian dollars. The 2023 final dividend was US$2.58, an increase of 14.7%.
For the full-year payout, Rio Tinto decided on AU$6.5367 per share, which was a reduction of 8% compared to the 2022 full-year.
In US dollar terms, the Rio Tinto board determined to pay a full-year annual dividend of US$4.35, which was a reduction of 11.6%.
