Owning Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) shares typically means receiving a decent dividend each year. We're going to look at the FY27 payout to see if it'd be large enough to unlock significant passive income.
No dividend is guaranteed, of course, but over the last 15 to 20 years, I'd say CBA has been the most consistent and resilient of the ASX bank shares, certainly more than Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC), ANZ Group Holdings Ltd (ASX: ANZ) and National Australia Bank Ltd (ASX: NAB).
Let's take a look at what could happen if someone were to invest $20,000 in CBA shares.
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Potential payout in FY27
Considering we're now in the 2027 financial year, I'm going to focus on the bank's possible FY27 payout.
The business has regularly increased its dividend payout over the past decade and it's expected to increase the dividend payout again in the 2027 financial year by 1% compared to the estimate for the 2026 financial year.
According to the projections on Commsec, the business could pay an annual dividend per share of $5.10 in FY26 and then $5.15 in FY27.
At the time of writing, that translates into a potential FY27 grossed-up dividend yield of 4.1% including franking credits, or a 2.9% yield excluding the franking credits.
What passive income would a $20,000 investment create?
As I've mentioned, no dividend payment is guaranteed. The real passive income for owners of CBA shares could be more, or it could be less.
A $20,000 investment could mean buying 112 CBA shares, with a little bit of change remaining.
Assuming Commonwealth Bank does pay $5.15 per share in FY27, it would generate $576.80 of dividend cash and approximately $247.20 of franking credits, for an overall total of $824 of passive income.
Are CBA shares a good idea?
Commonwealth Bank has been a pillar of stability over many years, but that doesn't necessarily mean the ASX bank share is going to deliver strong shareholder returns from here.
NAB recently revealed that its home lending applications were down 15% in the three months to June 2026 compared with the three months to March 2026. I wouldn't be surprised if CBA's home lending applications were also down in the last few months following the proposed federal property taxation changes.
According to CMC Invest, there have been seven broker analyst ratings on the business in the last three months, with all seven of those ratings being a sell. The average price target on the CBA share price is $122.36, suggesting a possible decline of around 30% over the next year.
Whether a 30% decline happens or not remains to be seen, but the analysts do seem to be suggesting that the decline could outweigh the passive income. Therefore, other ASX share opportunities could be better choices than CBA right now.
