Cover below 1 means you're distributing more than you earn, drawing down reserves — and directors must ensure dividends are lawful.

No — it's a free illustration. Your actual Creditcorp offer depends on an assessment of your company.

Dividend cover calculator — Calculators

How to use it

Enter your figures above — the result updates instantly and nothing leaves your browser. Results are illustrative, not a quote or credit decision.

How to interpret the result

A high dividend cover figure suggests the company is retaining a solid buffer of profit after tax over what it pays out, which supports resilience if a future year is weaker. A figure close to the line where dividends roughly match profit after tax leaves little headroom — any dip in trading performance could mean the next distribution isn't backed by that year's earnings alone.

Cover should be read alongside the trend across recent years rather than in isolation. A single strong year followed by a maintained or rising dividend can flatter the picture; directors and lenders alike tend to look at whether cover has been consistently adequate, or whether it has been propped up by one good period.

Limitations and good practice

This calculator only relates profit after tax to dividends declared — it does not reflect cash actually available in the business, which can differ from accounting profit due to timing of receipts, capital spending, or loan repayments. A company can show cover on paper while still being tight on cash, so this result works best alongside a look at cash flow, not instead of one.

It also does not test the legal position on distributable reserves, which is a separate company-law question directors are responsible for getting right before any dividend is paid — a healthy cover ratio is not the same as confirmation that a dividend is lawful. Where cover is low or the picture is mixed, treat this as a prompt for a closer look at reserves and cash position, and take advice appropriate to the company's circumstances. See interest cover calculator for a related view on how comfortably profit covers a different fixed commitment.