Questions about dividends.
19 answers, each one worked from the 22 funds covered here rather than from a textbook example. Questions about the site itself are answered on the home page.
Getting paid
When do I have to own a fund to get its next distribution?
Before the ex-date — not on it. The ex-date is the cutoff: buy on the ex-date itself, or any day after, and that payment goes to whoever sold it to you. Buying the day before qualifies.
Payment calendar →How long after the ex-date does the cash arrive?
About 9 days. Across all 1052 payments on file the gap between ex-date and pay date is usually 7 to 12 days, so the money lands the following week rather than the following day. December is the exception worth knowing: a year-end payment is sometimes dated within a day or two of its ex-date so it falls inside that tax year.
Payment calendar →Do these funds pay monthly or quarterly?
19 of the 22 funds listed here pay monthly. Monthly matches how bills arrive, which is the whole appeal if you are living on the income — but paying monthly says nothing about paying well, and funds on the same schedule tend to share an ex-date, so twelve payments a year can mean one deposit a month with nothing in between.
Monthly or quarterly →Can a distribution be cut?
Yes, and it happens constantly. The 22 funds here have reduced their monthly distribution 109 times between them — UMAX alone 22 times. A monthly distribution is declared per cycle, not promised for the year, so a yield quoted off a rate that has just been trimmed overstates what you would actually receive.
Every change to every rate →Should I reinvest the distributions or take the cash?
Reinvesting buys more units, and those units pay too, so the income compounds — which can grow what you collect even through a distribution cut. Taking the cash is the point if you are living on it. Neither is right in general; they answer different questions.
What reinvesting did, per fund →Tax
How is dividend income taxed in Canada?
It depends what the distribution is made of, not what it is called. Eligible Canadian dividends get a gross-up and a credit that make them the lightest form of investment income — 8.92% in Ontario at $100,000 of income, against 31.48% on interest and foreign income. Capital gains sit between at 15.74% of the full gain. Inside a TFSA or RRSP none of it is taxed as it arrives.
Rates for every province →What is return of capital, and is it good or bad?
It is part of your own money handed back rather than income earned, and it is neither good nor bad on its own — it changes when you pay tax rather than how much you earn. No tax is due when you receive it; instead it lowers your adjusted cost base, so it comes back as a capital gain when you sell. It is common in this category and it can be most of the payment: HYLD was 100% return of capital in its last published tax year, against 38% for RMAX.
What it does to your cost base →Is a TFSA the best place for a high-yield fund?
Often, but not automatically. Inside a TFSA nothing is taxed, so the return of capital that makes these funds tax-efficient is worth nothing there — you are paying for an advantage you cannot use. Foreign withholding tax is also unrecoverable inside a TFSA, so a fund holding foreign companies quietly loses that share. And interest on money borrowed to invest in a TFSA is not deductible, where in a taxable account it generally is.
Which funds suit which account →How much TFSA room do I have?
Up to $109,000 as at 2026 if you were 18 or older in 2009 and resident in Canada throughout — less anything you have contributed. Room starts the year you turn 18 whether or not you ever opened an account, and a withdrawal does not come back as room until 1 January of the following year.
Work out your room →Do I pay tax on a distribution I reinvested?
In a taxable account, yes. Tax follows the distribution being paid, not what you did with it — so a reinvested payment is taxed in the year it was declared even though no cash reached you. In a TFSA or RRSP the question does not arise.
Choosing
Is a higher yield a better fund?
No, and the data here says so plainly. The highest-yielding fund on this list is SDAY at 17.65%, and its total return since launch is 24.2%. The best total return belongs to HTA at 480.1% — on a yield of 8.03%. A high yield can mean a generous fund or a falling price, and the yield alone cannot tell you which.
Ranked by total return →What yield is realistic in this category?
The funds covered here run 3.12% to 17.65%. The high end comes from selling call options and, in some cases, from borrowing — not from companies paying more. A Canadian bank yields around 4%; a covered-call fund on the same banks yields far more because it has sold away the upside.
Every fund, side by side →What is a covered call ETF, and why is the yield so high?
The fund owns shares and sells someone the right to buy them at a set price. It keeps the premium either way and passes most of it on as a distribution — which is where a double-digit yield comes from when the underlying shares yield three or four percent. The premium is not free: it is sold in exchange for the gains above that strike price, so these funds tend to hold up in flat and falling markets and lag badly in strong ones.
How covered calls work →How much do the fees matter?
Management fees here run 0.50% to 0.88%, charged whether the fund gains or loses — the one cost that is certain in advance. It is not the whole cost: trading inside the fund and foreign tax withheld at source both reduce what you receive without appearing in that figure, and a fund that holds other funds carries their fees too.
Ranked by fee →Do two funds with different tickers hold different things?
Not necessarily. Two covered-call funds on Canadian banks are mostly the same five banks bought twice, so holding both concentrates rather than diversifies. Looking through to what a fund actually owns is the only way to see it.
Holdings, looked through →Risk and leverage
What does it mean when a fund is "enhanced" or leveraged?
It borrows to hold more than a dollar of exposure per dollar you invest — around 25% more, in the funds here. The distribution rises with the exposure and so does the fall, and the interest is owed whichever way the market goes. Leverage does not improve a strategy, it enlarges it in both directions.
Which funds use leverage →Can I borrow to buy these and come out ahead?
Sometimes the arithmetic works and sometimes it does not, and the answer turns on the account rather than the fund. Prime is 4.45% and a HELOC is quoted above it, so the distribution has to clear that after tax — and interest is only deductible where the borrowed money earns taxable income, which a TFSA does not. None of that says anything about whether the price holds up while you carry the loan.
Work out the after-tax spread →Is a fund that has never missed a payment safe?
Missing a payment and cutting one are different things, and the second is far more common. Every fund listed here has paid every month it was scheduled to — while reducing the rate between them more than a hundred times. An unbroken record of payments says nothing about the size of them.
Distribution history, per fund →What happens to the distribution if the fund shuts down?
It stops, and you are cashed out at the net asset value on the wind-up date whether or not that suits your timing or your tax year. Smaller funds carry more of this risk than larger ones, which is the practical reason fund size is worth looking at at all.
Ranked by size →Educational only. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell anything and none of it is tax advice — every answer is general, and the ones that matter depend on your income, your accounts and your circumstances. See the disclaimer. Terms are defined in the glossary.
Then look at what they actually paid.
Every distribution since launch, what it was made of for tax, and what a position in it would have returned.